Portugal: Nasaré, waves, dogs and cats

When Anne joined Trusted House-sitters it seemed like a good way to justify our accommodation by looking after a house and animals for people who otherwise wouldn't be able to travel.

Some people kennel their animals, others have a neighbor take their pet or stop by to feed and let their animal out.  Some find someone who they can trust to house sit and give their animals a great deal more attention than a kennel or neighbor might.

The downsides of this option is that our stays are not usually long - maybe a week or 10 days at the most, aren't all in the same area and you really can't string them together to cover a whole long period.  For example in this trip we had to travel 3 and then 4 hours away from where we were based to do two house-sits in-between AirBnb rentals and a generous offer by my cousin to stay at their house while they are off adventuring with a friend in North Africa.

In each case these were in places we wanted to visit anyway so for the price of petrol we had accommodation and an opportunity to care for furry things.

You have to be a little careful when you volunteer to house-sit because some pets are extremely high maintenance and you need to be aware of the warning signs if you want to avoid really difficult sits.  Anne has this down to a fine art, making sure we limit applying to sits with large numbers of animals and looking for signs that their animal care routines are within tolerable limits.  For example a dog that barks at other dogs on walks is tolerable, but dogs that have to be kept separated in their house and walked separately might be a red flag for a relaxed house-sit.  

Our experiences have ranged from people who happily skip phone screening before accepting our offer to sit (or skip meeting us at their homes before leaving for vacation), to people who carefully vet us, interview us and take an hour or so to show us the routine with their animals.  Any of these approaches are fine, of course, and I suspect if we were looking for someone to care for an animal of ours we'd be on the more careful than carefree side of screening before we left them to house-sit.

On the whole our experience with house-sitting has been really good.  We have sat pets in Spain, New England, Cornwall and Portugal since we started traveling and have really enjoyed it.  In total over the last year we have done around 6 or 7 of these sits and they have almost all been great.

Sculpture depicting a legend involving a deer's fall over the cliff and the newer tradition of surfing

Our house-sit for this week is in the town of Nazaré about 75mi (122km) north of Lisbon (90min by car).  It took us close to 4 hrs to drive there from Lagos in the Algarve. 

View of the headland from our house-sit.  Whitewater is where the big waves form.

We have been looking after a little young dog and an older mid-sized dog.  The mid-sized dog is chill but the little one occasionally goes insane when it sees other dogs in the vicinity.  There are also two fairly chill cats in this household.  On the whole the younger dog is pretty manageable because she loves people so is very cute to be around.  The condominium is up on the hills outside of Nazaré and close to an isolated country road that we have been able to walk along every day without coming across any other people with a dog thus avoiding the "crazy dog on a leash" experience altogether.

We did take the older dog to the town beach one morning on a day that the younger dog was in doggy day-care and just avoided exposing the younger dog to other animals altogether.

Nazaré town and the town beach

 Nazaré has become really famous over the past 10-12 years as a location that has the biggest waves in the world.  The town has two beaches, Nazaré beach and North beach.  North beach is where the massive waves are, when they come.  Someone we met in Lagos who grew up in Nazaré told us that as a young girl her mother would not let her go to that beach because of their fear of the big waves and the backwash.

There is a unique undersea canyon just off a headland near the town, which channels the water.  On ideal days, when wind-driven swells and local currents arrive together with this up-welling of water you can get peaks in the ocean really close to the headland that reach heights of over 80ft.

What amazed me about this is the shape of the waves.  When you witness big waves from ocean storms you expect to see waves that are more or less of even height, but these are like peaked mountains.

This is the time of year that these mountainous waves usually arrive at Nazaré.  The highest ever surfed at Nazaré (so far) was in October 2020 with predictions that at some point in the future there will be a surfer who surfs a 100ft wave here.

Unfortunately during our stay the waves were a modest 12-15ft which is still a massive wave.  We would have loved to see larger waves but we only had a week and I think you either have to camp out here for the season or have weather maps that can predict the swell before it gets here.

