12th May CASTELO BRANCO - BARRAGEM DE POVOA

I was up at 6.30 again, it was lovely and cool sitting outside drinking coffee. It’s getting quite difficult to sleep; the daytime temperature is in the 30s and the temperature in the van, at night, doesn’t drop much below 28° (poor us!!), we definitely need a fan.

We bought our supplies for the weekend and then drove to the barragem, near Nisa, we were last there at the end of February.

We went for a walk on arrival, I was interested to see if there was anyone living in the ‘shanty town’ – there wasn’t.

Shanty town

While we were walking we kept hearing this ‘knocking’ noise, a bit like a woodpecker, then we realised it was the call that some of the storks were making as they flew overhead. We had already seen that the storks on their nests now have baby storklings (made up word!) and this was the noise that the parent bird made as it was approaching the nest; just before they came to rest on the nest the occupying stork would fly away and the baby storks (usually two) would start bobbing up and down making this mewing sound – it was just like watching a nature film.

We had thought that, as we would be close to water, it might be slightly cooler than in town, we were wrong it was incredibly hot! We paddled, the water got deep quite quickly and my shorts got wet, I didn’t mind, I was so hot – in the end I just sat down in the water, fully dressed (dress, shorts and underwear), it was blissful, I lay there floating on my back.

The Portuguese use the barragems like a country park; there are car parks, picnic tables and barbeque areas at the entrance, but most people ignore the designated areas and drive down to the water’s edge parking under trees. There were a number of families here when we arrived, some of them had put up tents (even though there’s a notice saying no camping*) and in the middle of the afternoon they all disappeared inside for a siesta – so we went into the van and followed suit!

Tonight we had a Thai chicken curry for dinner; usually we make our curry paste using a food processor, today we had to chop up all the solid ingredients (garlic, ginger, chillies, basil, coriander) as small as possible and then pound them to a paste in one of the smallest mortar and pestles ever! (tinned coconut milk is expensive here 2€49) – anyway it was very nice!

10.00 p.m. the temperature in the van is still 30° even with all the windows, door and skylights open.

* camping – when we park up in aires (which is what this barragem is, it has the camping car logo at the entrance, and it’s in our aire book (bible!)), we’re not supposed:

·         to put up awnings (which is why we didn’t bother to get one)
·         hang out washing
·         put tables and chairs (or other paraphernalia) out side

All of the above is considered ‘camping’, technically we are solely parking – which is why we’re allowed to stay here overnight and people in tents aren’t (though they did!).