Pomarao, Rio Guadiana

Making use of the local Wash House

THURSDAY 1 MAY 2008

It is a public holiday today in Portugal with Fiestas in most villages, but Pomarao is having their fiesta on Saturday. Roger and I did our washing in the village wash house.

There are no shops in Pomarao, but a bread van comes most days, a veg van comes Wednesday and Saturdays, and a cheese van on Saturdays. There is also a fish van. There is a bus every Tuesday to Mertola. A man of about 40 (who looks about 30) keeps chickens and sells his eggs.

I packed a picnic and we walked into the hills, passing through the beautiful village of Farao where we chatted to a very friendly old Portuguese lady over her garden wall. We found a lovely spot under a tree to have our picnic. On the way we had seen Bee-eaters, a Hoopoe and the rare Golden Oriole and a fox. We decide to try and do a circular route back to the village, but we ended up going through undergrowth with very spikey bushes. We had to clamber up a steep wall and ended up in someone’s vegetable patch! 

We had a drink in the bar in Pomarao and chatted to the Dutch couple again and a local, called Fernando, about birds that we’d seen and birds of the area. The villagers still talk about the flood of 1997 when the water level in the river rose by 30 feet!

We had dinner in the bar with Dennis and Wendy. We had pork, belly pork, salad, herby rice, chips a pudding of sweet pudding, coffees, brandies and 2 bottles of wine – all for 34 euros for the 4 of us!

WILDLIFE: Fox, Bee-eaters, Hoopoe, Golden Oriole