A city girl with a bus pass jumps in a rental car and hits the mountain roads
After living in Lisbon, I am spending the next year in different towns in Portugal. I want to get to know this country and its people better. I am eager to see what the next chapter of my life here might look like…and where it will happen.
Picture it. This big city girl from Manhattan zipping around the mountain roads in the heights of the Serra de Estrela mountains with the sun warming my face and the wind blowing my hair. Just me and a sea of hot, professional race car drivers.
While true, it wasn’t quite as sexy as it sounds.
Traveling to the Peak
The day after my drive on the perilous mountain roads, aka golf cart paths, to the vertical village of Piódão, I must have woken with amnesia, as I jumped in the rental car and headed back into the mountains. A Portuguese friend had sent me a text saying I MUST drive to the peak of the mountains! Truly, the mountain roads had been wider than the golf cart path to Piodao. It was all a matter of me controlling my fear. So off I went.
Not long after hitting the mountain road I realized I was not very skilled at controlling my fear and I was white knuckling it once again.
Why do I do this to myself? I could have gone to one of the many natural swimming pools close to my farmhouse and spent the day floating in the cool waters which would have been the perfect antidote to the 105 degree heat.
But here I was once again in a terrifying situation. A healthy amount of fear is one thing but this was on another level.
Driving with the Pros
As luck would have it, a pack of professional racecar drivers decided to use the mountains as their training ground that day. Perfectly timed to match the height of my fear as I got closer to the peak, a string of these speed demons came zipping towards me. Fortunately for them, they were hugging the side of the mountain while I, on the other hand, had no room for error. One little misstep from them could trigger an reaction from me that would send me plummeting to my death.
After the first wave of drivers passed, I spotted three more race cars cutting doughnuts at a viewpoint on the side of the road. As I tried to understand what removes all fear from some humans, I saw four more cars coming towards me. As they sped by, I spotted the ultimate daredevil of the pack with one hand on the wheel and one hanging out the window holding a video camera.
It would be interesting to see his reaction when he reviews that film and sees the look on my face, which must resemble a middle-aged version of “The Scream”.
Note to self: Track down racecar driver, secure video, and apply for rights to “Middle-Aged Scream”. I can see the coffee mugs and screensavers everywhere as the royalties fill my bank account.
Finally, after taking five years off my life, the string of drivers ended. Soon after, I reached the peak, parked the car, and resisted the urge to fall to my knees to kiss the spacious patch of land under my feet.
Surprisingly, I still needed a bathroom break after the drivers almost scared it out of me. After a quick pit stop at the tourist center, pun intended, I walked outside to see what was so appealing about the peak.
On Top of Portugal
As I walked away from the tourist center, I became increasingly surrounded by the landscape spreading out around me. Still shaken up by my experience with the racecar drivers, I was hesitant to go too close to the edge, staying at a comfortable distance while enjoying the views. As I stood there with what seemed like all of northeast Portugal at my feet, I had a feeling of being on top of the world. I felt rooted to the spot as I drank in the beauty of it all.
When the spell finally broke, I began to look around. I noticed people taking the scattered rocks of various sizes that covered the area, and building towers. Not wanting to miss out, I decided to participate in this ritual. As I chose my rocks, I watched a man nearby going to great efforts to build the biggest and best tower of all. Ahhh, men. Always so predictable.
After choosing the perfect rocks to create a nice, small, stable tower, I had a flashback to my Lincoln Log days, as I was constructing the most stable tower given my supplies. Of course, as soon as some kid came skipping through and kicked them all down as was happening to the left of me, my “art” would be all but a distant memory of mine. At least it would have a short life here on top of Portugal.
After my little but mighty tower was complete, I stood back, admiring my work and was quite pleased. I snapped a photo of my masterpiece, and headed back to the car, estimating my tower would be kicked over by that kid before I left the parking lot.
In Search of Butter
After a quick check of the map, I chose my next direction of the town of Manteigas which is the Portuguese word for butter. It was almost lunchtime and there had to be something delightfully delicious to discover in a town named after butter. This quick drive would take me close to the highway which I was definitely taking home, despite the time it would add to my day.
Shortly after I turned onto the road to Butter, a fresh new hell greeted me. I was back on the golf cart roads and evidence of many fresh patch jobs dotted my path to Cholesterol City. All of this can’t be good for my heart. I made a mental note to schedule a cardiologist appointment as the white knuckling began again.
As I was driving slower than a snails’ grandmother, I noticed a stop light to the right of me, buried in the side of the mountain. Did they want drivers to see the light? If so, they might have chosen a more prominent location. The light was there in place of a more dependable human being, to alert you to wait for the one-way traffic that was coming.
A Tourism Killer
I later learned from my host that the road to Butter had washed out in a storm and had to be rebuilt. However, shortly after they shut it down, locals complained about the loss of tourism due to the closure. So they patched up enough of the road to open a lane for one-way traffic that was regulated by this obscure stop light.
You know what is bad for tourism? Having tourists, many who are not skilled at navigating your normally treacherous mountain roads, driving this even more dangerous stretch. When I end up in the rocky valley below, battered to death by the fall, that news will surely be a tourism killer. But hey, what do I know?
I waited about 10 minutes until a few cars appeared and cautiously passed me as my car was partially in their tiny lane. There was no way I was going to try and maneuver my car anyway but forward on that road despite it being a slight obstruction. Finally, the light turned green and I headed out, resuming my snail's pace.
Suddenly, I remembered the timer. OMG, I have to increase my speed! If I don't reach the other side before my 11 minutes expire, I might be faced with a head-on collision. I hugged that mountain as close as I could, destroying my right-side hubcaps as I rushed to the other stoplight, once again screaming obscenities to the mountain air.
After my mad dash, I finally made it to the side, before the light changed. I drove slowly into Butter, parked the car, and rested my head on the steering wheel.
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