 
I was amazed at how crowded the little fort was while we were there on the Saturday.  The waves were big enough to attract a couple of surfers, with their jet-ski teams, who briefly tried to surf.

A surfer on a wave - around 6 times the size of his crouched body

 I was particularly interested in finding the spot where the photographer was standing who took the iconic image of Sebastian Steudtner and to figure out what size zoom lens he had used to get some of the foreground of the fort into the image.  The fort in the foreground gives a sense of scale and distance, comparing the people on the roof of the fort with the tiny surfer on the massive wave.

200mm lens from the hill behind the fort

We were not disappointed at all.

In fact the only thing that was disappointing on the day was discovering that I don't much like Alheira, a Portuguese sausage made of a mixture of meats and breads that I boldly ordered for lunch.  The texture and taste both surprised me.

I guess you have to try something twice before being sure so I'll have to try visiting Nazaré again sometime (and maybe take another bite of an Alheira sausage as well).

Portugal: Choices and consequences

We went for another visit to each of the houses that we had chosen.  Even before we walked into the condo and were handed the condo rule book in Portuguese, we had decided to opt for autonomy over convenience.

So, almost exactly a year after we drove down our steep driveway in Essex for the last time, we decided to put an offer in on the Energy House.

I suppose two things really influenced our approach to the offer.  The first was remembering how painful some of the unforeseen complications in the previous house were and the second was that we had a backup plan to come back again next year to continue looking if necessary.  

We lived in our previous house (a duplex) without complication for more or less the first 6 years - and then for the next 11 years had to deal with condominium management issues (neighbors not paying) and a neighbor who bought land behind us and delighted in using his access to the right of way in front of our house to engage in a pissing contest with us every winter.

The bottom section of our driveway was shared with two neighbors, one really nice couple who really needed it to access a portion of their land (but never used it) and the other (behind us) who didn't need it (a driveway had been built directly to his property before he bought his land) but he insisted on exercising his right to use it because the right to use it existed.

The consequence was that every now and again in the summer he'd drive some farm equipment over it and in the winter when snow storms hit and we struggled for hours to clear the driveway and occasionally to help our neighbors who would get stuck, he would pull up and start complaining or yelling about his right of way being blocked.

At one point we had someone living next door with other tenants who was single,  in her late 50s and who worked as a carer for some elderly people in a nearby town.  She would come home after her shift and occasionally (say a couple of times each winter) get stuck somewhere on the driveway.

Of course it was annoying - she didn't have winter tires, didn't drive up the driveway boldly enough and didn't plan her comings and goings very well but I would go out and try to help if she got stuck.  

Our neighbor behind, in contrast, would come by at some point and start yelling about her blocking his right of way, completely ignoring the irony of being able to drive around to the front of the house from his house, without even using the right of way that she was blocking!

He made the outrageous suggestion that she should park at the city hall if it snowed enough to prevent her from getting up the driveway - a walk of a good 20 minutes, late at night, in sub-zero temperatures.

The people living in the 2nd unit of the condominium became increasingly difficult to deal with as well.   Over the 11 years it changed hands 4 times, each time getting worse.  Towards the end with the last two owners we had a boarding house operating from the unit with very little that we could remedy.  I described in an earlier entry what we discovered about the last sale of that second unit and how the previous owner had scammed them into thinking they were buying both our and their properties.

So our new house would not have a shared right of way, nor would it be in a condominium.

We'll set aside for the moment the possibility that we'll still have crappy neighbors.   At least they won't have leverage over parts of our property to make our lives miserable.

So, given that we felt this way, and, more importantly, that we were prepared to walk away from the house and come back in 3 months and begin the process all over again, we put in an offer that was considerably lower than the listed price.  We had heard that the house had been on the market for about 7 months before we looked at it and so our offer was accepted by the seller with a little bit of haggling.   There are plenty of houses on the market in southern Portugal that are changing hands rapidly for large amounts of money but they are mostly along the coast so a little inland gives you a chance of a better deal.

While we waited for the process following our accepted offer to unfold we had a house-sit near the town of Santarem - close to where a friend from Kimberley lives with her husband.  

