WAGS 2024 04 10: A Slow Start and Some History Added

We will start with a greeting received after last week´s blog from Dina who hasn´t been with us for too many months. 

"Obrigada. Que saudades! Não se pode ter tudo!"

Let´s hope that she can make it again sometime soon.

Now this week brought us an interesting and somewhat unusual walk led by Antje  but it did take some time to get going. First of all, JohnH´s mobile, essential bit of kit on these occasions, misbehaved and needed some attention to get it going. Next, there was a lengthy discussion about the size and numbers of the holes on Antje´s mobile which seem to differ from everyone else´s. 

Then of course we had to spend some moments admiring the collection of model aeroplanes and cars which are on display at the Lagos Railway Station café, among them being a plane I had never heard of before, a Morane-Saulnier MS.406.

Not a very big plane, is it? Not much headroom for the pilot. Perhaps Yves knows more about the type.

Then, we trooped outside to get ready for the Starter pic beside the newish monument to Algarve Railways but, first, Hazel had to examine the spread of white pebbles in front of it in order to determine if they were genuinely white stone or if each had been individually whitewashed. This involved a considerable amount of bending down....

Rear View No.1

.... and photography

 And then the memorial plaque to 100 years of Algarve Railways  had to be studied

 Finally the Starter pic could be taken. A low turn-out again, but short trouser weather.

Off we went at last, only for our progress to be interrupted while we stopped by the roadside to examine a converted lixo lorry, now a mobile home to some enterprising and artistically inclined Europeans travellers.

Note the trompe l´oeil window and the blue head-geared Touareg. Perhaps it had come via Algeria.

But time was passing and we hadn´t even reached the boardwalk yet. We did get there eventually but soon paused for a chat and de-robing . 

Antje then led us off the boardwalk, not down to the beach as might be expected, but away from it, making our way up through the line of beach hotels and then on into an area of woods and meadows which I would not have imagined to be there at all.  

All was now going well when, suddenly, our progress was interrupted yet again, this time by a herd of nursing cows with their calves. Myriam said "I´m not going through that lot !"

So we turned back. This meant that Antje now had to rely on dead reckoning and old memories to get us through some trackless woods

but this she did rather well, eventually bring us out to some tracks and open meadows which she recognised from past dog-walking.

There were lots of flowers so of course there were the customary pauses for floral photography.

There was also some more bending down....

Rear View No.2

......the object of interest being some sort of wild orchid.

We were now in an area which Antje and Myriam knew very well, from a residential point of view and we moved on at a quite a pace and then turned left and towards the sea.

Θάλαττα! θάλαττα! 

On our way beachwards we met a rather talkative Yorkshire lass walking a pair of well-groomed dogs and that entailed another long pause.

and then Antje revived the old AWW tradition of  getting well and truly blooded.

Then down towards Bar Quim and the Meia Praia train halt where JohnH was filmed filming a train

 and Maria was filmed waving to some friends of hers on the train

The Lagos boardwalk is now  provided with a series of information boards, mostly about flora and fauna but we stopped here to look at the one referring to the history of the Meia Praia settlement. That was an opportunity for some impromptu music and dancing.

More on this song as well as the documentary promised by Myriam in the History section below.

Time was now pressing and the Leader decided to forego a coffee stop at Bar Quim and said that we should head for home  immediately since lunch was scheduled for 1 pm. JohnH took her exhortations literally and shot off at such a pace that he missed the route back that she had intended us to take.  A due reprimand for ignoring the Leader was delivered and received in a friendly fashion before we sat down to lunch at Tasca Lota where Paul was waiting. 

The Track and the Statistics

The Lunch

Apart from one bitoque

fish seemed to be the favourite of the day. Dourada and belt fish

and bacalhau, Codfish or Godfish depending on which bit of the menu you read. Godfish was cheaper than Codfish for some reason.

Maria´s plate of bacalhau was substantial enough to give her a para fora.

The History

We are indebted to that indefatigable researcher and historian Myriam for the following pieces on the history of the Meia Praia settlement. Myriam writes:-

"History on the Índios da Meia Praia. Officially called "Bairro de 25 de Abril" .
In the 1950s, some fishermen from Monte Gordo moved to Lagos, where there were fish in abundance. They walked, cycled or begged money to ride buses to arrive. They built tents and huts on Meia Praia and made a living out of fishing. Gradually the tents turned into precarious wooden houses with corrugated metal roofs. After the revolution of 1974, the SAAL appointed the architect José Veloso to be the co-ordinator.
The Ministry of Sea (Ministério do Mar)allowed them to use the land on condition that every inhabitant must work together to build the brick houses at the same time. While the men were at sea, the women and children built the accomodation.
In the end, 40 houses were completed, according to the number of families registered.
Because of the previous tents and huts, they were nicknamed The Índios da Meia Praia.
To honour them, Zeca Afonso composed the music and lyrics which summarise the history.
In the video, Sr. Fernando, whom we met in our WAGS walk, is one of the originals. Now three new generations have been born there.
In the 1980s, there were plans to remove them. But many organisations and individuals, including the architect José Veloso, grouped together to defend them. Now there is a supermarket and a crêche. It is a strong tight community. They own the houses, yet the land still belongs to the Ministério do Mar."

