Broken bridges – and the law
1 comment February 21st, 2005
Walk, walk, pack up, walk, unpack, walk – it could get monotonous, if it weren’t for the little curve balls life enjoys throwing every once in a while. We have had more than the odd one, this week.
The two days walking in and out of Barcelos were not so great. The day in was supposed to be about 29km; we figure we did over 35 by the time we finally got there, and it was past dark before we were settled somewhere. We had been walking since early that morning, so we were a little shattered. The following day we got lost within 
minutes of leaving, and spent nearly two hours doing some interesting surveillance work on the city of Barcelos before eventually leaving it behind. What was supposed to be an easy kind of a day stretched into a bit of a long one, hiking down a rather deadly road with trucks thundering by us within inches, so it was with huge excitement that we walked into the tiny village of St Pedro de Rates and discovered – oh joy – a final pilgrim’s Albergue. We honestly thought we had left them all behind in Spain, so the sheer bliss of finding a proper refuge, complete with hot showers, kitchen, and beds, was truly wonderful. We sank delightedly into slumber, determined to rise early and head for Porto. It was 35km away, but we figured we would make it ok if we got an early start.
We got a great start. Like every day since leaving Santiago, the weather was beautiful, and after a good night’s sleep we set off at a cracking pace. The architecture has been radically changing in recent days, and we stopped by a typical whitewashed church, very different 
from the crumbling Romanesque style of Galicia. More and more they are either of this type or Moorish influenced, like this tiled example.
A couple of hours down the road, we came to an old bridge, which had obviously recently crumbled away. It was fenced off most determinedly from our side. Concrete bollards were cemented in front of it, and heavy wire mesh was bolted into either side and the bottom. Plainly, the Powers that Be had deigned the bridge unsafe for traffic of any kind – pilgrims following little yellow arrows included.
We sat and ate some chocolate and contemplated things awhile. The bridge was in a pretty bad way; even though we thought we could easily cross it without coming to harm, climbing over or around the wire mesh was going to take some doing. From the hill above the river we had seen that there was no alternative bridge within several kilometres, so unless we fancied some major detouring, there was no other foreseeable crossing point. Our third option lay in front of us.
At some point a concrete platform had been built in the river, over which it ran shallowly, cut in the centre by a channel through which the bulk flowed. If we could walk across the shallow part and leap the gap, we figured, we could make the other side. After a little more chocolate we decided that this was the best course of action, and, swapping our boots for flip flops, waded into what can best be described as slightly sub-arctic water.
Hey, we even took photos for your amusement.
Much chattering of teeth and brave leaping of chasms later, we sat on the other side, munching on chocolate again and feeling rather proud of ourselves. We had even gone so far as to put our boots back on, ready to walk out the other side.
Which was when we realised that it was impossible to walk out the other side, because there was another bit of bloody river cutting us off from it.
There is no way you could see this from where we had started. In fact, it took us until we tried to walk that we realised, but there was absolutely no way off this stupid little isthmus except either through river number two, or back over the way we had come.
And so the discussions started. Should we:
-
go back over the river and do a detour
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as above and attempt the wire mesh/bridge option, or
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attempt to cross the rather wild looking river number two?
Unfortunately, river number two really was a little scary looking, with big boulders, some very swift moving water with no visible bottom, and a sudden drop off point. However, hell would freeze over before I was willing to volunteer for an indefinite detour, and I couldn’t imagine how we would possibly get over the wire mesh thingie. In general I was in favour of option c. Gary, on the other hand, remained “unconvinced” that this was the best option. (you will notice that there are no photographs of river number two. This is because the conversation began to get a touch heated at this point, and hence picture taking went off the agenda.)
After twenty minutes or so of this dithering, and as I began to see my prospects of a long lazy sunset dinner in Porto slip away, I decided it was time to take decisive action and announced my intention to cross river two. This was not a popular move, and I gathered my belongings to the insistent protests of my dearly beloved.
“But what if it’s deeper than you think?”
“I guess I’ll get wet, honey.”
“But what about the computer/camera/etc?”
“That’s why we paid for water proof bags.”
“But what if you fall and hit your head?”
So, ok, I didn’t have an answer for that one. But sometimes a girl has to emasculate her husband, so in I prepared to go.
Just as I was about to take the plunge, so to speak, we both looked up to see a walker who, very casually, was strolling across the top of the bridge. I gestured wildly – can we cross? He looked at me like the idiot I am, and indicated that yes, we could, it was a piece of cake and what the hell were we doing in the river?
Back off our boots came, on with the flip flops, back through the shallows and over the chasm, until we stood once again in front of the wire mesh.
