Safaris Aren't Just an African Thing

We booked a half day jeep safari (€18pp) and wait out the front to see what sort of jeep will appear.  Picked up by a guy who doesn't say much as we hop into the back of a troop carrier style covered jeep and we trundle off thinking this might be a bit difficult if his English and manner aren't so good but we couldn't be more wrong.  Pretty soon he introduced himself as Tiago and explains that we are leaving the coast which is for tourists and going into the true Portugal in the countryside.  He gives us a choice of being adventurous and taking the cover off so we can stand up or leave it on and Ben and I vote Carole down.  

After a quick stop at a local public washing place that cleverly harnesses the river on its way down hill to channel it through a covered area with manual ceramic wash boards we are soon off road and doing a bit of pairing around up a few nearly vertical inclines holding on to the bars and it is loads of fun.  After that initial flurry though we settle down to what is a great cultural insight into how people live and farm in the countryside.  Along the way we see many fruits, herbs etc being grown including oranges, lemons, pomegranates, carob, thyme, rosemary, sisel, corn, bamboo, olives, aloe Vera, acorns, figs and cork trees which is fascinating.  Portugal is renown for the best cork in the w old and produces over half of all cork.  It is essentially the bark of the trees and is stripped every 9 years with a painted number signifying the year it was last harvested so they will know when to take again.  The trees live for 200 years.  Contrary to our understanding that cork is a thing of the past for wine we are told that the best wine including French demands cork.

We stopped at a farm run by a lady called Maria, a friend of Tiagos and we tried a range of home distilled drinks ranging from a carob liqueur to a 48% alcohol that made your belly warm!  Maria's father had passed away recently and she was still quite emotional after fetching a photo of him to show us.

Anyway the safari was a lot of fun thanks to Tiago's sense of humour and a very interesting insite into Portuguese country life.