Beach Walk (25)

The drive to Nazaré is uneventful. By now, I am used to my spot in the back seat, staring outside the window and letting my thoughts drift to wherever they want to take me. Once in a while the silence is broken by a short exchange between Rita and her mother, mostly complaints that Rita makes about the annoying text messages that she’s getting from her Brazilian hairdresser. Why she is annoyed by the messages I am not completely sure, because she is creating the situation by frequently texting the woman about where we are in Portugal and in response the Brazilian asks her to go look for the cousin, who now I hear lives in a place called Tomar. 

Outside the window, Óbidos appears again. The walled medieval part of town is still shining on the hillside looking adorable and inviting, but it is quickly left behind. The highway on which our fabulous Toyota is traveling is almost empty, apart from the occasional truck or semi that passes us. It appears that most of the vehicles that share the highway with us are commercial, which means that, unlike the rest of the population, they can afford the toll fee. Apparently, in Portugal the highways are too expensive for the locals. For us, tourists of means (except for Anna), the toll fees are a temporary expense we barely notice. Rita, our learned guide, included the toll payments in the rental agreement so we don’t have to stop and pay them or even know of their existence. She explains that her (Fred’s) credit card is automatically charged every time we enter a toll road to save time and confusion. All I can think is that it is great someone thought of doing this and how lucky I am that Rita knows this stuff.

We descend into Nazaré from the highway. The city faces the blue ocean and looks nothing like the original Nazaré that I know, located inland, between the Mediterranean and the Sea of Galilee. Rita maneuvers the car down winding streets until we reach a wide boulevard that runs along a white sandy beach and is bordered by a paved boardwalk on one side and brightly colored three-floor apartment buildings on the other. The boardwalk, however, is empty of tourists. Maybe the morning rain sent them running for cover. Now the rain has stopped and Rita is ready for action. She parks the car by a line of parking meters and steps out before I manage to even undo my seatbelt. 

It is time to explore another place I’ve never heard of until a few hours ago.

As soon as I plant myself on the sidewalk, Rita spots a display of shoes made of cork outside a store that looks like the quintessential tourist trap and disappears inside. My heart skips a couple of beats and settles back in place. Shoes for Rita are the most potent opiate. They alleviate her existential angst in a way that people like me, who do not possess the addiction gene, cannot comprehend. Not that she is anything like the infamous shoe hoarder Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, who owned thousands of pairs. She just likes to buy stuff, and shoes happen to appeal to her as much as jewelry and Jacuzzis. 

Vera promptly follows Rita into the belly of the beast. I remain on the sidewalk, trying to decide what to do. I am certainly not following these two women into the abyss. I am done scouring these depressingly cheerful money pits for stuff I don’t need. Anna, who could not afford to buy anything even if she wanted to, stops at a neighboring store that sells beach towels and flags, looking like she might do some window shopping. Since no discussion about what we are going to do here has taken place, it occurs to me that a walk on the beach would be the most appropriate activity. Later on, I might embark on a search for a public bathroom to avoid unforeseen disasters. But for now, the beach is calling me.

Several wooden fishing boats are lined up on the sand by the boardwalk. It is not clear if they are actually used for fishing, since there are no fishing nets or fish for sale inside them or even a nearby ramp from which to enter the ocean. The boats, all of which are named Nazaré, are painted in bright colors and look like the perfect props in a staged display for gullible tourists. They seem somewhat out of place, but at the same time they belong on the beach. I take a picture of the boats and decide that later on I will look up this town on the internet.

There is no one around to ask about the boats. The beach is deserted and even the few structures that look like they might be dressing rooms for bathers or maybe lifeguard stations are chained and locked. Down by the water line, two men, one young, one much older, walk slowly with their hands clasped behind their backs, but they are all the human presence the town offers at the moment.

