End of the line for "Hope"

"Tomorrow we may have to fight again, but for now we'll ride the train to the end of the line. And then, we'll jump." To steal a line from a good film.

"Hope" the campervan has reached the end of the line.

The van will be €1000 to fix, and we don't have it, but it runs at 30 miles per hour. I'm also fed up spending money on it that would pay for a flat!! So I am going to get them to put it back together broken and drive it to the nearest camp site, about 20 minutes drive where we will use it as a static caravan!

I walked to the campsite from town today. It's nice. There is a cafe, bar, mini supermarket, tennis courts and play-park. Lots of winter discounts working out about €13 a night perhaps less. She's going to work out what we qualify for. It's all fenced off and the door office is manned so it's very safe for kids. Clearly it also has showers and loos and stuff. There are little hits to rent if you visit. Everyone come see us!

I asked the bike shop to make me an offer for renting a bike and seat for 3 months.

The campsite is 5 minutes walk from the beach and about 15 from the town centre. You go down a road a few hundred meters and the rest is all along a promenade by the sea where cars are not allowed. It's a very good place to be stranded. The town has two beaches, swimming pool, market, art gallery, shops, cafes, medical clinic, crazy golf...

You can take a boat cruise to caves with a swim and dolphins for €30.

A scooter for the day is €15. A bike with no long discount is €5 a day.

There is free wifi on the beach!!!

When March comes we will ship our stuff on a pallet for about €200 and fly or train and boat home.

We can list the van on ebay (Campervan, running, needs fuel pump, already in Portugal) I have seen such things.

Non Portugal. Sci-fi place!

While my van was lost (allegedly it has been found and will shortly show up at the garage) I had a night at a smart hotel in Vilamoura. I am very glad we had somewhere nice to sleep but the place was a bit odd. I've usually travelled to friends and family or cheap hotels down in the city, even in Egypt, which can be a bit dangerous, we walked around rubbing elbows with the people there. 

Back to Portugal, this morning I left the hotel to get some food and found myself in this "old town" so manicured I kept asking myself if it was fake, or part of the hotel. Portuguese people swept and cut grass while in all the shops and cafes only English and German was spoken! Everyone who helped me/served me addressed me in English without trying their native tongue first. All signs were in English only! I felt like some sort of white oppressor! The manicured town reminded me of a sci-fi book I once read where everyone's parents turned out to be robots!!!

I had heard of the concept of traveling only for the climate change and avoiding local culture and indeed contact, it was freaky and tragic and rude! Bring back Portugal please, and all the attendant difficulties! Down with you heated pool, giant double beds and tree-surgeoned palm trees! 

I'm actually looking forward to camping in my van again!

Some things I like about Portugal so far:

It's cheap. First class train tickets for a trip half way down the country for us all were under €100! Really nice food is also cheap.

They bend over backwards to make kids welcome, including there mess, noise and fussy eating habits, grumpy screaming, sandy kids seem to be made just as welcome as clean cute well behaved ones!

It's beautiful, do a google image search!

It's warm.

The pace of life seems pretty relaxed, clearly if you are trying to get work done this is frustrating, but over all it's nice to be chilled and embrace the three hour lunch/siesta.

Some things I'm struggling with:

Portuguese is really hard, and frankly, unlike my husband, I'm naturally very bad at languages anyway - I do try hard.

The driving, they hardly signal at all and park everywhere, I saw a car parked on a roundabout with one wheel on the pavement! You have to make damn sure they are planning to stop at a crossing before you cross.

The smoking, you can smoke inside lots of places and bothers my daughter a lot.

Broke down again in Portugal.

Ok, so I'm a fool for setting off in various beat up vans but I actually know someone who has kept his day job and is tinkering and rebuilding his van so much his work friends say he will never set off! I think he, will but you get the point, life never provides the ideal window to do stuff you want. No adult dentist ever got that letter from the tooth fairy "Dear, Dentist, Good job, this year you don't need to be a dentist anymore, I will be taking on all your responsibilities and funding you through school, so you can go be a dancer like you always wanted! Go rock the world of hip hop!" You have to do it anyway! Similar with the learn to drive a manual idea, sure I will, others have said Tim should learn and have two drivers, wait till we can buy a brand new van... Some people wait till they retire, some are then too scared or unfit. We met a guy in Javea who got second hand bikes cheap in his shop often, he said people planned there whole life's to come down in a camper and bike around the country, then they arrived and found they felt too scared of a fall at there age, truly tragic.

So my van is back in the garage and the trip is not quite on plan...and my last trip didn't go to plan, come to think of it I'm not sure my life at home always went to plan!

I'm in Portugal, in a town so historic it took 15 years to get planning permission for a Mc D here. I've never been here before, nor have the kids, we have been helped, we have been surprised, we have been sad, we have been frustrated and we have been high!

My daughter talks about places she will travel with her friends and then kids when she has them! My son says  "I love mine holiday!"

I have become completely used to driving a big vehicle and driving in Spain and Portugal sometimes in pretty bad conditions. We have all learned more Spanish, and about three words in Portuguese!

If I get the van going again for a sensible amount we will pick a campsite on the south coast and make day trips for the worst of the weather and because the van is being unreliable. That is only about 3 hours away. We have been traveling well over a month.

We have missed all the terrible flooding, storms, snow and danger Spain and Portugal have been having. We have been impressed with the warmth of people and the beauty around us. On balance defiantly worth it even if it ends today, but don't wish that for me. X

Things have gone wrong but right too

I'm down in Portugal right now in a van with my family. I bought the van for £2500 and converted it for £400, it's pretty basic but OK. Lots has gone wrong, in fact it's in the garage getting fixed right now, but lots has gone right too. My family and I have learned so much wandering through Spain and Portugal with no plan other than roughly South! I've been here over a month and we have five to go. The emotion is intense, so much is new, the highs and the lows. Even if I can't sustain this, it's already changed us all for the better. I would not undo it, mistakes and all. If you want to change your life you can, it's a matter of a firm choice, not of circumstances or luck. I hope this helps someone. 

These are my own pictures, I have stood in each of these moments and that cannot now be taken away from me in the future. X