Portugal III: Rebirth / Renewal / Reunion

Even in the olden days, when having a cup of tea and a Jaffa Cake with your mother wasn’t a potentially deadly pastime, the stretch between Christmas and Easter was interminably long. In the Algarve it was colder than we expected and at night our large expanse of bed linen became known as the Great Ross Ice Shelf. Omicron didn’t peak till late January but while we were lying low, spring burst forth with an earth-shattering defiance. Wildflowers cloaked the emerald meadows with a buttercup haze and cherry blossoms bloomed in puffs of pink and white smoke. Walking the lanes between higgledy-piggledy farms, lush grasses rebounded to erase every footprint while dark glossy leaves sprouted randomly from red clay earth. By February we were eating lunch outside watching bees nosedive into yellow petal cups and the little things living in our bamboo ceilings woke-up and resumed their daily scratchings. The smell of orange blossoms was intoxicating and every time we went to town we’d see the same shepherd with his not-so-white flock giving someone’s front garden a haircut. Everything was so alive, in the moment, and busy at work. Except of course us. It was Nature at her most triumphant and she was giving the middle finger to all that had kept us down and inside-out these past two years.

Again we approached a new year with tentative optimism and hope for travel. However, the all-consuming question was what to do about Pferdi. His European permit is expiring this year so we’ve been trying to contact Portuguese Customs so he can stay legal. In our naiveté, we assumed that all EU countries operated in a similar bureaucratic manner. They don’t. The Portuguese guys didn’t like the piece of paper Pferdi had been given on arrival in Germany so another had to be submitted. We just weren’t exactly sure what. This was largely thanks to the Hamburg broker we’d hired back in 2020 from Fran’s ‘’oficina’’ in the Peruvian desert. The gentleman in question conducted his job in a very non-Teutonic manner and when we contacted him again, eighteen months on, he wasn’t at all happy. He could be heard muttering “Oh Gott” in the background when he found our file and realized that not only did his piece of paper mean nothing to the Portuguese, it didn’t even mean anything to the Germans. The whole experience was most unpleasant and thanks only to the intervention of a German cousin were we able to get a document that just might be acceptable here. On our final call, I was tempted to suggest the broker change his company name from “In Time” to “Inept” Forwarding & Courier, but he’d already hung-up. Now we’re busy getting the piece of paper that says we’re not able to get the second piece of paper on the list. This will say Pferdi is not approved in the EU (but apparently that’s OK!) and once they emboss and stamp it with nice coloured circles, we can pass it along.

Legalities aside, the wisdom of keeping Pferdi as our main mode of transport is a painful topic. I complained before about the cost of filling him up, but those turned out to be the good old days. It was now costing us $8.50 p/gallon (3.75 litres) which only gets us 20-25 miles down the road. Also, a lot of the fun has gone out of telling people he’s Russian. But the biggest obstacle is that he’s tethered to this area while we wait for an audience with customs. Even the experts don’t know when this might be and a multitude is silently spoken with that casual Latin shrug.

Neither of us can imagine travelling on anything but our own three, odd 19” wheels but it would be more than inconvenient to be caught eating Bratwurst on the North Sea and then get called for a vehicle check in Faro the next day. (Not that I’m all that keen on being on the North Sea.) Even if, perish the thought, we decided to sell him, it would involve shipping him, poor love, back to America first. We’ve gone round in circles, weighing and discarding every lunatic, impossible, legal and non-legal idea. The best I could come up with is to roll him onto a raft at ebb tide, play the ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ at top volume, set everything on fire and push the blazing pyre of memories out to sea. After which I will lie prostrate on the sand in despair.

So we bought another bike. I know, I know, I wouldn’t let Fran buy a casserole dish, but you can’t run away to foreign shores in an earthenware pot. Besides, he’s been missing his two wheels and never did get over selling Emily. She was an elderly (1985) BMW R80 we got in 2001, when Afghanistan was just a country that had a dog and a rug named after it. After the twin towers fell, we took her to Baja, Mexico and vowed to return someday and keep riding south. Nevertheless, we didn’t want another bike just yet but the options an EU-registered vehicle afforded could not be ignored. It really was one of those rare occasions where another possession equalled more freedom. So with that, we became the proud owners of a black Honda NC750X and a weight was immediately lifted.

