20. Wow, Portugal!

It was my final day in Portugal and I was in Porto, sitting at an outside table at a Turkish restaurant, right next to the McDonald’s restaurant which was famous for its beautiful building.

Vegan Francesinha

After a week or more here, I wanted something different to codfish that was on every menu or francesinha, a generously cheese-coated sandwich of epic proportions and calories.

A simple falafel doner kebab would suit me (and my recently healed gut) just fine while I thought about everything I saw over the past week in this beautiful country. 

I wouldn’t say I loved the food here…. Not even the kebab tasted of much, however €8 for a kebab, fries and a can of peach iced tea was cheaper than McDonalds!

I had spent the previous three days in Porto, one discovering the downtown touristy streets and nightlife, the second was at the Fox do Douro where I discovered mature and flowering Pohutukawa trees along the coast, and the third day was at the Douro Valley with its epic views of terraced vineyards. 

Portugal Pohutukawa 

The group disbanded on the morning of the third day so I spent the day on a bus tour where we visited a couple of wineries and sampled locally made ports, enjoyed yet another codfish lunch, and had a quick boat ride on the river.  

Douro Valley

We were taken up a steep winding road to an old established vineyard for more tastings. Once we got off the bus, I was stopped in my tracks with the epic view looking down over vineyards into the Douro valley below.  It was a WOW moment for sure. 

Just before Porto we had visited the small town of Aveiro, also known as little Venice with its canals and gondolas.  My roommate, Sonya and I had taken a train from Coimbra which took about an hour.  

It was a gorgeous little town.  We decided on a gondola ride with a group of other people.  One elderly lady kept yelling out to passing boats and anyone who would listen, Port-u-gal, Port-u-gal.  She was very passionate and slightly annoying.

The guide on the boat told us that some people prefer the smaller town of Aveiro to Porto and at that point I wondered what could be more beautiful than this?

I loved Aveiro for its quaint houses, streets and canals, but I discovered that Porto was at a whole new level.  

Aveiro

The city sat on hills either side of the Douro river, showcasing the colourful terraced buildings and the many restaurants and stores on the lower levels.  

With its elegant bridges that spanned across the river and old-style river boats, it was hard to put the camera away.   

Porto is a breathtakingly beautiful city!

I love it here, I told our tour guide not long after we arrived. 

Yes, Porto is beautiful, but it’s too cold for me.  I prefer Lisbon or further south, she replied. 

Porto Across the River

The weather in Porto was definitely cooler and we had some wet grey days, and yet, at the Douro Valley, just an hour or two away, we had a sunny day.  We were told their summers could reach as high as 50oC (with very cold winters of -2oC).  

The variation of temperature in such a small country was surprising.  I was melting in Lisbon just days earlier but I wore a jacket in Porto.  

Porto

As I sat at the table and ate my falafel doner kebab, I was feeling the dry skin on my face and could feel the lumps of several blemishes.  It was unusual to have pimples but my beauty routine had all but disappeared, especially after I left products behind or they had run out.  

My hair was terrible too - how long since I used good shampoo or even a conditioner?  It needed a cut and the regrowth looked scary.  It was so bad I had taken to wearing a hat every day!  

My clothes were so dirty and wrinkled too, in fact I looked and felt like the intrepid traveller I was!

I had washed some of my clothes on the final night in Porto and left them hanging outside on the balcony.  The following morning they actually felt even more wet!  I squeezed the water out and put them into a dry bag.  

It must have added a kilo or two to my pack weight because it was back up to 15kg, once weighed at the airport.  I would have to wait until I could find a day in Italy to hang my clothes.  

A young member of the Portugal tour who was still in Porto like me reached out and we shared a taxi to the airport and hung out until our flights departed.  She was off to the UK then back to Oz a week later.

I’m tired, I told her.  This travelling is tough work!

Yes it is!  I don’t know how you are travelling for so long, she commented. 

Yeah, I was a bit ambitious there.  Or stupid.  I laughed as I looked down at my backpack, which was holding together well despite much mishandling over the past two months.  Next to it was her suitcase which had a broken handle and a missing wheel after being dragged over the cobblestones roads here.

Yes, it was two months ago when I left NZ for this trip and I have done a lot in that time.  There hasn’t been any downtime between adventures, tours, countries; whatever was I thinking when I put this itinerary together. 

Nonetheless, it had served me well thanks to the researching I did to get from airports and stations to booked accommodations.  (Just the Casablanca debarcle cost me an extra night’s accommodation and a few more grey hairs).  

The rusty start to this solo trip was behind me as I had sharpened up all the skills needed to navigate these foreign countries, and on a tight and now dwindling budget. 

Yes, my rental income stream had all but dried up and I was contemplating if I could even afford to stay beyond my Tuscan travels. 

I was going to have to hit the ground running once back in NZ as my home was now costing me a lot more than the rent.  I wondered if my two tenants had a grow lab going as power was up at $150 a week, gas and water bills through the roof too. 

Yeah, my life back home was starting to find me and I felt it’s claws tighten around my belt.  I’d have to face the realities soon, try and get a local job or go back up to the mountain job!

I had gained a few business ideas through my travels and whilst I’d never lease a commercial building again, I could rebuild the remnants of my wholesale company into something sustainable. 

Against the odds, I had even applied for a job with the tour company I had just travelled with.  Not as a tour guide but as a support person to the tour guides, the one who resolves all the problems when the tour guide can’t resolve them.  

I mentioned it to our tour guide and she said, Wow, Kris, that is a tough job!  

I told her that it’s what I used to do in business; just solve problems.  

 McDonalds 

The mountain job was like that too… Help, the toilet won’t flush, a guest told me before I looked to see he had filled it to over-flowing with toilet paper.  I had a lodgee deal to that one. Situation normal!   

I had to do a video screening using my phone with just minutes to go before checkout, answering questions as best I could, no doubt looking discheveled with really bad hair!

Believe me, after the last two tours, I saw how difficult it could be with some absent-minded travellers.  (Oh wait, that was me.  I thought I had lost my passport back in Morocco!)

Fortunately I had become a lot more responsible since and all of the discomfort I felt at the start of my travels had gone.  Two months in and I was feeling like a seasoned traveller.  

So, will I make it to my 1 September flight or will I change my flight and come home early?  

I’d come back early for that job, for my mother, or for the lack of money, which is the most likely.  

It will be what it will be.    

Goodbye Portugal… I hope to come back one day.  You are a really beautiful country!

Obrigada.  Thank you.