I took a lettuce with me to the showers yesterday. I’d been meaning to put it in the back of Lottie, where we keep our stores and somehow got distracted. I said a cheerful hello to a Finn and a Swede and wondered why they looked slightly puzzled. It was only as I gave a jaunty wave, that I realised that what I was waving was a lettuce, not a towel….”Oh that? It’s a lettuce, we always take them to the showers for a really good wash, don’t you? You should try it some time…” no, that was the conversation I did not have. I did have a nice hot shower though, with the lettuce keeping me company on the handy stool.
We are in the west of Portugal on the Atlantic coast and quite remote it is too. We left our friendly campsite in the eastern Algarve and headed westwards. I have to admit I was beginning to tire of the rather loud French ladies who shouted across at each other, rather like Australian chickens on speed, going up with a squawk at the end of each sentence……it was quite entertaining though. We braved it through the heavily built up and very British influenced area in the centre of the Algarve and kept on going. There were far more motorhomes around and surfers began to join in the fray in their camper vans. Space is at a premium in the Algarve and it is far more difficult to wild camp, as the police, very politely, tend to move you on. As a consequence camperstops are far more crowded than in other parts of Portugal.
On the other hand, the weather has been beautiful and the coast is spectacular.

We visited the fort at Sagres built by Henry the Navigator, the chap responsible for sending adventurers such as Magellan and da Gama, off across the Atlantic. You could imagine people sitting looking at this huge expanse of blue water stretching endlessly and wondering if the world was a dinner plate and you’d just disappear over the edge…..back in the 21st century I’m afraid that the fort has been over restored and was a bit of a disappointment,though we had a pleasant walk around the headland and there was a wonderful Sound Chamber, built a bit like a maze, where you could hear the sea rushing on to the rocks below. It was magnificent. On to windy cape St Vincent, the most south westerly point in Europe and then round the corner to the wild surf of the west coast.

We’ve had nights on beautiful beaches with the surf roaring, days walking in the sunshine, admiring the wild flowers (well I did). We struggled all of 8 km to our first stop of the day where we filled up with water and emptied the waste and then fortified ourselves with coffee and custard tarts. Such a struggle.Currently we are at Zambujeira, still on the coast but in the southern Alentejo region. We’ll be heading slowly towards Spain tomorrow. It’s a lovely unspoilt part of the country here, with whitewashed, low houses with blue window frames; the children are enjoying themselves at Carnival time and the campsite is reverberating to the sound of……frogs! Yes, frogs not dogs, hundreds of them croaking away, I’ve never heard anything like it! We came here for some quiet and last night, up they started. We thought we were going to have to leave but fortunately, they stop…..after a few hours!

Well, a week is a long time in ……politics? No, motor homing. Last week, there I was struggling, metaphorically speaking, with elderly Germans in Speedos and boots….this week and it’s been strapping young men with tousled blonde hair, stripping off and donning bodysuits to rush off into the surf…..who knows what next week holds?