Fátima to Coimbra

Long ago I was a few days in Portugal. And here I am again, much longer. And I am in a crowd of Africans, dressed in down jackets, some with slippers, some even rather fat and some also, indeed, skinny. ‘They are from Gambia, Senegal and Ghana,’ says the young Algerian doctor who left his country because of the problems he had with his boss, ‘they are from very poor countries’, he adds. He himself came by airplane and wants to become rich.

He is a pretty decent fellow, a set of teeth haphazardly placed in his mouth, reacting a bit uncertain when I say that The Gambia and Senegal and most other countries in Africa are not poor countries. ‘They are not poor?’ he repeats. I explain to the young Algerian doctor that poverty in their country is not the problem but politics and peoples own desire to want more than they have. Life in Europe is so expensive compared to Africa that here you need to work a lot to pay the basics and it won’t be enough to be rich. The conversation is long and I feel an ambassador for the deaf, or a hypocrite to be born as generation X but the young Algerian doctor ends with: ‘We should not compare ourselves to others, but only to what we were yesterday,’ then he finishes with: ‘I wish you a happy life’. I couldn’t help to have the last word, ever since I was able to speak: ‘If we can wish for things that we want, we should wish for less to want.’ It seems I just want to open a possible gap in the perceiving of economic refugees, ‘because Africans may be poor but if you have some land to live on, some energy to work the land…’ ‘and some life stock to raise’, adds the young Algerian doctor, continuing on with: ‘some are born poor without land, some rich. It is better to be born rich.’ I see him later in the crowd boarding the bus, ignoring me.

All these Africans men remind me of Labrador puppies as they are all timid, patient and not showing any of the usual macho behavior. But then again, they are all refugees. Waiting to have a better life. It is all we want. Each and every one. The immigration of people have been a constant ever since (including ourselves), yet this bunch who came from Lisbon will be send back to Lisbon. ‘I really hope they accept my story and that I can stay,’ said the Algerian doctor.

I am in Fátima at a pilgrim’s church hostel. I have arranged a two nights free of charge stay with 3 meals included for Geo and me. I feel proud to have pressed an old fashioned deal out of it again. Now I have to wait for Geo to arrive. I eat my soaked oats, nuts and seeds for breakfast at 2.30 PM. A headache starting to announce itself. Drying the sleeping bag on a wall where Africans placed a napkin to sit on, thus keeping their trousers clean, I come to speak with Usman. I never asked his name but Usman fits. I like to exchange thoughts and views with him, as he is in such a different position and I know where he is from. Also refreshing is that he is not out to smash a deal with me. Usman asks me a very smart question, which might not be intended to be so.

Usman: ‘How did you like Africa?’

Me: ‘……………………………………………………………………………………….’, a long pause followed, then ‘okay, but I will be honest, don’t get me wrong? Okay?’

Usman: ‘Yes! It has to be honest, of course.’

Usman is a kind guy, missing a front teeth, not pretending, not faking it. I have the impression we have a pretty real talk and I am fully in. After my answer, which is long and excludes Ivory Coast and Nigeria, he concludes that only one who has been to Africa himself can make an opinion about it and understands why someone wants to get away from it. And, in my case, does not want to return to it. The situation brought him here. First to Italy, where he couldn’t get any paperwork done (since the politics made it a lot harder, but not yet so in Portugal). He is now in Fátima to try his luck but has no network of people in Portugal to get him in. As a welder and as oldest son of a family of 6 where his dad died in a road accident he now needs to care for the family. Suddenly the Gambian with either one teeth in the upper row or only one missing, I can not recall his dental status really, gets another face. We talk about the crop his mom has in her garden (manioc and peanuts). The few French words I remember in French I exchange with a Tunisian guy. None of these people are refugees from war but in search for a better economical life. Trying to surf the waves of a refugee status.

In the meantime Geo came limping in on the African compound. He has a look at the giant, separated, free dormitories and decides to get a paid local residency instead. I readily accept and off we go, surfing the tide easy and lined with gold, for our parents could.

It is extraordinary good to see my husband. Less good is his way of walking due to a blister that has nestled not only on one side of his pinky toe but all around.

The walk went well so far. I see a lot more when walking. Machine cut granite slabs for natural boulders as a fence. Olives as a crop lost for eucalyptus. The ones who went abroad have modern luxury homes. There’s no such thing as ‘time stood still’. Time never does. Though the village before Fátima is beautiful located in a valley surrounded by what once must have been a hard workers life. No Asian or African is to be seen here. There is no interest for anyone except for the ones born here, the old couple working. The sun, finally, evaporates the wetness from the damp soil. The green fresh for the spring is about to come. Coffee is not to be found here but the feeling of walking through longing and discomfort brought me almost in Fátima. There ‘must be something to it’, as the lady said in El Cortes Inglés. I definitely miss out on café’s in town. That’s going to change.