I step on the soft sand and walk toward the water line. About a mile up, the beach ends at the foot of a steep ridge that runs from east to west all the way to the ocean. Rows of red-roofed, whitewashed apartment buildings accentuate the skyline atop the ridge. I cannot see any roads or even trails connecting the bottom part of town with the buildings at the top of the ridge. The only thing that cuts through the green hillside is a concrete shaft that looks like a funicular rail. I assume a funicular carriage runs up and down this rail during the tourist season, but not on a cloudy November day when barely one tourist is in sight. 

The steep mountain ridge turns into a spectacular cliff that descends almost vertically into the ocean. A short distance from this sheer cliff, in the ocean, a giant shapeless rock rises from the bottom of the sea to meet the highest waves I have ever seen in my life. The waves crash onto the rock, and the white spray shoots up into the air so high that it takes my breath away. I have seen giant waves before, when I was sailing in the Aegean Sea near Crete during a winter storm, but they were nothing like the waves that bombard this rock. I didn’t even know that waves this size break so close to shore. I have heard about Hawaii and Australia, but nothing has prepared me for what I am witnessing now. Even the waves that break right in front of me, on this flat beach, are taller than I have ever seen at such close proximity. I am definitely not a stranger to the ocean, but this natural spectacle is something on a different scale.

It takes me a while before I remember that I need to check on my travel mates in case they are looking for me and want to go somewhere else. I start walking back toward where we last split up and, to my relief, I see that Anna also chose to spend her time on the beach. Maybe she coordinated her beach stroll with Rita after her window-shopping stint and went to collect seashells for her art projects. Since she does not seem in a hurry, I move to explore the streets that face the ocean. Maybe I can find a public bathroom hidden somewhere, although I am not incredibly optimistic considering my experience so far. 

The streets are deserted, as are the few open shops that I pass. Nothing inviting enough to enter and there are no little signs with sticks figures in a skirt or pants in sight. An empty parking lot behind the oceanfront buildings catches my eye. Maybe they have a public restroom at that small shack where drivers pay to park. In Monterey, which is such a touristy town, there are public bathrooms everywhere for the masses of tourists who invade the town in the summer months. Maybe this town too remembers its tourists and provides some amenities. Who knows? I might be surprised. But no, after a short hike up the hill, I find nothing. And there is no one in the little shack who can help me find anything. I decide to go back and look for my travel mates. Maybe they have found the coveted bathrooms.

I run into them before I reach the car. They are looking for a restaurant recommended to them by the salesperson at the shoe store, where Rita and Vera have spent the last hour or so. I realize that Rita did not waste her time there. She bought one pair of shoes and one pair of sandals and per her testimony they didn’t even cost that much. She couldn’t resist them because they were so unique. No one she knows owns cork shoes, and these shoes are so cleverly painted, on top of being made of such unusual material, that she just had to have them. She pulls the shoes out of the bag and shows them to me. 

I want to feel happy for her, but I don’t have the right personality for it. All I can think is, Do you really need more shoes? You already have so many boots and flip-flops and tennis shoes and platform shoes and only the almighty knows what else, and most of them you don’t use. Because the footwear you like the most is this pair of beat-up, faded leather boots that cost you only 5 dollars after you successfully negotiated the price down from 10 dollars, per your own report during one of our hikes. Now, these boots are disintegrating in front of my eyes. I also know that the fate of these cork shoes is going to be identical to the fate of the fado CD you bought in Lisbon. As soon as they get home they are going to be abandoned and forgotten until you decide to clean your closet and put them for sale on your table at a street fair or festival for an exorbitant price. Other than that, they are doomed to oblivion.

“Let’s go put the shoes in the car first,” Rita says cheerfully, and the three of us obediently follow her. On the way to the car, I receive a full report about the prices and the conversation that preceded the final transaction. I also learn that the fabulous people at the shoe store suggested we go have lunch at a restaurant not too far from here. “They said it’s the best restaurant in town,” Rita promises.

I don’t really want to eat lunch at a touristy restaurant, but maybe there will be a restroom there for the patrons. So, I agree. I will brave the restaurant and be a good sport. Besides, it’s lunch time for Vera, and when Vera is ready for lunch, we all are.