WAGS 2023 12 06: Bensafrim and Beyond
There is more to Bensafrim than at first meets the eye, to be sure.
For example, there is its ever- vibrant morning café society
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and its ancient standing stones
which helped prop up Rod and John during the carefully composed Starter Photograph.
Starters´names as in Rod´s Leader´s Report which follows immediately:-
An unusually numerous
mob ( Myriam, Hazel, Geraldine, Tanja, Janet, Antje, Maria, John, and Rod....7
out of 9 ladies to boot!! ) turned up at Bensafrim Market Square on a cloudy but
warm morning. Following the usual idle chatter over coffee, off we set towards
the hills north of the village. Myriam inevitably delayed proceedings by
dallying with her gardening and cooking pal...a senior citizen who always greets
us when we pass by on this route.
and an intriguing new mural:- more on this later.
Eventually we set off up the path directly
north of the village. If it were thought that this stiff climb might mute the
chatter, not a bit of it!
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| No, Hazel is not walking DOWN the hill - she is walking backwards UP the hill. |
Even before we reached the top, Myriam was on the
phone to the restaurant booking a table, rattling off the menu and taking orders
for lunch. If there had been any doubt before it was now abundantly clear that
lunch was now the key element in WAGS walks...as if there ever had been any
doubt!
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| "Yes, that´s eight galos and one couve" |
From there we wandered along the undulating ridge to the ancient watch tower, where, as usual, Maria ascended the interior stairs to reveal herself...well you know what I mean!... at the upper window.
"Who will rescue me?"
We continued north along the ridge to the point where it
drops sharply down into a gully with another sharp ascent on the other side.
Hazel does some more walking backwards. Is it Christmas already? ***
(*** A Goon Show reference, for the cognoscenti.)
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| Although it is mid-winter, Maria still manages to find a flower. |
At
the top of that ascent there is a T junction with the old main track heading off to the
right. From previous walks around these parts we were aware a certain amount of
agricultural and urban development had been happening there but now no entry
and private property signs discouraged entry. Normally this would
have been a challenge to investigate...particularly as, to the leaders
knowledge, this has been a public footpath for at least 25 years, but on this
occasion the possibility of being late for lunch precluded this.
So in the
event we turned left along a lesser track which as it happens was new to WAGS
walks. It was heading south back towards Bensafrim and shortened the loop we
might ordinarily have taken. This track wound through the hills, gradually
descending to the main track heading back to the village.
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| The new path Then some more flowers appeared which , of course, had to be photographed artistically.    as well as an armchair, conveniently placed, should the passer-by need a short rest  Local residents of Bensafrim were pleased to see us return...   and Janet paused to admire the new mural again...  The Track and the Statistics    |
Roderick Frew
until, tired out by the exertion, he needed a restorative massage....
Then, of course, there were the puds and the coffees....
+351
935587382
The Lunch
This was the Prato do Dia menu:-
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| One of Paul´s many new sale-surplus rugby jerseys. |
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| Rod, abstemious as ever, managed to get some fish soup |
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| Geraldine had the Couve à moda de Pincho |
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| and the rest of us all had the Galo à Antigo |
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A chunk of the Galo |
While the walkers were eating, Paul exercised his newly acquired skills as a portraitist
Then, of course, there were the puds and the coffees....
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| not tempted |
And now back to that mural.
"O ventos do monte, O brisas do mar.
A historia que voi conta
Dum pastor Florival
Meu irmão de Bensafrim."
"Oh, winds of the hill,
Oh, breezes of the sea,
The story that I am going to tell
Of a shepherd Florival,
My brother of Bensafrim."
A song by Jose Afonso, also known as Zeca Afonso, a Portuguese folk-singer and song writer. That´s him in the picture. Look him up in Wkipedia. Opposed to Fascism and the Esatado Novo regime, he wrote the song "Grândola, Vila Morena" which was the signal to the Portuguese Armed Forces during their coup operation which led to the Carnation Revolution April 25, 1974.
What exactly his connection was with Bensafrim is uncertain, although he did teach for a couple of years in nearby Lagos.
As an interesting reflection on Portugal´s colonial past are the facts that when he was 1 year old, he was taken to Angola where his father was a judge. Later, he lived as a child in Mozambique and, although he returned to Portugal (Coimbra), his father and his family went to East Timor. After the war, he went back to Angola, Mozambique and also to Macau in the army. And later, when he had children, he sent them to Mozambique to live with his parents. He died in 1987.
Myriam is doing more research, maybe into Florival, a real or a folkloric figure.
For the full Portuguese lyrics of O Pastor de Bensafrim and an English translation, look up
O Pastor de Bensafrim https://www.letras.mus.br/jose-afonso/494815/
if you are interested.
Meanwhile, here is Jose Afonso´s recording of his somewhat impressionistic and atmospheric song:-
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