A Belated Goodbye, Hello and a Timely Adeus

A belated goodbye to Baleal. Thanks for the friends, I'll keep the memories, and you can keep the mosquitoes.

One of the last evenings in Baleal (Photo taken by Laurie White)

In addition, a belated hello to Pinhoa (still Portugal), and a timely goodbye as well.

We arrived at our new location 10 days ago. Our host, Oriana, met us at the bus station in Lourinha to give us a ride. We said our hellos and ventured towards the automobile. When we found ourselves with the vehicle afoot two things became fairly clear. Firstly, it's a small two seat pickup truck with a covered cab. Secondly, one of us, me or me, would enjoy a tailbone bouncing ride in the back. We piled in and traveled a distance equal to or greater than one mildy sore sacrum to her house in Pinhoa. Upon arrival she showed us our accommodation, a personal cabin (amazing).

Our home for 10 days

We then went into the main house and met her friend, Jan, who stayed with Oriana for the duration of our visit. A few things about Oriana and Jan. Oriana is an engineer retired from work but not from engineering. Her very customized Honda Hawk attests to that. In addition, she's a bonafide leather worker and has created a very intricate saddle among hundreds of other things. As for Jan, she has three floppy Springer Spaniels (Margrat, Colin and Esmarelda), a contraption that miraculously rolls cigarettes and she cooks absolutely delicious meals. Both Jan and Oriana have 2 horses (they probably have names too) currently on the property. The property extends 10+ acres (by eye) most of which is sectioned off for the horses to romp around, and some of which is sectioned  for people and dogs to romp around, all of which is beautiful Portugese countryside. Hope you like horse photos.

The immediate view from our cabin.

A horse doing horse stuff, presumably.

The same horse plus another horse.

In order of closest to furthest: Colin, Magrat, Esmarelda.

What we were doing there, other than eating great food and having wonderful conversation.

-Hedge trimming
-Ditch digging
-Poop flinging, and poop distribution (fecal compost of the horse vareity)
-Fence repair
-General wood chipper maintanence/use
-Tree planting
-Weed wacking
-Moving gravel, bricks and cement blocks
-Dog wrestling
-Other stuff

There were several things I learned while working there. Namely, you'll catch more flies with horses than honey or vinegar, and nothing makes you stand up straighter and throw a shovel faster than parking your pelvis pads firmly on an electric fence.

We did get to venture out a bit. After a few days of callous-building labor we were given the weekend off. The first day was a sleepy recovery from the work, and the second day another bicycle adventure (since it went so well the last time). With an understandable amount of skepticism We decided to cycle to some caves only 10-12 kilometers away (google can covert for you). A thorough inspection of the two pedal-steeds formed a census that they will definitely possibly work, and they did-ish.

Our lunch (Thanks Jan)

Heather on a rock

Cave kung-fu

That in a very tight nutshell was our experience there. We really enjoyed our stay there, the company and food were superb. I would like to elaborate more on the relationship we've formed with these two ladies but instead I won't.

Now to put you ahead of the curve on information since I'm habitually behind the curve on giving the information. Today was our last day in Pinhoa and now we're on a bus to Lisbon, the nation's capital. We'll spend a couple of days there in a hostel, but then it's time to hit bricks. Next stop Spain, where we'll become olive picking masters. We'll be staying with a couple that I believe have a self-sustaining home and a perma-culture garden.

I could add more but the current nausea inducing bus ride is a bit stifling.

T. Cullen Morris