A Walk Through the Village
Some days are looking down days - when it rains, when I’m deep in thought, when the path is scattered with broken glass. Especially when I walk past dumpsters, where all manner of things are discarded in the area, so people can sort through them. I narrowly missed stepping on a freshly eviscerated rat the other day; I stepped closer, not recognizing what this pink mass was until I saw the tail.
Get away from that, I told Jake. Nearly screamed it, my disgust was so sudden and total. Thank goodness it was a looking down day.
Some days are looking up days. After weeks of cold rainy weather, the sky low like gray slate, today dawned a beautiful crisp autumn day, so I thought you might like to join me on my morning walk with Jake.
We have a few regular routes, he and I. Today we went the long way, through the heart of the village then looping up and around the property through the neighborhoods to the south and home again. It’s about 5,000 steps, not quite a third of my usual daily total.
Early in the walk we passed br’er rato, now mostly just a dark smudge but still recognizable by its loathsome tail. As we walked well away from the smudge a man with his dog on a leash stood waiting for us to pass. While his dad wasn’t looking the little dog went over to the smudge and licked it.
Nao! I cried. The man looked startled. I groped for my Portuguese. Morta rato!
The man looked down and yanked his little dog so hard he nearly somersaulted.
Obrigado, he said, looking ill.
De nada, I replied brightly, and Jake decided to trot and I trotted after him.
Next we pass the take away churascaria run by Carlos and Elaina. Carlos works the grill, Elaina checks the meat for doneness and works the register. Jake’s head goes up, on high alert - it is early but the grill is fired up and the scent of cooked meat hangs in the air. It’s a tiny storefront, only room for one person to stand at the counter at a time, with a line trailing out the door and down the sidewalk. It’s a little market as well as grill where you can get fresh baked bread, a big tin of Jasmine rice for about one Euro, chips, cheese, olives, hot pepper sauce, pickled vegetables, red wine. A cooler with cans of Coke, bottles of tea and juice and pyramids of vinho verde.
Bonito! Carlos greets Jake. He is standing under the huge shade tree outside his shop, arms folded, chatting with the butcher from the shop next to his, who also stands with arms folded. They are masters of their domains, their postures say. I chat with Carlos in my broken Portuguese while the butcher eyes me with curiosity.
Maybe he wants a bone! Carlos says, or at least I think that’s what he says. Jake barks and the butcher laughs and pats his head. We then greet Elaina, sweeping out the store getting ready for the lunch crowd. She speaks no English but appreciates my efforts to chat in Portuguese and has lost her shyness with me.
Conhece Jake, I say, and she makes much of him while he strains to edge past her and get closer to the source of the good smells.
She says something in her rapid Portuguese and helped by her gestures I catch branco and nariz - my ear takes a while to parse verb conjugations. Still her meaning was clear.
Sim, ele tem doze anos, I confirm, and she exclaims over what a handsome twelve year old Jake is.
We pass an outdoor cafe (Cafe do Largo) where Jake strains to sniff at the pastries his branco-dusted nose reports are on the tops of the tables, where workmen sitting in twos and threes are having their breakfast which is referred to as o pequeno almoco (the little lunch).
Then it’s on to the little park at the center of the village. Jake sniffs at every bush and tree; I admire what I think is St. John’s Wort, which grows with abandon all over town, you round a corner and there it is, a yellow smile of a shrub that practically yells “HI!”
The park is shaded by a copse of giant old trees; it is a small space but nonetheless has a bandstand, a gazebo with a fountain, a public restroom and plenty of park benches - many inlaid with antique hand painted tiles of mermaids and ships and anchors.
A tiny side street along the park is lined with beautiful traditional old homes.
We make a loop in the park, past the water fountain where Jake stops dead in his tracks, letting me know he’s thirsty. In San Francisco all park water fountains feature a lower fountain just for dogs; here the apparatus is more ancient, lacking an accommodation for dogs and with water collecting in the clogged well and overflowing down the sides. This is a lucky thing, enabling me to scoop water into my cupped hands for Jake to drink from, which he does with a cute and serious intensity. After five scoops he is finished and my hands are freezing and we proceed on our way.
