Along roads you don't plan - Part 5
This is part 5 of a travel story from one of our customers. They were on the road for two months with the Outbase ID. Buzz through Portugal.
Olive oil and an unexpected gift
Felipe shows us around. The olive oil pressed here stays below 27°C, maintaining its extra virgin status. The kernels are used as fuel; the water from the olives returns to the trees. The residual pulp? That goes to factories that use chemical processes to squeeze oil out of it. "Never buy it," warns Felipe.
Pruning is done annually, and José (the owner's husband) demonstrates how they seal the wounds with a copper solution. "I don't get that in Holland," says Hester, and before she knows it, he's pressing a bag of copper sulfate into her hand for her own use.
We taste olive oil with local cheeses and figure out how to hide a few bottles in the Buzz. Graça, the owner, comes by and invites us to an evening of fado. We don't have to think long: "Gladly!"
Fado under candlelight
The fado evening exceeds all our expectations. We are seated in a large harmony hall, where old pictures of musicians hang on the wall-I feel at home. First a sumptuous dinner with 200 Portuguese, then, after ten, the lights go out and six singers thrill the room. It is intense, melancholic, beautiful.
At midnight, the oldest singer, Alberto, turns 88. A big cake and a glass of ginja appear for everyone. We stay well into the night, and by three o'clock we roll into our Buzz. Graça still calls after us, "Stay tomorrow as long as you like!"
Porto and a relieved smile
After a delicious drink of ginja with the family and a promise to return, we set off for Porto. Good news: our charging pass has arrived! We meet Nuno, who hands us the pass. As soon as we test it, the Buzz charges effortlessly. What a relief!
In Porto we find a nice place to stay at Valbom, 4 km from the old center. The owner-coincidentally also a Nuno-turns out to be a lover of VW vans. He rebuilds them and rents them out, even in the Azores.
We take a Bolt cab into town, get a flat tire and walk the last part. Porto immediately embraces us: we stroll along the Douro, have lunch on Nuno's recommendation and visit the famous bookstore where J.K. Rowling drew inspiration for Harry Potter. In the evening, we eat outside for the first time, by the river, and walk back under Gustave Eiffel's iconic bridge.
Stay a while longer
We can't just leave Porto behind. We book concert tickets for fado with Inês Louro and Argentine tango music with Richard Galliano at the Casa da Música, once designed by Rem Koolhaas, and decide to stay for two more days.What started as a journey full of uncertainty turned into a chain of unexpected encounters, beautiful places and Portuguese warmth. And now, recharged and with a Buzz full of olive oil, we are ready for whatever else Port has to offer. On to the north.
And so we left Porto behind. Our route? A winding path through mountains and along rivers, from Portugal through Spain to southern France. What did we find along the way? Silence, conversations, music, sun and rain - and above all: experiences you cannot plan, only live.
Travel on with us past deserted villages and bustling markets, among vineyards and olive groves, across the Spanish plains to the rolling hills of France, and join us in the Buzz for our second month on the road.