(We first came across José Zeca Afonso and his songs in WAGS Blog of 2023 12 06 .

https://wags2022.blogspot.com/2023/12/wags-2023-12-06-bensafrim-and-beyond.html 

and Sr Fernando in WAGS Blog of 2023 10 04. 

https://wags2022.blogspot.com/2023/10/wags-04102023-getting-lost-with-myriam.html

Ed.)

Myriam also writes about the SAAL as follows:-

 "This commission was formed in August 1974, to solve the problem of habitation. The local governing bodies supplied the land, building materials and architects for the infrastructure. The inhabitants themselves must supply the labour for free. In the cities there were protests because of high unemployment in the construction sectors. The Algarve was the most successful in this project. One of the best examples was the Bairro of Meia Praia. At the beginning, the locals were suspicious of the sincerity of the arquitecto José Veloso, who soon gained their trust. Later it was immortalised by the beautiful song of Zeca Afonso.

José Veloso was always on the side of the population. He was one of the strongest voices against the removal of this Bairro. He passed away in January 2024, aged 93."

The SAAL, or Serviço Ambulatório de Apoio Local, in the Algarve was a little bit special  as this piece from Wikipedia tells us:-

In the Algarve region , SAAL operations stood out from others due to the speed of the process, in which the start of work was not delayed after the process began. According to architect José Veloso, an important figure of SAAL in this region, in the Algarve "SAAL was only possible because people believed. And that's why they participated. There was no need for documents, there were no inaugurations, the money arrived after the houses are being built". 

As soon as he learned about the start of the program, Veloso addressed the populations living in precarious huts in the town of Meia Praia . The operation that took place here was immortalized by the song " Os Índios da Meia Praia ", by Zeca Afonso (who became a secondary school teacher in Lagos ), and the film " Continuar a Viver ou Os Índios da Meia Praia ", made by António da Cunha Telles .

The Meia Praia case demonstrates the general nature of SAAL/Algarve operations. The residents to be relocated were mostly from fishing communities who lived in precarious conditions, which by providing their own labour allowed the construction of housing to be accelerated. In the case of Meia Praia, the type of housing only began to be discussed when the walls had already started to be built. Its almost organigram-like structure revealed the architects' concern for “evolutionary construction”, that is, allowing for the possibility of subsequent expansion of the interior space.  

Eight thousand hours counted
They worked according to precept
Until the first
authenticated document arrived
A check came in the mail
And some friendly bricklayers
Whoever comes to live here
Don't bring a table or a bed
With seven feet of earth
A hut is built
There were women and children
Each one with your brick
“This was an orchestra”
Anyone who says otherwise is a fool

— The Meia Praia Indians

 -- José Afonso

Here is the link to the documentary that Myriam promised us:-

https://youtu.be/_rl5LApv1lE?si=qSDpu96vktQ-QhJm

and here is the link to Zeca Afonso´s song :-

https://youtu.be/iHMEoYiBnKM?si=JSOJd1Fzjt7U217Z

And that´s your history lesson for the week.

And now, the Leader´s Report which seems to have been floating around the ether without my noticing it for some time.

"Five of us met in good time at Lagos railway station for a coffee. The start was delayed though, as a heated discussion and much examination of the stones surrounding the railway memorial took place. WERE THE UNIFORMLY WHITE STONES PAINTED OR NOT?

We then set off towards the walkway, starting opposite Sopromar Marine and  followed it until we reached the site of the now being dismantled garage.. Sadly all this bit of open space will be built over.
We turned inland heading across a meadow /for the little stand of pines with  the aborial adventure playground.
 The intended route had been to keep on straight along some open ground  and then downhill to join the walkway at Meia Praia station.
A unexpected  face to face with a number of large horned cows with calves decided  us to retreat and  find the alternate route uphill through some scrub land towards Myriam and mine former home ground. 
The reward were views over the whole bay and some very pretty Pyramid orchids.
Arriving at the station the majority decision was to miss out the sands but to return via the wooden walk..Along it,  Lagos council has  put up several informative placards about fauna and flora of  the dunes.
We lunched at Tasca da Lota, conveniently situated at the end off the walk."

Thanks for additional photos to Antje, Hazel and Myriam.

Closing music

After all that educational stuff, you probably feel like relaxing so here is a gentle piece in our Walking Music series, this time by Madeleine Peyroux:-