land of discovery
The roundabouts were killing us. Every few hundred metres, we chanted ‘right is right’ as Brandon swung Eugene’s thin steering wheel towards me and we sailed, remarkably unscathed, through our nine-millionth traffic circle, on the ‘wrong’ side of the road.
We’d been told highway tolls are pricey in Portugal, so we’d opted for the back roads. And while some of the scenery was pretty, it wasn’t quite postcard stuff. More like Sunday mornings in the Klein Karoo, complete with the equivalent of Pep stores and mechanics’ workshops, and clutches of elderly men sitting on white plastic chairs staring at us as we drove past. ‘Look at their cute berets!’
Ah, Portugal.
I’d resisted this land of sardines and cork handbags. It felt as though every Instagram feed I’d seen recently was awash with photos of Porto’s jumbled buildings, or someone holding a pastel de nata in Lisbon, or someone else pretending to hold the setting sun on the Algarve. Everyone was going to Portugal. Therefore, we should definitely go to Azerbaijan. ‘It has beaches!’ I’d said. But my husband is very persuasive.
Admittedly, there was one place in Portugal I was desperate to