Two heroes and a pigeon, Santarem - photo Anne

 

We stayed in a large house with beautiful tiled floors looking after two English Setters - the "gun dogs" used for hunting, except one of them was freaked out by the little insect zapper we occasionally used on the mosquitoes that managed to evade their mosquito screens and the other was freaked out by the sound of gunshots from hunting that happens in the area twice a week (hunters with dogs who walk the land looking for birds to flush out).

We underestimated their skittishness when we watched the quarter final between France and South Africa on the Sunday night where our clapping and shouting sent them both out into the yard.  

I found them much later in two separate corners wagging feebly, their eyes shining pitifully in the beam of my flashlight.  

Being outside was probably the best therapy for them because once we coaxed them to come back inside with us they were as happy as clams to sleep on their beds in our bedroom again.

During our trip to Santerem a survey of the Energy house was completed by an engineer who found a few minor things that we will need to correct if the sale goes through.  We are now in the process of legal diligence where a lawyer checks that the property does not have any debt associated with it and all the plans are in place to justify the structure.

There is a risk that things won't conclude but it is diminishing as we move through each phase of the process.  We have returned to Lagos and have signed papers to give our lawyer power of attorney to conclude the sale for us if things drag out beyond when we return to the USA in a few weeks.

In the meantime, we are finding other obstacles to do with getting residence permits.  It is inevitably more difficult than you imagine and there is a constant stream of conditions that we hadn't thought of but are gradually wading through.

For example, it appears that you might have to show proof of steady income in your retirement.  This is not difficult for people coming from a country or company where there are pensions that start paying out when you retire, but the USA reinvented all of that in 1978 when they introduced a law that allowed for 401k plans. Basically a 401k is an investment account into which the employer can put pretax retirement funds for the employee and the employee can decide how to invest these funds.  Often the money is deducted from the employee's salary pre-tax and occasionally the employer matches a small percentage as an incentive to contribute.

In addition to not having pensions, there is a very strong incentive to delay drawing Social Security, the government pension also funded from your monthly salary.  The biggest monthly payout comes when you are 70 (you can draw earlier but the monthly payments are almost double at 70 than they are if you start at say, 63).

So this presents a perfect storm if you have to show proof of regular income for a retiree.   There is a chance that the person reviewing your application will consider savings accounts and investment accounts as unreliable proof because "who knows, you could gamble it all away, or buy a boat!"  We are working to eliminate this risk in the process.

We have one more trip which will be up to Nazaré next week where at around this time of year they have freak 100ft waves that crazy people try to surf.

Wait, is this a metaphor for what we are doing?  

Maybe.

Portugal: House hunting

I mentioned that we had a person who seemed a good option to help us buy a property.  He had promised to identify the pitfalls etc, but turned out to be acting at a slower pace than we needed. 

We switched out approach and started contacting selling agents directly to arrange to view houses.  Within a couple of days we were visiting properties that we had found on a variety of web sites - the most useful of which is Idealista - a site that my cousin showed us in April when we first visited Portugal. 

Idealista aggregates listings from a number of realtors and puts you in touch with them by filling in a form.  You can isolate the area you are interested in by drawing a shape on the map.  Once you have the area you can set additional filters that specify high and low prices and other items like the number of bedrooms and bathrooms etc. 

I also took to using google to search for property listings in Portugal and skipping any with "Luxury" in their description.

We included a few things in our list of nice to haves: a roof terrace, a swimming pool and at least 2 bedrooms.

It didn't take long for us to get a full calendar of viewing appointments, and we didn't stop looking.  I ended up on the ReMax website for Portugal where there were a ton of offerings in our price range. At this point we decided to go in and see an agent who could show us all of them, rather than reaching out to each ReMax agent in turn.

Interestingly (and to my dismay) the agent offered to become a buying agent for us as well.  No fee, but he'd negotiate some commission for his company with the seller and, he promised, he would give us his personal attention and get us the place we were looking for .  He also said that it was fine for us to continue looking with other realtors but we should send any new listings his way.  We decided to send our existing ReMax listings to him but to continue to pursue agents from other companies ourselves.