Pancho was ecstatic. Never before had he ridden such a dream but after six years on a Ural, he was like a kid learning to ride without his stabilizers. At the first traffic lights during the test ride, he forgot to put his feet down on the ground. Days later roundabouts were still causing problems. On Pferdi he had to keep his gaze in one direction but on two wheels apparently a different angle is required. But what do I know? I was too busy trying not to shift about while wondering how on earth I’d gone from a La-Z-Boy recliner to sharing a small, hard stool with another body in such a short time.

The spring in the air was whipped aside by March and April rains. It was a relief to the drought-ridden countryside especially as most houses in rural Portugal have their own wells. Our garden was no exception but having lived in California for 30-odd years, we’d already begun rationing our water usage. On the downside, the soggy cold penetrated the cottage walls and a wet, drippy lethargy descended. Being told the Honda’s registration would take 45-50 days to process was a further dampener; we couldn’t leave the country without it. It was getting really tiring, sitting in bureaucracy’s waiting room, especially as the magazines never seemed to change. Except for that new one, “War!”

So we went to Spain to see our friends. It was over ten months since we’d crossed an international border and though the line was barely noticeable, it had a huge effect on me. I got quite emotional just seeing an “E” on the license plates instead of “P”, not to mention gas stations that sold olive oil. We arrived on our sleepy street in Utrera at exactly the same time as a line of school kids and their teachers. The whoops and the cheers were deafening and we didn’t need the doorbell to announce our arrival. We’d all come a long way since our last reunion in October ’17, among the apple orchards of eastern Washington state.

It was less than a week to Semana Santa and after being deprived of the usual celebrations for two years, the Spaniards were preparing for Easter with a vengeance. Processions from each of the city’s brotherhoods were held nightly, with ornate floats depicting scenes from the Passion. There was Jesus, sometimes on, sometimes off the cross, but always bleeding. Then came the Virgin, swaddled in nets of silver lace, gold brocade and flowers, eyes rolling heavenward in anguish. The floats were carried by God knows how many men, hidden completely except for their feet, until they took a break. Preceded by purple penitents in pointed hoods, they swayed in slow, measured steps to the rhythm of the marching brass band and it took forever to round the narrow corners. But of all the processions, it was the children’s one that stood out. Like the line to the ark, they walked two-by-two, too stunned by the chaos to cry for Mama. Tiny altar boys and girls tightly held hands while miniature black-clad females in Mary Janes with heels seemed born to their roles, their mantillas held high by decorative combs. Just being there had me bursting with joy.

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By the end of it all we could have flown home so high were we. It’s incredible what a change of scenery can do. The following week our own town celebrated Easter with flower-carpeted streets and afterwards we jumped on the Honda and drove to Lisbon. We were just in time for Freedom Day, the Carnation Revolution anniversary that brought everybody outside to celebrate. It had been a long time since we’d driven so many miles, and on the Honda Fran was getting smoother all the time. Thankfully he’d stopped tootin’ the horn by accident and I surprised myself by leaning into corners unconsciously and automatically. I guess it is just like riding a bicycle. We’ve still no idea which bike we’ll take where, or when; I only hope the new baby has a name by then. Meanwhile he’s astounding us (and it is a “he”) with his speed, and Pancho’s delighted to have brakes that act, like, immediately. It’s also a plus not having to set-up a pass a week in advance. He says the whole experience, from Ural to Honda, is akin to learning to fly on the Wright Flyer and then being handed the keys to a Learjet. On the downside, nobody looks at a Honda and the chances of us ever spending another Halloween driving costumed toddlers around in circles are zero to zilch. Still, there are advantages to anonymity and while Pferdi (and Pancho) embraced the smiles from “his public”, I never did get used to being a spectacle in every town we passed through. That said, when the attention is gone, you do miss it. It may be true that “you meet the nicest people on a Honda”, but on a Ural, the whole world climbs in there with you. And nothing, can ever, beat that.