Our first two weeks in Portugal

We stayed with my uncle John until Sunday January 20^th.  We had a nice time but the weather wasn’t too good with mainly cloudy days and occasional rain.  In fact the Saturday was awful with heavy rain and very strong winds.

He lives in a fairly remote detached bungalow, and although he has electricity, the sewage is a cesspit and they have no mains water.  They have a large underground water tank that they have filled (which they pay for) and it also collects rain water from their roof.  So when you run a basin of water to wash in it’s slightly brown.  Any drinking water has to be bought in bottles!

My uncles house

Parked in his garden

 They don’t have internet at their house and were using a local internet café which they had to pay for, but Jean recommended they try the local library.  They didn’t even know where it was, but once we found it they joined up immediately so they could have free use of internet (either on their computers or by wi-fi), access to DVDs and English library books. 

When we left them we headed east along the coast and are now on an aire near the Spanish border at a place called Manta Rota, behind the sand dunes with direct access to the beach.  For 4.5 Euro per night we get hardstanding, waste water and toilet disposal point, electricity for 3 hours per day and free wi-fi (which isn’t actually working at present due to upgrading).  It’s quite social with vans from all over Europe – mainly Germans, but also Dutch, Belgian, French and British.  We have made friends with an English couple - Wenda and Mike from Weymouth, and have been on a lovely walk along the coast and salt marshes this morning to a lovely small Portuguese village where we had coffee.  We are joining them in their van this evening to play some board games.  They have been telling us stories of the motorhome adventures – they even took their van to the United States and spent 6 months travelling around, plus they went to Tenerife, and countless trips around Europe.

Walking with Wenda and Mike

We have had mixed weather here, mainly sunshine and about 20 degrees in the day, but also some cloud and the odd shower.

We think we will be leaving here tomorrow and heading up to a nature reserve right on the Spanish border, after which we will start to slowly work our way west along the coast.  It seems there are plenty places to stop along the coast – some have to be paid for at a nominal cost (like this one) and many that are free.  The free ones usually have no water services so are OK for 2-3 nights.

We’ve now lost all the TV channels on the satellite (we were OK until about 50 miles from the coast) so it’s DVDs and books!  From what we’ve seen and heard on the news the weather in the UK has been pretty awful so we are glad we are down here in the warmer climate!