I decide to go with the taxi from Mertola. I really, really, don’t want to be standing by the side of the road in the middle of the matode with a suitcase in the 30 degrees plus afternoon sun. It’s not so expensive (35E) and I just don’t want to let poor logistics get in the way of my plans. Twenty five years ago I was money poor but time rich – no the calculus has changed somewhat and its important to adjust to changed circumstances. The only accommodation that’s open in Alcoutim is the Youth Hostel. It’s been more than ten years since I stayed in one, probably since my days of going to Biofach in Nurnberg on a tight budget. And while I did keep my membership of the Dutch YHA going for several years I found I wasn’t using it. I really wanted to stay in the hostel in the cube houses in Rotterdam but I never got around to it – possibly because they charging almost hotel prices for the privilege but also because I always had places to stay when I was in Rotterdam anyway. But this is not a youth hostel as I know them. This one has its own swimming pool and a tray full of condoms prominently displayed by the reception (youth hostels were never like that in my day!) together with posters encouraging their use. I take a couple for ‘good luck’.
The youth hostel is the last building in town, (though no more than a ten minute walk away from the centre). There’s a hotel next door but it appears to be closed and to not have a pool. The road literally stops after the youth hostel. The design has a strong Moorish influences (though its obviously a modern building) yet somehow it feels like a communist tourist camp (though I’ve never been to one)-superb infrastructure – yet absolutely no service and hardly any ‘campers’. I see two Dutch cyclists, a German hiker, and a Portuguese girl working on her tan. This, in a complex that seems (if the dining room is anything to go by), to have a capacity for 100 or so people.
It also overlooks the river which constitutes the border with Spain. Its not so much being on an international frontier that one could swim across (if reckless) that feels strange – more being on the edge of two different time zones. Spain operates on European time, Portugal on GMT. Every time the church bell rings in Spain (which it does every hour (and half hour) between 06000 and 0000 I have to remember to subtract one. It’s increadibly relaxing sitting on my balcony watching the ripples glisten in the sunlight and responding to the wind and the occasional fisherman or pleasure boat pass up and down
I take a swim at nine just before the sun goes down and before going to the members’ kitchen to heat up a can of beans and sausages that I bought from the supermarket for my supper (mindful of the need to make some economies on this trip) for my supper. I dive in the pool and - whoops - my ten dollar watch bought from an Indian street vendor in Bangkok is still on my wrist. Bang goes another (sub-standard quality) Asian souvenir, I think, but much to surprise it’s still keeping time after supper and again the next morning (admittedly with a little condensation under the cover).
Alcoutim is kind of nice, but in a very ‘sleepy town’ kind of way. If Mertola has 3000 people this town must be 1000, if that. There are a lot of sailing boats moored in the river, so I guess it attracts a kind of ‘yachty’ and up-market tourist crowd. I enquire about the possibility of travelling down the river to the coast tomorrow – the thing I really wanted to do and my main reason for coming here. The price makes it a no go for a single person – which is a real disappointment. I’d heard that it was possible to do it the other way from the coast to Alcoutim, but maybe there is a sufficient critical mass of tourists on the coast to make such excursions feasible. I could have hung around the bars in the hope of chatting up a yachtsman heading downstream the next day – but it somehow seemed a remote possibility.
The swifts are ubiquitous (actually they might be swallows or house martins, I lay no claim to ornithological expertise) Their nests built into any protected eave they can find – and the marks of previous years’ nests are even more evident. The nests are quite wonders of avian architecture: built with tiny ‘bricks’ of mud pellets, arranged in a spiral (perhaps swifts ‘do’ permaculture too!), each one probably representing one trip to the river and back. I wonder where they stay when they get back from their winter emigration and are building their summer home. Is there a youth hostel for swifts? Do they stay with their cousins?
I have a nest on my balcony and I notice when I am sitting out there that a couple of swifts keep buzzing by as if to visit then suddenly change course as if deterred by a human presence . So I withdraw into my room and wait behind curtains- and pretty soon they are coming to visit the nest – diving through an absurdly small hole in the top of the nest and then hopping away again. I even get a photo from behind the curtain of a swift diving its nest and get to hear the young chirping away in the nests. And I think ‘wouldn’t it be lovely to stay here and see the young emerge from their nests’. But it’s actually already almost time to leave. I have two more days in Portugal and one more place I want to visit. I manage a quick five laps in the pool (without my wristwatch this time – no point in tempting fate) and call a taxi – next stop Cacela Velha, supposedly an unspoilt village – but my copy of Lonely Planet Portugal is more than ten years old (it must be the prices are in pesos) so I’ll have to take a chance on that one!
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