Monday 7th - Sunday 13th October 2024
We were up bright eyed and bushy tailed the first day of our second week despite having driven some 900 miles in the last few days, only a couple of hundred today and we should be at Camping Alentajo. It was from this particular campsite that in 2020 we were forced by local police to return to UK during the first covid lockdown.
The site was exactly as we remembered it, well kept and maintained owned by an ever cheerful Seibo and Christina Foreman, we plan to do nothing for the next few days but relax.
Tuesday. We decided that a fresh fish dinner would be good so drove down to Pingo Duce supermarket which had a large fish department, and the best Pastel da Natas in town. We chose a large Pargo or red bream which the fishmonger cleaned and butterflied for us. While she was working we spied another fish, Salema Porgy, we had never tried and at only €2.99 per kilo asked for one of them cleaned in the same way.
On getting back to our pitch we looked on the internet for recipes for both and were horrified to discover that the Salema Porgy is also known as the dream-fish and can cause hallucinations similar to the effects of LSD. These hallucinogenic effects can last up to three days. We intend to move on within three days so will keep a very close eye one the rubbish bins, where we threw it, to see if they, or the local stray cats start to hallucinate.
We had a very pleasant few days at Camping Alentajo even managing to contact middle sister Marion and husband Syd who are on a two week holiday in Vilamoura on the Algarve and made a loose arrangement to try to meet up for dinner one night next week as we travel through that area.
Thursday we left Camping Alentajo to travel further south planning to go via several aires till we arrive sometime next week at Vilamoura. Our stop that night night was at a free municipal aire at the village of Nova Aldeia da Luz, the “Nova” (New) in the name is because after it was built in 2002 all the residents from Aldeia da Luz were moved to the Nova Aldeia da Luz, the old demolished and the valley flooded as part of the Alqueva Dam reservoir. The new village was located about two kilometers from the old village, When the village was moved there were thoughts that great things were around the corner with tourism and other industries enhancing the lives of the inhabitants. Sadly this has not been the case In 2002, 423 inhabitants were transferred to the new homes. In 2012 there were 297 residents. About a hundred houses were unoccupied. At the school, which, at the time of its inauguration, had 28 children, in 2012 had only eight and in 2015 only 1.
The aire was built as part of the imagined “tourist boom”. It is a pleasant area for around 10 vans, the village has a bakery, small grocery shop and a museum detailing the history of the old/new towns.
Friday we were planning to go on to an aire on the Portuguese/Spanish border but a look at the weather forecast and we decided to go to a small site, Vilamoura Rustic Motorhome and Caravan Park, and hunker down till a forecast series of storms pass through.
We went through some pretty horrible weather on our journey south but at least it was dry when we arrived and stayed dry(ish) for the rest of the day to end our second week but I think our toes are starting to develop webs – will the sky ever clear and reveal the sun?