Descida do Zezere

Saturday dawned cloudy and grey, both weather-wise and in my head. An excuse for being in the bar was the football was only on pay-TV, but not for going back there at midnight. No long lie-in either as I was off on a gym trip kayaking down the Tejo. In Australia this would be a meticulously organised operation timed to the second. On Saturday we left 45 minutes after the scheduled time, not only because of people running late but time organising who was driving, which route, who needed fuel, how much extra we had to pay. I could’ve saved a couple of people the effort if I’d brought my 5-seater but silly me assumed there would be a bus or something so it wouldn’t be needed.

Instead I ended up in the front of the only decked-out Polo I have ever seen: 2 jet-engine sized sub-woofers in the back, DVD player and LCD screen in the front, the most unnecessary ironing board spoiler in history. Unlike the usual street racer image the music videos were commercial R’n’B/MTV chart, possibly sensing that the mood wasn’t appropriate he put on The Fast and the Furious. Its not so much the fact he drove like the movie, it was more I wasn’t completely convinced he wasn’t watching more of it than you should while doing 140 on a back road!
So we drove north for the next 2 hours. I only know it was north after tracing the route on the map yesterday. What worried me was when the other guys in the car gave up trying to work out where we were going. Towns, villages, paddocks, market gardens, vineyards, dams, bridges all flashed by in endless pursuit of the car that knew the destination.

We got to Constancia (near Abrantes) in time for lunch. Because of the Portugal-Iran game the restaurant that runs the kayaking was fully booked so we were escorted up the hill to the backup restaurant. I’d been warned lunch was bad, but these are Portuguese standards. As lunch came to an end and the start of the game approached I began to wonder whether we would do any kayaking at all, a hypothesis supported when we returned to the bar and tried to watch the game through the windows and the open door, while the patrons inside got in our way as much as possible.

My hypothesis was proved wrong – half time brought movement. The guy began ordering others to hitch/unhitch trailers of canoes from his crutches and herded us into a van. He then proceeded to struggle into the driver side, assuring us “I drive well, OK?” before we could think the contrary. And drive well he did along the side of the valley, while we looked down on the river below (until he got on his mobile while going round a hairpin bend which had nothing to do with a handicap). If I thought the slope to the river was steep the road across the dam wall provoked vertigo looking down the 100m sheer concrete face of the spillway (plus thoughts of The Fugitive), but we followed the less direct route down to the river past the hydroelectric power station and parked next to one of the “Zona Perigosa” signs (No swimming, no fishing). I wasn’t game to read the sign any closer.
And then finally onto the river (and occasionally into it). We weren’t kayaking on the Tejo, but the Zezere instead. The Zezere is pretty tame, the river isn’t exactly quick and there wasn’t much white water on the rapids with the recent rain. We were in double ocean kayaks (goat boats) and I was paired first with a guy I work with. The fact we were the two heaviest guys, and some communication breakdowns, ran us aground very quickly and left us in the water at the first rapids. So I was re-assigned to another boat. After establishing “Eu nao falo ingles” I spent the rest of the trip trying to read which side she was going to paddle on, and less time looking at the view than I should’ve. But we wound our way in the late afternoon back to the bar through gravel islands and overhanging trees and river grasses with little white flowers, looking up at slopes filled with pine trees. The new team didn’t stop us landing in the water at some rapids further down and by the second rest stop I gave up and went for a swim for the hell of it. The water was not warm.

Another key difference between the races: because the lunch was so bad I was advised to bring some snacks. So I brought some fruit and some water figuring no matter how bad lunch was I could still survive the afternoon on it. Everyone else brought a couple of rolls, half a dozen pastries, some drinks….. (this is for a 3 hour kayak remember).
Back at the bar we found out the result of the game, had a beer and a snack and headed back. Again a bit of a blur due to speed and tiredness, but the sun decided to show itself as we climbed out of the river valley leaving us with a magical view behind, the reflections off the Tejo as we crossed it and sun setting into the wetlands nearby sparkling etched themselves into my subconscious.

I’ve painted the day as a mission but I spelt it out becuase a lot of days end up like that. It’s not like its Africa or somewhere really hard to live but it can be frustrating at times. Of course the language barrier makes me a lot more uncomprehending. This could have all been planned: arrive for lunch, watch the first half, then at 3 when lunch has settled and the heat of the day passed (not an issue this day but possible) get onto the river and paddle about. And this trip was one of my highlights so far, not just the views and the kayaking but the people, as sad as going on a gym trip might seem it was nice to meet some people and try to talk to them (which is what travelling's all about) and then to be able to say hi to a couple of guys in the gym tonight makes the frustration worthwhile.