Fátima does has something to her. There’s a quiet, calm atmosphere void of music, graffiti, billboards and the usual abnormality seen in towns. The Sanctuary of Fátima is one of the biggest European sanctuaries after Lourdes. It is here where the mother of Jesus appeared to three shepherd children in an apparition in 1917. It is easy to dismiss it as fantasy or superstition: you believe, you don’t or you feel half baked about it. I feel a pleasantness as in an Indian ashram, but without the chanting of Hindu syllables and without the Russians dressed in underwear sari’s. There’s no salivating over a guru, however true the words are. But there is a lot of sunshine and a lot of pastries over coffees. Lucky I count myself when I am able to enjoy a free concerto of the huge, rather overwhelming sound of the basilica’s organ and the immaculate Gregorian voices of about 10 bearded Portuguese men.

Odd are the limbs and statues made from wax that are thrown into the fire. Catholicism not being closely related to Hinduism or animism, it occurs to me that it does have a similarity. Upon investigation around town I must conclude it is more or less a commercial gesture to thankful pilgrims who prayed to Mother Maria for bodily healing or a lost, and found, cat.

Walking around town buying food which I prepare in the tiny kitchen just before the kind Colombian workers trash their muddy shoes through the hotel where the bright Brazilian cleaning ladies left half an hour ago. I sit knitting in the glowing sun, moving to the shadow from the sanctuary. The unusual quietness and the presence of something not in normal towns is touchable but sitting on white granite against an impressive church is unique in itself.

‘We have that, Portugal has it’s sunny warm weather, that’s all we have that is good,’ says the saleswoman where I buy elastic bands and sticky tape.

Just when I want to drink a coffee and eat another pastry while knitting on a sunny terrace a man with a suitcase asks me: ‘Please, do you have a cigarette for me?’

‘No, I don’t smoke,’ I answer.

‘Do you have some money then, I had nothing to eat yet, I am homeless,’ the man goes on.

‘I have no money,’ I lie. ‘My husband pays everything, and he pays with a credit card, so that is why I have no coins’. I do see his need as he is not asking the usual way nor does he look like an alcoholic homeless, is my judgmental assessment.

The other day we went to English mass and the stocky American pastor said a few things on how to treat your neighbor. His mass lasted only half an hour. I felt he could have gone on for another hour. The shortness of his speech on how it is impossible to give each person who asks you for something was fresh in my mind. Instead of giving material stuff one could think positive of the person who is asking or begging. By looking down on him and making up a whole story of the person spiraling into pity and downfall, one could see him as an equal: this is also loving your neighbor.

While I walk back to the hotel I ask Geo for a few coins to give the man. Instead Geo goes over, talks to him at length. The man with the suitcase sobs and falls apart, telling Geo his life story. With some notes instead of coins they part. And so do we.

Upon entering this nondescript cafeteria we immediately loved it, because of the owner. Her glowing radiance of contentment, absence of stress, always a genuine smile and her own fabricated pastel de feijao made us come back each morning. Without ordering she knew what we wanted.

While Fátima had a warm, sunny week, we are now back to rain. The forecast showing nothing else but wetness means walking in sandals with a flapping toe-box. I need to find roofs to camp under while the route is a constancy of buildings. Yet I am enjoying the walk and I notice why: by staying fully in the moment and not thinking ahead. When walking in rain it is quite an art to not think ahead. Simply to enjoy the beauty, the colors and the life around me. Not the sandals that chafe or the pastelaria that hopefully soon appears.

Now is walking in rain the least of my favorites. Rain is the catalyst for being inside and doing jobs that I dislike doing in sunshine. Now, however, I am outside and have nowhere else to go. Using albergues to stay the night isn’t an option as check out time is often as early as 10 AM which means you have to get into the rain anyway. Optimistic and happy with such an elated mood I carry on with the daily tasks of grocery shopping, laundry of underwear, washing the few ‘dishes’ and often checking the route as I walk a different, self chosen route.

I start to focus more on details in photography, when the rain has stopped, my eyes seeing such a volume of beauty that I can nearly not complete a 20 kilometer a day. Not that I have to.

I keep my eyes continuously on the watch-out for abandoned buildings. At once I recognize one when there is. I think it gives an extra dimension to the challenge of walking long distance. Unfortunately, most buildings are locked. But not the one below, an impressive villa.

With still no other pilgrims walking it feels like I am doing something extraordinary. To my surprise the people along the route seem not to be weary of pilgrims. But then again, what is a pilgrim? I reckon many of them are not true pilgrims, and neither am I.

