I got my lift back up to Vaqueiros in the morning, sad again to leave my newfound friends behind. John told me that the first two looks you get from Portuguese people will be strange ones, but after that, they open up and show their charms. I’d have to say I agree, heartened to think the Portuguese aren’t all a pack of Cristiano Ronaldos.
They have a pretty bleak future in front of them in small towns like Furnazinhas, the large majority of whose occupants are over sixty. They all spoke of how their children have either moved to bigger towns or overseas. As a result, the next generation is not arriving, the school closed down a couple of years ago, the village has no children. Couple that with the fact that farming is no longer sustainable, more and more land is falling fallow, all crafts, methods and traditions are dying out. A pretty unpalatable mix. A very good reason for people to walk/cycle/skip the Via Algarvia and breed new life into the area.
The rain had moved on and I was greeted with blue skies all morning, it was back to the huffing up hills and falling arseways into ditches. About half way through my journey, I was ambushed by a three legged dog (the most vicious type of dog there is), he came at me from a ledge above, while his small terrier partner took up the rear. I rounded the corner to find the dog’s owner shaking his head and telling them both to be quiet. He motioned to me, suggesting I should give the dog a good belt with the hurley, I turned the hurl thin end up and suggested an upward thrusting motion. He laughed and spread his hands wide, indicating it was my choice as to how the medicine was best delivered. Although I may live to regret it, I let this golden opportunity pass me by.
I got to Cachopo by four o’clock, a pretty little town, with a choice of three restaurants. The first one I went to had rooms up above for rent, so I took up their offer. After orientating myself, I went downstairs and ate a fine meal in three courses, washed down with two beers. The bill, including the room rental, was twenty euro. Viva la vida via Algarvia.
P.S. Apart from the place I kicked off from, I haven’t found anywhere with broadband access along the way. I hooked up my phone as a 3G modem for my laptop which seems to do the trick, the guys at Vodafone didn’t even know how to do that. Bet they’ll know how to charge me for it though.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
And then the rain came: Furnazinhas – Vaqueiros
John walked me up to where I had left the path the previous evening, before he sent me off with a pat on the back, he told me that I had a fine days walking ahead of me, what his sister called a sea of mountains. She wasn’t far wrong, it was the real deal, rio grande-esque country.
It threw up a couple of interesting hills, which threw up a couple of interesting valleys. Not much wildlife about, birds torpedoing themselves out of trees that I’ve sent a sidewinder into, the odd jack rabbit and the occasional imagined bear or panther to keep me on my toes.
I am beginning to get into the swing of this hurling thing (pun intended). There is nothing like doing something for the majority of your day to give yourself a bit of a handle on it. It’s not that I feel this self-imposed hurling boot camp is going to turn me into the next Christy Ring, but it will improve me. Better than last year, if we can stick to that with all that is important to us, we won’t go far wrong. It’s good to put the hours in. I was lucky enough to be born the son of two craftspeople, I have seen first hand the dedication required to improve. Having only scored a single point in competitive matches in the last two seasons (as a forward), it will not be too difficult to chart any progress.
It seems to me that is why Kilkenny and Dublin are where they are in the hurling world. The difference between the two is that in Kilkenny you have not only a stream of available talent, but a stream of hurlers willing to put in the fifteen hours plus per week over a number of years to develop that talent.
Living in a world where the average number of hours spent watching TV per week is ten plus, it’s strange that we can’t cultivate the same culture in Dublin. It seems to come down to this, if you live in Killkenny and you get the nod for the senior hurling team, you will receive the sort of admiration and adulation usually reserved for Astronauts.
Who wouldn’t put in fifteen hours a week for that?
If you spent over 15 hours a week playing hurling for most of your adult life in Dublin, people would just think you were a bit of a spacer.
This is what occupied my mind for the last grueling hour of today’s walk, when the rain came down in driving sheets. I was thankful that it was only for the last hour, and was almost happy to hear and see the dogs of Vaqueiros. Unfortunately the accommodation recommended for that stage end was not open yet for the season. Damn you recommended accommodation list. It ended up that the only option was to pay someone to drive me back to Furnazinhas. John wasn’t around but the village people (not the band) brought me into one of their simple homes and warmed me with their fire and laughter. Within twenty minutes they had located Olivia, who arrived with her beautiful French speaking daughter. We somehow managed to communicate all the information through my dreadful French, and they soon had me stowed away in John’s guest house with warmth and promises of Portuguese soup.
It threw up a couple of interesting hills, which threw up a couple of interesting valleys. Not much wildlife about, birds torpedoing themselves out of trees that I’ve sent a sidewinder into, the odd jack rabbit and the occasional imagined bear or panther to keep me on my toes.
I am beginning to get into the swing of this hurling thing (pun intended). There is nothing like doing something for the majority of your day to give yourself a bit of a handle on it. It’s not that I feel this self-imposed hurling boot camp is going to turn me into the next Christy Ring, but it will improve me. Better than last year, if we can stick to that with all that is important to us, we won’t go far wrong. It’s good to put the hours in. I was lucky enough to be born the son of two craftspeople, I have seen first hand the dedication required to improve. Having only scored a single point in competitive matches in the last two seasons (as a forward), it will not be too difficult to chart any progress.
It seems to me that is why Kilkenny and Dublin are where they are in the hurling world. The difference between the two is that in Kilkenny you have not only a stream of available talent, but a stream of hurlers willing to put in the fifteen hours plus per week over a number of years to develop that talent.
