After a two- days- drive beginning in Toulouse and crossing whole Spain, we finally arrived in Portugal, one of my favorite countries although I had never been there... I just felt something fascinating about this country at the very border of Europe and what I read and saw on pictures until now gave me the impression that life and people in Portugal are special and I was curious to discover this feeling in real...
About olive trees and natas...
After we crossed the boarder, the streets were empty and we didn't meet any car for about one hour. The landscape was beautiful, olive trees until the horizon growing in a brown and hilly landscape. But no cars and it felt like olive trees are the only inhabitants of Portugal! When the famous and unpleasant orange light in our caravan blinked and we had to navigate to a gas station, I had the very strange expectation to meet olive trees selling the gasoline. But it was not like that: three smiling quite small Portuguese men were standing in front of the house and waved at us like if they had been waiting for us since days... They only spoke a few words of English, but with their smile and friendly behavior, it was easy to communicate. After the "official part" filling gasoline and paying our duty, they invited us for coffee. And not only for coffee, but for NATAS! Yes, we had heard about some Portuguese sweets, but we had also heard that Portuguese don't have any sweets except this little cake called "pasteis de nata". After our time in France (with an incredible amount of delicious pastry that we were forced to try), we were ready to eat only fruit. But after this nata, I knew why they only had one exemplar of sweets: they didn't need more because nata is so tasty that you can eat it round o'clock every day! It looks like a tiny cake with many small layers, filled with pudding slightly burned at the top and served warm, decorated with a breeze of cinnemon...
Cleaning time!
After the coffee break and when the sun appeared the first time since a couple rainy days, we spontaneously decided to wash our caravan at the gasoline station. Washing a caravan is like washing a car, just it's more complicated, the challenge to reach all points as small persons is higher aswell as the risk to get completely wet when the motivation is too big... I told that it was getting sunny, we had eaten great natas and life was good, dry or wet. And after accomplishing our work, our caravan was bright and shiny, blinking in the sun! And the three Portuguese men standing outside of their house, were smiling again and seemed at least as happy as we were to start the new chapter Portugal with our clean home!