By far the most annoying aspects of walking through towns are the watch dogs. Although every house has a ‘smart’ alarm they also keep a dog. Dogs take their job so serious that they often cause a heart attack.

Dodging dog poop and puddles I come to realize much of my contentment is based on the stomach filled and the desires met. What has me going is the fact that Geo and I both walk towards the same goal. The goal is the motivator, and all in between is what counts. The goal could be anything, it might as well be where the finger touched a point on a spinning illuminated mini globe. And the in between could be pretty much anything as well. The stretch from Coimbra to far after is nothing special, yet interesting to see it. The challenge is wetness and to overcome it. To not let the mood get sour, that is the catch. My thoughts going back to the sadhus in India, everlasting pilgrims without pastels nor coffees.

By choosing my own route I come to be in some pretty remote area’s where hunting and growing eucalyptus is the primary income. I walk over main roads where the water flows down on. I pass too many dogs in too small cages kept as watch dogs. It makes me sad. I talk to men along the route who are curious about the trailer. The route goes up and down, clouds hanging low and the rain blows vertically in a wide curtain past me. As long as I keep walking I am warm, but I need roofs to pick-nick under. Pick-nicking in rain is so unpleasant.

By walking on the caminho it chooses the most beautiful parts and so I go up to Alvorge. Despite the rain and the rather advancing hour of late afternoon I keep on walking but change routes and walk on the main road as to avoid slippery steep terrain. The sandals have new shoelaces attached to them so that the toe box doesn’t flap with each step. Without wearing socks, in a 7 ºC degrees rain, this starts to chafe thus forming a blister on the big toe. Nowhere a roof to camp under I start to walk very determined. Water slashes in the hood of my rain jacket while keeping a watchful eye on oncoming cars. Each village I walk through is checked for open doors of abandoned houses yet none is welcoming me. I can’t help it but have to pee and do so right in view would anyone pass by, something I don’t expect in the heavy rainfall. The closer I come to where Geo is resting in a dry, comfortable and apparently warm cozy restaurant cum hostel, the more unattractive my camping in an abandoned house seems to me. Especially considering I feel cold to the bone and wet unto wrists and upper legs. Then, quite suddenly, I stand under the strong pressure of a surprisingly hot shower, just after I ate a pastel de nata with two coffees. Just after Geo said: ‘Go shower now and then we’ll eat together’. What a fine, civil plan. We discuss the clientele and our experiences while we eat a delicious dish of bacalhau (especially so if the fish wouldn’t be fried in oil where the rest of the menu was fried in earlier). Content the word that befalls me.

Once in cafeteria Bonito I realize how lively the Portuguese are. How almost frightening alive. The moody cashier who served Geo impatiently earlier is now on top of her one man show while her husband sits quietly opposite her, and also woodcutters, forest folk and truckers all flock to the café. The sounds are overwhelming and I feel I am in a disco. Not known yet but on the Saturday morning it are the women who scream unacceptably loud with such a clarity of voice and pitch that it overshadows Indian soprano singers. Needless to say, I need to get out of there.

In the evening I find myself a stone hut that is dry and relatively remote, Geo is send to another albergue since the one he is at is fully occupied with doctors attending a seminar or with Colombian workers. Partly running he makes it before darkness to a cold monastery in Coimbra. I will pass the monastery on top of a hill where Geo is able to stay two nights. It is cold in the room, Geo told me and so I rather be in my tent where it is not so cold.

The view of Coimbra is impressive and reminds me of Himachal Pradesh, that is, with some artistic freedom of the eye. All I wanted was to get through as quick as I could.

Wishing for a roof while thinking: ‘A roof will show up in time, I only hope there’s no shit inside (people often feel the need to poop in abandoned places). And what if it is full with shit? Then I go further.’ I end up in a deserted chicken farm with a floor carpeted with soft material that can not be anything other than shit. Big fluffy dried up poop the size of what dogs leave behind on the pavements of Portugal. Upon further investigation it doesn’t smell at all and it rains terribly hard. I scrape clean a corner of the farm with a piece of wood and make sure nothing of my stuff touches the floor. It is far from romantic but so isn’t the weather.

Cooking a meal consisting of quinoa, seaweed, lentils with vegetables and salmon I am amazed that I plow on. ‘Go with God,’ an elderly lady called out to me and maybe it is just that? Maybe I am driven like one is on a pilgrimage. Driven to see more and different. Every day I am curious what it will bring me. The simplicity of walking is what drives me. The limbs and feet that fully recovers overnight from 20 or 30 kilometer walking and the pasteleria’s that I am able to locate just when I have an appetite is the rainbow against the clouds.

We were in Portugal from February 8th to March 17th 2024. I walked more or less 120 kilometers to pass Coimbra. The first part Lisbon to Fátima in post 1. To be continued…