WAGS: 25.05.2022: Chinese Whispers Change the Countryside

 

It was a close run thing – I had thought that this blog was going to have to be two for the price of one, because even by the time we had started our walk this last Wednesday, no blog  for Wednesday 18^th had appeared. You know the one, the one at Bensafrim where Hedley and Alistair joined in. Apparently, Paramount Chief Blogger Paul had spent so much of the previous few days glued to the TV screen watching either Women´s World Cup Sevens and/or Euro Women´s Taekwondo Championships – inspiring him to offer his services as a Thigh Masseur – so that he had forgotten all about blogging. (No, I´m not making this up – it´s all in his WhatsApp record.)

Of course, it is a bit difficult to report on a walk when you haven´t actually walked it, but Rod is such a good reporter these days that it doesn´t need too much imagination to construct a covering blog. Admittedly, some of the photographs do need some sort of explanation. For example, does any one know what this photo from 18^th May is about? 

 What was an abandoned highspeed boat called Flasher doing marooned in the backhills of Bensafrim ?

Anyway, by the afternoon of May 25^th the missing blog had at last appeared, so I need now only to deal with Wednesday 25^th May and, as I was the Lucky Leader, I can combine both report and blog into one piece.

Lucky Leader, because just before the start, it was just me and the four lassies. Ingrid had declined to join us – perhaps she had been put off by a recently circulated photo on WhatsApp of a banana being used as a Monkeypox PCR test. She abhors cruelty to bananas.

 Yves too was typically cryptically absent.

First moment of the day, and the four lassies were admiring me ! That bit was OK.

Then, for some reason, they all ganged up on me. 

What had I done wrong all of a sudden? I don´t know.

But before matters could get too much out of hand, just in the nick of time Rod turned up, saved me from a fate possibly worse than death, and we were able to take a proper Starter photo.

The Starters: Hazel, Myriam, JohnH, Rod, Dina and Maria.

When we started off - once the Leader had remembered to retrieve his camera – he really does need looking after these days – we enjoyed one of those experiences that makes walking in the Algarve such a pleasure. One enters a quiet little village with its typically unpretentious, traditionally time-honoured colourful and unspoilt rustic architecture. Such is the tiny settlement of Caravela.

Then, on into gentle flat country side. Not that the scenery is unchanged, however, from our previous visits to these parts. For, moving along a by-lane past a quiet field where once in the past the only occupant of note had been a donkey, there sat a very large shipping container, all 2,697 cubic feet of it.

How and why it had got there, is hard to guess. It must have been lifted by crane over the old and rusty wire fence enclosing the field - the fence was unharmed -  no other sign of entry. We speculated what might be inside it. A consignment of plastic Christmas trees? A collection of fake Ming porcelain. Drugs? Bodies? A flat pack housing kit or two? 20,000 pairs of bamboo chop sticks? Who knows.

Myriam was on hand to translate the owner´s identification for us.

Simplified Chinese	中国海运（集团）总公司
Traditional Chinese	中國海運（集團）總公司
Hanyu Pinyin	Zhōngguó hǎiyùn (jítuán) zǒng gōngsī

aka. China Shipping Group.

The license plate, if you look closely,  shows that it is owned by China Shipping Container Lines (Asia) Co. Ltd, Tortola, British Virgin Islands. Oh well, BVI, that´s all right then. Must be all above board if it´s from BVI.

What is known, thanks to research by Myriam, is that CSG is part of a large shipping group China Cosco Shipping. CSG owns 430 container ships, 15,600,00 tons strong. Whether they know that their container no 6939325 is lying in a remote field somewhere between Silves and Algoz is open to doubt. If we tell them, will we get a reward?

Then a little bit later and even more off the beaten track, we came across another mini-mystery. There, under a tree, to which a rudimentary child´s swing was attached, lay a pair of fairly new Nike Air trainers, cost say Euros 70 a pair and, on the other side of the tree, a mobile phone. No human habitation nearby. Curious.

And after another kilometre or so, we came upon a newly established small holding, 

two small chalets, a flock of sheep and goats guarded by a admirably fierce little watchdog, all well fenced in. 

What prompted them to set down just there?

Another obstacle... no problem

Later on, we found that one of our favourite shortcuts is now closed off by still more high-quality fencing, the land having been cleared, irrigated and planted, not with avocadoes on this occasion, but with fig trees.

At this point, we called Paul to say we would be back at Café Martins in one hour time but this was an underestimate as we were all by this stage slowing down, and then another shortcut which had been a perfectly usable track had now been blocked which necessitated a minor re-routing.

All change in the country side.

And so back through the rustic charms of Caravela 

to find Paul, looking fit and tanned in his shorts and blue rinse, fairly champing at the bit for his lunch.

Proto de Dia was Borrego stew. Not perhaps the most elegant of dishes in terms of presentation , but very ample and absolutely delicious.

Most of us went for the lamb, but the ever- abstemious Rod had a simple papo-seco com quiejo

There were fruits and a maracuja mousse which some found a bit bland but which I really enjoyed, so much so that it was finished before I had time to photo it.

We missed the Whittles at lunch...it wasn´t quite clear if they were at the airport or at home, still sampling various whiskies. All will be revealed later, I am sure.

The Track and Statistics.

The last time I did this track, it was in my little blue car: nice to be able to cover the ground  on foot again. 

Distance: 9.4 kms. Moving time. 2 hrs 21 minutes.

Total time: 3 hrs 7 minutes. Average moving speed : 3.9 kph. Chinese lessons 35 minutes.

Closing music: all I can come up with is this.