We sent him about 8-10 houses but after a week he still hadn't set up any viewings.  Once he did start trying to create viewings the existing appointments we'd already set made it hard for him to find time with us.   I did feel a little bad for him, because he had to find a time that suited both us and the realtor selling the property which is not easy. 

Even so we had a low rate of successful viewings with him.  Some were cancelled because they were sold before we got there and others were canceled when the selling agent was suddenly not available at the time we'd scheduled.  I suspect the additional glitch was that the selling realtors do not really want to share commission with a buying agent.

It soon became apparent that our "dream" house nice-to-haves were not very realistic for the price and locations that we were trying to accommodate.  We came across an absolutely amazing looking home that checked all the boxes and were blown away by it on our first view.  Elegant, with great views and a terrace overlooking a swimming pool.

The price was a lot more than we had set but we were encouraged to make an offer if we liked it because there was room for negotiation.

We went back for a second viewing and this time started to notice a ton of things that were concerning.  An outside annex with a bedroom and shower that had a massive crack in it right through the wall, a bathroom built under the terrace with an exterior wall made of plaster board and a septic tank that looked like it was collapsing - the ground above it was half an inch lower in a neat rectangular shape the size of the septic tank.  There were de-humidifiers in the rooms and no obvious heat or cooling other than space heaters and a fireplace.

In the Algarve it is much like the Eastern Cape.  Short wet winters and dry warm summers.   The average temperature in winter is around 11C (51F) which is not very cold - excepting if the house is not insulated.  Some people say you are really only cold in December and January and it starts warming again in February.  I'll bet it is a little longer than that, but either way an un-insulated, damp house is not the greatest way to spend a winter.

We had a free Monday morning this week and decided to walk down a dirt path to a large salt-marsh.  Olhão (pronounced Olyon and sort of rhymes with "onion").  The coast here has a big off-shore bar behind which is a large area of wetlands.  A ferry can take you to the bar, where you can spend the day on the beach.

I took my camera bag with me thinking that we might see some birds that I could photograph but we were inundated by mosquitoes and I lost enthusiasm for sitting there for a long time.  We decided to come back to the AirBnb, stopping for some coffee at a small, very simple Portuguese restaurant on the corner of our street.  The restaurant is unassuming with simple plastic furniture and is mostly frequented by the locals.

I haven't used my camera as much as I thought I would on these travels.  The truth is that we are driving and exploring a lot and other than when we visit new places we are doing a lot of repetitive activities where documenting with iphone snapshots is much easier.  

So it was not surprising that I didn't think about my camera until about five days later when I looked in the usual spot for it and didn't find it there.

I was immediately in a panic.  I remembered taking it in the car a few times one some of our outings and not using it and of course, on this walk on the Monday.  I realized that I must have left it under the table outside of the restaurant where we had coffee.

We had to leave for another house viewing early that morning so it wasn't until lunchtime when we returned that I was able to go into the restaurant to ask if they had seen it.

The owner said she spoke only "un poco" English so I mimed drinking coffee and putting on my backpack and I saw the realization dawning on her face.  With a big smile she lifted my camera bag from behind her counter and placed it in front of me.

Anne was waiting in the car outside and after insisting that the owner take all of the Euros in my wallet (she objected but eventually relented) I walked out with the bag over my shoulder.  Anne saw me coming out with a huge grin on my face, my backpack on my back, and she ran into the restaurant to give the owner a big hug!

It is amazing that we were able to recover it considering how easily the bag might have been picked up by a passer by or just taken by a staff member (we lost a pair of binoculars at a restaurant in southern Mexico that way in December last year so we knew the feeling)! 

We were so happy and relieved!

By the 3rd week of house viewings we had on average one or more viewings a day lined up for most mornings.  By now we have processed around 50 properties - some were cancelled but we have seen most of them.