We head down the other side of the main Avenida. The yellow and red painted buildings with their roof statuary are brilliant against a deeply blue sky.
We pass a small veterinary and pet shop and Jake bounces in, so insistent I simply follow remarking how he is surely the only dog in the world who loves the vet and can’t wait to go in.
The clerk looks up, inquiring, and I point at Jake, who is excitedly sniffing everything at once. The clerk laughs and gives him a treat, laughing harder at the alacrity with which Jake plunks his butt on the floor and lifts a paw to shake and seal the deal for a second treat. In the end Jake gets three.
I’m counting, you know, I tell him as we leave. Every treat you get out here is one less you get at home. Lembra! I tell him but I know it’s futile, he views treats received in the wild as treats he has earned, whereas treats I give him are expected.
We cut right, taking a back street that runs parallel to the Avenida. The red paved road is narrow and bracketed by walls that are dotted with flowers and ivy growing from the cracks.
The doors to the houses on this street open directly into passing traffic.
We descend back to the Avenida down a staircase that is a neighborhood garden/parklet.
The staircase is lined with charming planters with beautiful decorative tiles.
We cross the street and I silently bless the pedestrian crossing light which never takes more than five seconds to turn green, providing a needful pause in the busy morning rush hour traffic.
Once across we cut left to the public walkway that borders the long eastern edge of our property.
It is a long gradual hill with homes at top and bottom, with lights and a few benches scattered along the incline.
Everywhere you go in the village you will find ancient muros stained with moisture and covered in moss (and sometimes graffiti). This particular wall marks the edge of a huge tract of land that once belonged to the Queen… Sintra municipality owns it now but people still call it a terra de rainha.
There is an abandoned cottage along the way, from the looks of it empty for decades.
At the top of the walk we hook a right. The old folks are always out early, standing on corners and sitting on the benches chatting or watching the kids at the middle school play in their large fenced-in playground.
It is not a common sight in the US, this gathering of old people out and about living their lives, not unless you are in a retirement community and I must say I really enjoy it. The Bom Dias rain down on us, Jake getting lots of pats. To my mortification he chooses this moment to drop a double deuce, and everyone watches with interest when I take out a baggie, pick it up, tie it off and look around for a trash can (there are many public trash cans to be found around town). I spot one and head over and I see everyone nodding as if to say Oh, so THAT’S what she does with it. Picking up your dog’s poo is not a common practice here, another reason why watching your step is essential. I’ve even seen Jake step on another dog’s poo. Of course pet owners haven’t always practiced this nicety in the US either - only for the last twenty years or so. There are signs Portugal is catching up - our park features two depositories for dog poo - which is good because the dog turds on the sidewalk in some areas of town are legion.
For the final stretch of our walk we head down a steep hill that borders a pretty public garden, Jake panting a bit as the sun climbs higher - the temps will reach the low seventies today (yes I still think in Fahrenheit degrees), a welcome twenty degrees warmer than the recent rainy weeks.
When we return home it is to find the h looking spiffy in a pair of spanking new royal blue work pants from our gardener and general man-about-the-property Tiago, who gifted them as an early birthday present just days after I enquired where I might find them.
It was awkward asking a man I don’t know well, Hey where did you get those pants I want to buy them for my husband? but he was sweet about it. Life is full of strange moments when you don’t speak the language well, we are lucky to have a worker who is patient with my awkward lapses, like accidentally saying “you knew” instead of “I know” during one conversation, a pretty fundamental error that must have made me seem slightly nuts.
Still it works both ways; in the same conversation he talked about the chicken floor instead of the kitchen floor and referred to the smaller kitchen on the lower floor of the guest house as “the little owl” instead of “the little one”. I rather enjoy these birdbrained mistakes so do not laugh.
The walk has satisfied Jake’s taste for adventure for the time being and he nudges the chickens from the sun-warmed tiles of the front porch and settles in for a late morning snooze.
