Thursday 14th January

Up early and very tired, we decided to leave the shopping car park and hopefully this town. As we drove away to the post office, we saw what had made the big crashing noise in the night. A huge sign above one of the shops had been ripped off by the wind and was in pieces on the floor! Driving further into the town, there were road signs pretty much flattened from the wind as well as branches scattered everywhere. Back at the post office I again said my piece in Portuguese, and after a look around the shelves, was again told no! This time I passed them the tracking numbers and established one of the parcels had gone to the original destination of Colvilha and the other was still in Lisbon. The woman went off to use the phone, hopefully to find out about the parcel still in Lisbon. I decided well at least we would get out of this town and head back to Colvilha where the other parcel also would no doubt arrive tomorrow. After a while the woman came back and I established that she had arranged the parcel from Colvilha to be sent here tomorrow! The other parcel still in Lisbon, well she didn’t know when that would come or where. I tried to explain that it was ok I would drive to Colvilha, if only to get out this town, to pick up the parcel there. But as she spoke no English and as I couldn’t say this in Portuguese, all I kept getting repeated back was “tomorrow parcel here”. I walked out the post office very deflated, the weather was still windy, cold and very wet. We would be staying in this town for yet another night. I didn’t even bother going to find out about the ski station, as no doubt it would be open but the roads closed and the weather was no good for skiing anyway. So back off to the car park for more waiting. It seemed such a great idea, get the parcels sent to a town in the National Park and we could wait while skiing or walking round the mountains! The plan was not working out, next time we got anything sent, it would be by the sea somewhere warm.

On my way back to the motorhome I decided to stop in a shop selling gas bottles, to ask whether we could get our empty French gas bottle refilled. Only problem was, I soon discovered after walking in and finding out he didn’t speak English, was my phrasebook didn’t cover this question! I tried some visual clues as well as probably saying English words in a strange accent, I was getting nowhere. The shopkeeper then called his daughter and explained to me in Portuguese she spoke English, then after saying a few words passed her on to me. Well she also didn’t understand me so again we got nowhere. He must of felt sorry for me and the situation as next he got two oranges out of his bag and gave them to me, I managed to establish there were from his own tree as well. I thanked him and we said our goodbyes. Back at the car park as we were tired it was on with heating and back to bed to try and get some sleep that we missed in last nights wind.