PORTUGAL – Where the men are strong, the vowels make no sense, and the weathered women beg for money.

We went to Portugal in April for a vacation.  This blog post is the first of three covering our holiday in The Algarve.

Day 1 – Saturday 23 April 2011 – Recipes for Risotto and Rashes

We arrived in Lisbon, a wet and rainy Lisbon, and proceeded to the Avis counter.  We had to wait a while for a clerk because there were those in front of us with major problems and unseemly attitudes.  When it was our turn, we told the clerk that we would be easy and turned on the charm.  It worked!  We got a free upgrade to a BMW convertible, brand new, with only 11 Kilometers on it. 

It was a manual transmission. Ok, no problem.  We left the airport and luckily found the A2 towards the Algarve region of Portugal.  We stopped at a rest area for sandwiches and soda (one of those sandwiches was a prime suspect in the soon to happen poisoning incident, more on that later)...

Back in the car, ready to head out again, we found that we couldn’t get the car in reverse.  Memories of France flooded over us.  With help form a store clerk, a mechanic, and a German tourist, we were back in business and in reverse.  We got back on to the A2 headed to the Algarve.  It was a pretty drive on the tollway, even though there were parts with torrential downpours of rain; at last we were in The Algarve.

We arrived at the Villa in the village of Quelfes, and met our host, Martin.  The Villa was spectactular - we took about 30 photos of it, but here are a few selections:

Martin offered to have us follow him on back street shortcuts to the grocery store.  The name of the store was Pingo Doce (but will forever be Pingo Dingo to us).

We bought 6 bottles of wine for approximately $10.  Not bad and the wine was tasty.  After unpacking food and luggage, we took a look around the Villa.  It was beautiful and impressive on every level.  Infinity pool, balconies out of every room, views of the ocean, amazing.

We drank wine, made mushroom risotto, danced in the kitchen to the music of Owl City, and had a very nice first night

...Then it happened!

All of a sudden, Debbie noticed that her hands were swollen and red and that she itched all over.  Some allergic reaction to something (suspect 1 – sandwich from the Rest stop; suspect 2 – Guava nectar, suspect 3 – weird Portugese milk, suspect 4 – evil Algarvian insect).  Scratch marks and blotches all over her body.  We don’t know what it was, but we were tired and after a lot of first night partying, it was time to put Day 1 to bed.

Day 2 – 24 April 2011 – Easter with The Weathered Beggar in the most Catholic Country in the world

We went into Olhão (pronounced “Ol-yowng” [sort of]) to explore our host city.  We walked along the promenade by the water and through the streets (the very quiet streets since it was Easter).

 

We ended our morning tour at a local café called Cantaloupe Café.  We order 4 café con lait between us – total €5 (about $7).  We walked along more cobblestone lanes and bought a magnet.  After much perusing for a lunch spot, we picked Casa Das Tostas (pronounced “Casa Das Tostas”).  Debbie had squid with garlic and Jon had steak with mushroom and cream sauce.

The squid was good but Jon’s dish was amazing.  Debbie always wants what Jon orders.

At the café (and again at Casa Das Tostas), this very old Portugese woman was “begging” for money – actually she was selling little tissue packets for one Euro.  She forced the tissues on us and we put them back in her basket.  She took them out again and put them on our table.  We put them back again.  She was very stubborn and even fought back with the store owners.  We showed her though, Debbie snapped a picture of her when she wasn’t looking.

We went back to the Villa and laid by the pool.  The weather was not cooperating and Debbie started feeling worse.  She was running a fever and her hands and feet were extremely swollen and itchy.  She ended up wrapped up in a blanket for the rest of the day and night.  We were leaning towards suspect #4, the evil Algarvian insect which we decided was a Portugese spider of some sort.

Day 3 – 25 April 2011 – Tavira, Troubadors, and the Hospital

After a good night’s sleep, Debbie’s swelling and rash had diminished a bit, so we were ready for our next adventure.  We decided to head to Tavira, the city with the most churches per capita in the world.  Tavira is a small town (probably 1,000 people or so) and it has 37 churches (almost all of them Catholic and named after a Saint – we hoped to find Igrejo Santo Infectica, the church of the patron saint of insect bites and infections, but alas there is no such Saint or church).  With beautiful weather and relative health, we decided to make the journey with the top down on the convertible.  This was not meant to be – if only we had a store clerk, a mechanic, and a German tourist to help us out…so, we pressed on with the top up.

Tavira is East of Olhão, just before Spain.  It is a very pretty town with a river cutting through it.  There are four main bridges that cross the river, but only one is original, the Ponte Romano. It was the only bridge to remain standing after the major earthquake of 1755.  It was originally built by the Romans (hence its name). 

We stopped for 2 coffees near the water’s edge for a break.  The people at the table next to us were Brits, and a little (ok, a lot) pretentious.  The woman was putting down South Londoners, not realizing of course that the two Americans sitting there were actually South Londoners right now.  Not wanting to overhear anymore, we said “toodles” and left.

Driven by a resurgence of itchiness, we found one open Farmacia and bought some cortizone cream for Debbie.  It was a bank holiday in Portugal, Revolution Day, so Debbie had to make do with the cream from Senor Farmacia, who agreed in broken English that it was most likely an insect bite.

On our way back to the car, walking across Ponte Romano, we encountered a local trio of troubadors – one guitarist/singer, one saxophonist, and a “virtuoso” tambourine player.

The link below will take you to their version of Oh Bla Di, Oh Bla Da by the Beatles (you may notice a slight lack of lyrics). 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaiW0xc3Hsw

Continuing to the car, we realized Debbie had overdone it for the day.  Feeling feverish and shaky, it was time to return to the Villa.  Debbie laid down for a rest and Jon drank Portugese wine and cooked a great meal of meatballs (albondigas) and spaghetti, loaded with garlic.  After dinner, Debbie’s condition worsened…severely.

We asked our host, Martin, to lead us to the hospital in Faro (the nearest big city).  Because Debbie’s condition was an obvious allergic reaction, she was seen almost immediately.  She got an injection and 3 medications to ease the swelling and itching.  The Portugese hospital folks were very good and very efficient.  Including a stop at the 24-hour Farmacia in Faro, we were back at the Villa less than two hours after we left. 

Loaded with three medicines labelled completely in Portugese, with dosing and usage instructions we mostly understood, we gave Debbie her first of four full-body skin treatments

Not exactly a day at the spa, but it seemed to help; then the anti-itchy pill and a medicated cream.  Debbie slept really well that night and claims to have had the best personal male nurse in Olhão (even if he was full of Portugese Wine).