Advertisement
Published: October 17th 2006
Edit Blog Post
I’ve been battered by kindness since crossing the border into Portugal. Old men chomping on their gums, little boys running barefoot in scruffy jeans: everyone has some advice to offer as I trudge wearily through Porto. There are a couple of theories at work here. One might lean too heavily on the goodness of the Portuguese - who, though I’ve quickly warmed to them, are probably no different than the rest of us. The other boils down to the fact that I’ve spent the better part of the afternoon heaving my bags up and down the city’s hilly streets. Let’s face it: if you saw a pack-mule struggling mightily down some steep, cobbled road, you’d probably give the poor guy a sugar cube, too.
People are good-naturedly offering help and directions, usually in a high, animated Portuguese that might as well be Aramaic to my untrained ear. I’m the subject of fascination as I go, not least because the sky has opened up, and a steady downpour adds itself to a growing list of miseries to contend with. The city is a labyrinth of roller-coaster streets, dipping and rising, abruptly turning, and - if you happen to be heavily
laden - more than once convincing you you’re about to lose your innards.
But there’s an undeniable charm at work here. Laundry is flapping from the balconies like bright, colorful pennants. On the façade of a rundown old bakery, layers of dirt and grime obscure a dazzling mosaic of tiles. You don’t have to scratch too hard to see the beauty beneath Porto’s shabby surface. You can imagine what this place was like centuries ago, flush with the riches of the New World, when the backpackers of yore hobbled along its streets and said, “Crap, did they have to put the hostel at the
top of the hill?”
Outside a café I meet a Brazilian couple who have just arrived from Santiago on foot. Really, these pilgrims are starting to get to me. The husband - athletic and flushed with high color - shoots my bags a disapproving look and says, “Twenty kilos. At least. How much?” I concede I don’t know, and he all but gets up and heaves my pack onto his shoulders to prove his point. “You should carry no more than one-tenth of your body weight. Ten kilos, most!”
“Yeah, yeah,
yeah,” I say, sinking into my coffee.
I’ve been trying to kill the afternoon while Gabriela, my
CouchSurfing hostess, gets through the workday. The plan was to plant myself at an Internet café for a few hours, but I’m learning a few things about Portugal and its tentative forays into the digital age. You can’t just walk down a street in Porto until the clatter of keystrokes catches your ear. You can, however, walk down the street your guidebook suggests, backtrack up a steep hill, break into a cold sweat, get caught in a downpour, ask a stranger for directions, get sent back down the wrong street, and finally collapse in a sweaty, drunken pile outside a place that will charge upwards of €3 for an hour online. There’s a lancing pain between my shoulderblades, and my bum knee is twitching. Plus I’m really starting to stink.
They plant me at a computer in a lonely, distant corner of the room.
Armed with Gabriela’s address and phone number, two Google maps of her area, a small Portuguese phrasebook, and a list of bus routes that should leave me just a few feet from her
door, I quickly realize how ill-equipped I am to board a Porto bus. I’ve spent the better part of 10 minutes staring at a map that’s as inscrutable as bus maps the world over. An old man with a kind, gap-toothed smile scribbles some helpful directions onto a sheet of paper that’s quickly starting to look like an offensive coordinator’s playbook. At the moment of truth, I shuffle up to the sidewalk and watch as my bus - the God-forsaken 200 - drives off without me. A man beside me shrugs and offers some reassuring words. He points to a spot on the sidewalk about 3 1/2 feet from where I’m standing. If you’re not in the right place to catch a bus driver’s eye, he’s likely to pass you by.
Luckily, I’m a fast study. When the next bus approaches I hail it with a slight gesture of the arm I’ve picked up watching others. Two squat old women regard me kindly as I struggle to my seat. The bus is mostly empty - a saving grace when you’re swinging 40 pounds of dirty laundry on your back. They see me fussing with my guidebook and manage to
wrangle a destination out of me. Suddenly, there’s horror all around. They wag their heads and shake their hands wildly; in their stout, practical shoes they clop to the front of the bus, getting into it with the driver. One comes back and explains with a grave face, “You. Here. No no no.” She gestures to a bus that’s just pulled away in front of us. “Yes yes yes,” she says, grabbing me by the wrist. “Come! Come!”
Her dexterity is impressive - this woman’s pushing 65, easy. She’s managed to sling my small pack over her shoulder and push to the front of a long queue. She pleads my case to the bus driver - a dour, pragmatic man who seems unmoved by my predicament. He shrugs and waves me onto the bus. The woman’s face lights up, less relief than rapture. I offer a weary take on “Thank you” that draws upon a few different languages, none of which happen to be Portuguese. She waves and rushes back to her own bus.
I suppose it’s just a habit that you pick up on the road, but I can’t help but give my pockets a quick
pat-down after she’s sent me on my way.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0281s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.1mb