The thing was, the other guy had come in from the other end, and wandered back the same way, so he hadn’t had to negotiate the mesh factor. But after nearly having the domestic to end all marriages, there was no way I was going back to river number two, so after an enormous gymnastic feat – no legs should have to do the splits diagonally, and particularly not after the age of thirty – we found ourselves on the collapsed bridge, which we crossed hastily before it could decide to disintegrate completely.
Somewhat huffy with each other by this stage, we strode on moodily toward Porto. Ah, but the Gods were not done with us yet. Not by a long shot.
By about four o’clock it became patently obvious to us both that after the long river delay, unless we didn’t mind walking into Porto city centre at eight o’clock on a Saturday night, we might have to look for alternative accommodation. We started to scout around for somewhere to camp.
Eventually we found a dead end road in an industrial estate which had a patch of eucalyptus scrub in the centre. It being a weekend, we 
figured there would be no-one around. There was a clearing in the middle, so we set up camp and cooked our dinner. About halfway through, someone walked by, 100 metres or so away, and stopped for a bit of a look. We gave a cheery wave and they went on their way. And that, we thought, was the end of that. We crawled into bed and dropped off pretty early.
Just after ten we both jolted awake at the same time. There was the sound of crackling twigs underfoot which was way too loud to be an animal, and we could hear low voices. For a minute we were frozen, wondering if they would pass by, and then we both realised they were definitely coming for us. Gary went for his stick and I for the knife; they were coming from my side. A man called out in Portuguese, something I couldn’t understand.
“Hola!” I yelled out – useless, but then I know sod all Portuguese – and began to unzip the tent.
He yelled out something else, and I called back (in Spanish) that I didn’t speak much Portuguese.
“Police!” he called, and Gary and I nearly fainted with relief. “I want speak with you!” he called to us, and suddenly we felt tense again. He didn’t sound like your average friendly bobby.
“I’m coming,” I called back, and tried frantically to extricate myself from my sleeping bag whilst at the same time unzipping the various parts of the tent. Gary was doing the same on his side. When I finally got it open, I was nearly blinded by a flashlight, and he said again, “you come out! I need speak with you!” I yelled back that I was trying, and reached inside to try to unzip my bag. He obviously misinterpreted my actions, because at that point he yelled again in Portuguese and pulled his machine gun up so it was facing me.
Now, I don’t understand any Portuguese, but it was plain even to me that he was saying something along the lines of: “I have a Very, Very Big Gun, which right now is pointed at all of your extremities, and unless you put your hands up immediately I intend to make a Very Big Mess.” I had no intention of arguing with that rather scary little muzzle, so I threw my hands up where he could see them. Unfortunately, at the time, I was wrestling, seal-like, on my stomach with my sleeping bag, so throwing my hands up meant I performed a less than dignified face plant. One would think that the sight of a pyjama clad woman attempting to liberate herself from a sleeping bag whilst at the same time keeping her hands high in the air would be enough to reduce the nastiest of militants to, at the least, mild bouts of hysteria; but oh, no. Obviously they still bore suspicions I was really an undercover Al Qaeda operative running a subversive training camp in the midst of Portuguese suburbia.
“You come out now, all of you, I need speak with you.”
“Yes, I KNOW that,” I said through gritted teeth, “we are trying to get out. And there are only two of us: my husband and I.” At that moment Gary appeared from the other side of the tent, and it was his turn to have the gun trained on him, whilst I managed to get out of my very warm but exceedingly encapsulating bag and into an upright position. We were still being blinded by his mate’s flashlight, and threatened menacingly with a rather enormous looking gun, so we weren’t making any sudden moves.
“Where the other one?” he asked a couple of times.
“What other one?” we asked; “there is only us, an Australian couple.” We always slip in the Australian bit. It usually helps, for some odd reason.
It did this time, too. After making doubly sure there was noone else hiding in our tent (you must be joking – it might say “three man” on the label, but not unless they are anorexic pygmies, in my opinion) the gun finally got lowered and they started speaking to us normally.
Turns out nosy bugger from up the road had called the police and reported that there were three men (gee, thanks) camped in the bush, behaving oddly. I don’t know what constitutes odd; I wouldn’t have thought going for a leak and cooking some rice qualified, but then again, I’m Australian – what would I know? But after checking our passports, and seeing our pilgrim’s credencials, he realised that the only crime we had committed was in being dumb enough to walk from London to Portugal. I don’t know that we did anything to improve Australia’s reputation internationally by being found camped in an industrial area with Gary’s jocks drying in the breeze, but, hey, what do you do.
In the end we had a laugh, they apologised and left, and Gary and I changed our underwear and quietly had a nervous breakdown.
Ah well. I’m sure it is the first of many times we will have a gun pointed at us on this trip. Have to say though – not a great feeling.
So, we got up, packed up, walked to Porto, unpacked, and camped – legally, this time.
It would all get a bit monotonous, if it wasn’t for those little curve balls…. 
(does he look dangerous to you….?)