We have been at Campismo Fuseta (they spelt it with an S, others use a Z – we have no idea why) for just under 4 weeks now – the longest I have stayed anywhere abroad except for a shabby little hotel in Paris nearly 20 years ago – the only time we exhibited at the Paris Airshow.
The camp site resonates with myriad sounds. In the morning the town clocks chime the hour about 2 minutes apart whilst the sparrows and doves compete for their trees and right to decorate all of us camped under them. As the site awakes, they are joined by the noise of sweeping as everyone removes their marks, the pine needles, the eucalyptus leaves and bark from their ground sheets. The ground is dried and dusty, so we all have covered our areas as much as possible with these ground sheets in a vain attempt to keep the dust and gravel out of our vans.
Later still the showers spray and cutlery clanks on crockery in the nearby washing up area also featuring the unmistakeable sound of cockles in their shells being rinsed ready for lunch. The Portuguese greet each other loudly and happily, most are friendly and laughing. They greet us too, though rarely in English. This continues through the day as Bom Dia changes to Boa Tarde and later Boa Noite. Ola can substitute once, but not if you keep seeing the same people. We can now also say sorry/excuse me, 2 beers and see you later.
There are van deliveries to the shop all day. Motorhomes come and go, many seem to tour the site daily looking for better spots. Dogs of varying sizes bark. The tiny Yorkie near us is called Nina – frequently – and has a loud squeaky toy!
The kids ride around constantly on bikes or those scooters with tiny wheels, most of which need oiling. The clack of Mah Jong and Scrabble tiles. The satisfied chatter of families at mealtimes. The barbeques are set in the middle of the roadways to avoid fire issues so the smells waft around the site and you drive around at mealtimes at your peril. Dorade, bass, octopus and cockles as well as pork and chicken are all given the charcoal treatment. We give our fallen eucalyptus bark pieces to Carlos for his barbeque – he lets me try freshly cooked cockles.
Carlos is one of our neighbours – and the only one who has tried to get to know us despite speaking no English and vice versa. It started with Bom Dia and progressed. His daughter visited one weekend and speaks good English. His daughter in law visits a bit more often and also speaks some. His granddaughter Bea can manage some but is a bit shy, especially when B’s sons were here! Overall we manage to communicate.
If you need something then Carlos has it or knows where we can get it. We now have a “tinsel” door fly screen. He loaned us an electric pump for the mattresses, a rake to sort out our patch of dirt, a ladder and a hand spray to cool us on the hottest day. We have an open invitation to camp at his place in the mountains when we next come to Portugal.
Another sound here is of scooters (the sort with engines) and Harleys on the roads around the camp site. One of the 2 beachside bars is a bike meeting place it seems. B has Harley envy – he wants to be able to ride his and show it off here too!
Carlos came over when we first got Kymi out to take a look and tell us he has an old Vespa and has travelled to Andorra on it. B showed him the photo of his Harley on his phone – a bit of male bonding!
All day from about 0830 the ferries ply across from the harbour – just over the fence from our plot – to the Ilha de Fuzeta (island) where there are miles and miles of beautiful white sand beaches. As each ferry reverses out from the pontoon it toots its horn 3 times. For days we thought there was a problem with noisy car drivers!
After the Harleys leave the bar in early evening, there is more convivial food based chatter and often music in the harbour side bars just the other side of the fence from us. There are bands several nights a week, starting at 10 and finishing, well, whenever they get round to it – usually not before we have given up and dropped into bed – all this enjoying yourself can be quite exhausting.
So now tomorrow, sadly, we will leave Carlos, the Campismo, Fuzeta and Portugal. Its time to move on, though we don’t really want to. Its about a thousand miles back to France where I will need to do some more visits, so we will tear ourselves away, but we will most definitely be back one day…..