We had this one amazing house on the list.  The owner, who is German/Croatian is passionate about energy efficiency and has renovated his house to the point where it gets an "A" grade.  He refitted it with "wet" underfloor heating, managed by a tank of hot water that is heated by a solar panel and from a wood cooking stove in the kitchen.  In winter the stove doubles as a heater for the house and for the hot water.  Of course this hot water is also used for the bath and showers.  The house has air-conditioners with inverters that can both warm and cool the interior and insulation in the walls and roof to keep the heat or cool inside when the double-glazed windows and doors are closed.  He also built a fully equipped gas kitchen/braai outside to use in the summer.

The downside of this house was marginal but has weighed on us.  The price is more than we can afford (although we believe that we could bid for lower than they have listed) and the house was located in a pocket of 7-10 houses around 8 min from the nearest small town (São Bartolemue de Messines) and about 16min from a town big enough to have a hospital (Silves). 

The Moorish castle at Silves

It is also a 20-30min drive from the sea.

The location matches for convenience more or less what we had near Boston - somewhat remote and a short driving distance from most amenities.  But this, at a time when we are supposed to be thinking about getting old and having things close-by (preferably walk-able) has made it a less attractive option.

On the other hand we also started to look at smaller terraced houses in or near a town called Albufeira which is one or two kilometers from the sea.  We have fairly big reservations about living in a condo, but it appears that things might be a little more relaxed in that department in Portugal given how they are regulated and that many of the home-owners are away for a good portion of the year.  

We decided to also give condo houses a look.  In some cases they come with a shared pool.  The shared areas include the pillars, roof and terraces and the upkeep of the shared areas is handled by the condo management company rather than by the owner for a small fee (between 40 and 160 Euros a month).  Apparently it is mandated by law that condominiums are renovated at least every 8 years but when we asked about this, the realtor said, "Yes, sort of...".  If the condominium fund is not able to pay for this, the owners have to chip in - so there is likely a sum of money that we'd have to keep aside for this eventuality over and above the regular fee.

 

We saw a really great little terraced house in a condo this week with a garden it has become the second of two we are considering buying.

It is a two bedroom house with a garden and a terrace about 30min walk from the sea so it checks off most of our boxes if not the "don't live in a condo" one.

To be honest we have gone back and forth on these two houses for days.  The one that we call the "Energy house" and this condo close to the ocean.  We have driven past both of them a few times, taking the time on Sunday to park near the condo house and walk from there to the closest beach where we had a swim and lunch.

On our walk to the beach we came to an intersection where an older couple were walking seemingly from the beach.  I said to Anne: "Perhaps we can ask them if this road is a short cut to the beach" so we called out to them, "Excuse me" and were amazed that they apparently didn't hear us.  We tried again twice and they just kept walking.

Anne and I have been traveling for months and my hair has grown down to my shoulders so perhaps we just looked sketchy to them but I more or less shouted in frustration: "We are just looking for directions to the beach".

The man turned on his heel - maybe 20feet away from us now and said in a clipped Irish accent: "Ohh now, you just take that road down there and look for a slight left turn and it is about a 10min walk from here".

Hippy hair and unusual wall art in Albufeira - photo by Anne

It was so weird - not just because they ignored us, but that they swung around without a murmur of anger that I'd shouted at them and carried on as if they'd stopped on our first "Excuse me".

We had already driven to the "Energy house" a couple of times and mapped the distances to relevant amenities so we had that information as well.

I think what has sealed the deal for us is this thought:  "What are the chances that in the next 10-15 years we'll end up having some difficulty with those who are elected to manage the condo?"   I think it is fair to say that it is quite a bit greater than zero.  If we own a free-standing house and we have a neighbor who isn't great we can take steps to either ignore or isolate ourselves from them.  

Neighbor problems are often noise-related or related to disputed territory (rights of way etc.) so having to deal with something like that is also a likely future.  I think we are better equipped for that than if we live in a community where we feel powerless to make changes to improve our own lives.

This week we have to decide and we'll fret and lose some sleep while we make up our minds.

The Curry Leaf in Lagos