Climb every mountain

Climb every mountain

The next morning I woke late. I took myself downstairs. Timmy was working and Philip had already headed off. I figured I should ease myself back into my travels slowly so I spent the rest of the morning listening to the radio, sunbathing and snoozing in equal measures, breaking off every now and again to get myself another coffee from the complicated little machine in the kitchen. Around lunchtime Timmy came out to the pool and filled me in on the plan for the rest of the day. He had a couple of conference calls to do and then we would be headed to the supermarket to pick up some things for dinner before heading up to his house in the mountains for dinner. Paulo would be joining us and we would stay over so I needed to pack my toothbrush and some clean pants. After a spot of lunch and some more sunbathing I decided to have a little dip in the pool. Timmy was sat out on one of the sun loungers, taking one of his conference calls poolside so I kept my splashing about to a minimum.

  

Once Timmy had finished his work (and I was no longer in just swimwear) we set off for the supermarket, stocking up on the ingredients for dinner. I left Timmy collecting the things on his list and had a wander round to see what was on offer. I bought a couple of bottles of wine for with dinner, pushing the boat out and selecting ones at €6 instead of the €2 bottles. We paid for the shopping, loaded up the car and then set off for the mountains. Within five minutes we had left the town behind and were making our way up the winding road. The house is situated right at the top of the mountain, with a dozen or so houses dotted either side of the road just before it peters out. It has some spectacular views of the countryside with a line of telegraph poles being the only visible signs of civilisation.

Philip was already at the house when we arrived and I was handed a glass of wine before I had even had a chance to set my bag down. That’s the sort of hospitality I could get used to. It had been a few years since I had last visited so whilst Timmy unpacked the shopping I was given a tour of the place by Philip. Timmy joined us on the terrace out the back and we sat enjoying the wine and sunset as we caught up on our respective days. Timmy and Philip headed in a little while later to sort out dinner, declining my offer to help out.

I decided the terrace with the setting sun in the background would make a nice little spot for Dean and Ramon to have their first official touring photo together. After 9 months of taking photos of Dean (and sometimes Horse) in front of famous landmarks I had got used to setting them up for photos in front of famous landmarks, usually while being watched by bemused tourists. It was easy when there was just one model in the photo but I would have to learn how to best set up the shot for a group photo. It took me a little while as Jango (Ramon’s police dog) seemed a little unsteady on his feet and kept falling over. To get the photo I wanted I was pretty much laid flat across the terrace.

As I was getting up and dusting myself down I noticed Paulo had arrived and was stood watching me from the doorway, a slight look of bemusement on his face. I smiled and said “Olá”. How do you describe to a deaf Portuguese guy who doesn’t speak English that you are taking photos of toy policemen that your friends bought you as travel companions when you don’t speak Portuguese or know any sign language? I did my best to try to explain using a few gestures and basic words but settled on showing Paulo the photos of Dean in various places around the world. He smiled and nodded in what I hoped was an expression of him understanding. It could equally have been him just trying to get away from the weirdo with the tiny policemen friends, showing him photos of them like a proud father would show off baby photos. I was saved from any more awkward gesturing and Paulo was saved from me by an announcement that dinner was nearly ready.

A delicious dinner accompanied by my €6 wine followed, during which conversation was a mix of English for me and Philip, Timmy and Paulo speaking in Portuguese and a bit of charades from all of us as we tried to cross the language barrier. After dinner we watched the BBC news, a little reminder of home, before retiring to our respective bedrooms. The house and the surroundings were pretty quiet at night, giving me a small insight into what it must be like for Paulo not being able to hear anything at all. Despite the apparent silence I could still make out the occasional noise – the whir of the refrigerator or the bark of a dog somewhere in the village. I drifted off to sleep listening to the buzz of an insect.

The next morning I was up and out of bed fairly early, aided by the sound of a rooster who lived a couple of doors down announcing the new morning. I headed to the kitchen where Philip was already up and making inroads into the dishes from the previous evening. I grabbed a tea towel and started drying up the dishes he had washed. Fairly soon we had finished them all and attention turned to coffee. The smell of the coffee and some pastries for breakfast warming in the oven roused the others. After a leisurely breakfast we packed up to head back down the mountain, a little three car convey snaking back down towards Tavira.

Ford every stream

Once back at the house I went for a little swim before getting showered and changed. Timmy suggested going to have lunch in a little place down by the beach. He had work to do in the afternoon but Philip and I could spend the afternoon on the beach as the weather was pleasant enough. The beach at Tavira is reached by walking across a little bridge over the lagoon to get from the mainland to an island. To get to the beach from the bridge it is then about a ten minute walk, or for the princely sum of €1 there is a miniature railway train that shuttles beachgoers back and forth. There was no train at the “station” when we arrived so we set off walking.

Lunch consisted of a massive tuna salad and a beer for me. After Timmy left us Philip and I headed for a walk along the beach. As it was only mid March it was relatively quiet, the tourists would start arriving in another month or so. We walked quite a way along the beach, during which time we came across the massive body of a dead turtle. We also hit the nudist section of the beach which was thankfully pretty empty although there was one older man showing off everything as he sunbathed. There are some bits of your body that were not meant to see sunlight like that.  The sight of that meant we had to stop for another beer at the café where we had had lunch before we headed back home.

“Climb every mountain, ford every stream” 
Lyrics from Climb Ev’ry Mountain from the musical The Sound of Music