Living in a world where the average number of hours spent watching TV per week is ten plus, it’s strange that we can’t cultivate the same culture in Dublin. It seems to come down to this, if you live in Killkenny and you get the nod for the senior hurling team, you will receive the sort of admiration and adulation usually reserved for Astronauts.
Who wouldn’t put in fifteen hours a week for that?
If you spent over 15 hours a week playing hurling for most of your adult life in Dublin, people would just think you were a bit of a spacer.
This is what occupied my mind for the last grueling hour of today’s walk, when the rain came down in driving sheets. I was thankful that it was only for the last hour, and was almost happy to hear and see the dogs of Vaqueiros. Unfortunately the accommodation recommended for that stage end was not open yet for the season. Damn you recommended accommodation list. It ended up that the only option was to pay someone to drive me back to Furnazinhas. John wasn’t around but the village people (not the band) brought me into one of their simple homes and warmed me with their fire and laughter. Within twenty minutes they had located Olivia, who arrived with her beautiful French speaking daughter. We somehow managed to communicate all the information through my dreadful French, and they soon had me stowed away in John’s guest house with warmth and promises of Portuguese soup.
Walking the banana : Balurcos – Furnazinhas
I once saw a TV program in which an psychologist got a teenager who was a little too concerned about what others thought of her, to tie a banana to a piece of string and walk it down her local high street.
I have to say I felt a little like that as I walked through some of the villages. I decided to tame down my act a bit and gently push the ball left to right in front of me, in my head, I called this walking the banana.
This days trek was shorter, but considerably hillier, which has its ups and downs. Nothing flushes the mind like a panting up a worthy hill. The good news is that the signposting has started to appear, two small reassuring lines in red and white. Even marking when you should turn left or right (useful).
It seems spring hits the Algarve a little bit early, plenty of plants flowering, lambs in the fields, birdsong, the works.
It’s all very much the same as Ireland, until you look a bit closer, the occasional host of cacti where you would expect to see daffodils, harder wooded trees, darker greens and fewer of them. I sat down for a sandwich about half way through, by a quiet river. I finished it off with half a bar of chocolate, it’s great, that feeling of out there, when the half bar of chocolate is the only bit of chocolate in the world, and you stow it away in your bag thinking it might be VERY useful in an emergency.
I was very glad to arrive at Furnazinhas by early evening and found John, a retired technician from the ministry of agriculture, who ran the guest house in the town, very glad to see me. He also seemed to be the only man in the northern Algarve who didn’t own a dog, which endeared him to me greatly. He’s as decent a sort as you would meet; inside to greet me, there was fruit, cakes, a flask of tea, water and a couple of beers in the fridge. When I asked about a restaurant, he drove me about 5 miles to one, waited chatting with his mates while I ate, then drove me home.
The hospitality was raised a notch when I woke for breakfast the next morning, I found a fine spread prepared for me by Olivia, a beautiful barrel of a woman in her sixties who lived up the road, who sang every word she spoke with the pride of a cockerel. She then managed to convince me in Portuguese (I didn’t understand her at first, so she spoke louder, and that got the message through) that I should take a sandwich with me.
There was much shaking of hands, cheek kissing and waving on the street as I left. It seemed half the village was out at their doors to see me off in the morning, all bemused by my hurling. Who would have thought it, everyone wanted to see my banana.
I have to say I felt a little like that as I walked through some of the villages. I decided to tame down my act a bit and gently push the ball left to right in front of me, in my head, I called this walking the banana.
This days trek was shorter, but considerably hillier, which has its ups and downs. Nothing flushes the mind like a panting up a worthy hill. The good news is that the signposting has started to appear, two small reassuring lines in red and white. Even marking when you should turn left or right (useful).
It seems spring hits the Algarve a little bit early, plenty of plants flowering, lambs in the fields, birdsong, the works.
It’s all very much the same as Ireland, until you look a bit closer, the occasional host of cacti where you would expect to see daffodils, harder wooded trees, darker greens and fewer of them. I sat down for a sandwich about half way through, by a quiet river. I finished it off with half a bar of chocolate, it’s great, that feeling of out there, when the half bar of chocolate is the only bit of chocolate in the world, and you stow it away in your bag thinking it might be VERY useful in an emergency.
I was very glad to arrive at Furnazinhas by early evening and found John, a retired technician from the ministry of agriculture, who ran the guest house in the town, very glad to see me. He also seemed to be the only man in the northern Algarve who didn’t own a dog, which endeared him to me greatly. He’s as decent a sort as you would meet; inside to greet me, there was fruit, cakes, a flask of tea, water and a couple of beers in the fridge. When I asked about a restaurant, he drove me about 5 miles to one, waited chatting with his mates while I ate, then drove me home.
The hospitality was raised a notch when I woke for breakfast the next morning, I found a fine spread prepared for me by Olivia, a beautiful barrel of a woman in her sixties who lived up the road, who sang every word she spoke with the pride of a cockerel. She then managed to convince me in Portuguese (I didn’t understand her at first, so she spoke louder, and that got the message through) that I should take a sandwich with me.
There was much shaking of hands, cheek kissing and waving on the street as I left. It seemed half the village was out at their doors to see me off in the morning, all bemused by my hurling. Who would have thought it, everyone wanted to see my banana.
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