Breaking up is hard to do!!
Well, we ended the love affair with Lagos Marina. After
arriving back in Portugal June 2 from our Canadian junket, we trolled around
the internet for a week and a bit waiting on potential work prospects, and
decided enough was enough. If nobody was going to put us to work, we might as
well continue cruising until they do. And so we left the fine little port of
Lagos and all the friendly people of Portugal behind and set sail eastward
toward the Mediterranean.
But we before we close the Lagos chapter, I want to share
some sadness about the place. Lagos, like all of the southern coast of Portugal
– you may know it as the Algarve Region – has become another great big-condo-barren.
Don’t get me wrong, the dozen or so historical, and I mean HISTORICAL Portuguese
towns like Lagos in the region are cobble street, piazza quaint and charming,
but they seem from our experience all to be surrounded by 10s of thousands of mostly
empty condos. The historical city centres have been very nicely tarted up and
‘touristized’, but the rings of suburban condos surrounding them are, well, disappointing.
Irena and walk frequently in these areas, in our losing fight to keep fit, and I
can tell you, “we are in no danger of being run over!” We walk down street
after street of condos frozen in various stages of completion. From holes in
the ground, through hulks of moss covered multi-floor shells to empty finished
and landscaped buildings, these neighbourhoods tell the sorry tale of a little
bit of real estate folly. The building cranes are long gone. Judging by the age
of the overgrown vegetation on the unfinished building sites, I would guess the
workers put down their hammers probably sometime 2008, when the subprime
recession kicked in. In the buildings that were finished, most of the units
have been sold -- and some for a pretty penny in the early days --- but most of
them are pretty much empty nevertheless. Purchased by speculators in the boom
years, they have been left now ‘unloved’ apparently in a declining market. And
like the deserted streets, the never occupied shops on the ground floor and the
moulding pools behind rusting fences, these barren neighbourhoods are haunted
by their emptiness. The ex-Planner in me sees the car oriented suburban
neighbourhoods of condos soulless in the best of circumstance, but to see them
all but deserted is a bit unnerving, especially given, that with a little more
thought and a little less greed, it could have been better.
And what does this means for the people who live in this
part Portugal? They will need to find a new way to make a living. Historically,
the people of Lagos, and in neighbouring villages, made their living by fishing
and by trade. The slave trade did a roaring business in Lagos for nearly a
hundred years. We stood in the main town square in Lagos by the town docks and
read about how families of slaves were separated -- husband from wife, children
from parents -- and auctioned like animals. Now there is a statue and a
fountain at the foot of the steps of the catholic church which otherwise oversees
the square. A darker time. Then there was a period of industry in the Algarve, but
this moved overseas with globalization. Today, in Lagos we see the remains of
industry -- half a dozen stunning brick chimneys -- preserved by some romantic
Portuguese, now jealously occupied by the ubiquitous heron. They make great
nesting sites! And now that the high end recreational real estate market is in
retreat, and tourism begins to wither in the European recession, these people must
again find another means of getting on. But knowing what we know now after some
time with the resilient Portuguese, I think they will find a way. I spoke with a
boater on the docks one day close to where
Conversations
was moored in Lagos Marina. This fine fellow came to Portugal from Brazil to fund
his retirement with real estate investments. Ten years ago, he bought a whole
building. Now the unit he and his family occupy is the only unit occupied in a
building of 10 units. At least, he says, “It’s a quiet building!”
Reflection:
The wheel of change rumbles ever on. As Europe struggles to
heal the Euro, Portugal struggles to find a new basis for an economy, and Lagos
seeks to hold its real estate market together. We see transition is everywhere.
You would think transition would be easier when we volunteer
for it? To misquote William Shakespeare on greatness: Some are born in transition, some achieve transition, and others have transition thrust upon them. (Twelfth
Night). Maybe. Maybe not. I think transition is always hard.
While we wait for work, Irena and I have been girding
ourselves by remembering, by virtue of our lifestyle, we have chosen
transition. The pressure of transition is one of the costs of the lifestyle we
live.
Like the Portuguese, we too will all find a way.
Can’t wait to tell you about Seville in our next Blog!
Kinda fun, sailing to Seville. Its 50 miles inland!
Seville lies miles up the wide and gentle Rio Quadalaquivir.
We navigated the shallow river mouth and enjoyed sailing when we could, and
motoring when the wind died. We took our time, moving up river with the flood, which
ran, surprisingly, all the way to Seville. We anchored early evening, just
before dark, when the flood turned to ebb, and stayed the night in the
delicious peace of the Spanish country side. When we reached Seville, we could
have locked into the eastern river branch and entered the downtown harbour. We opted
instead to anchor in the free river about four miles from the city centre near
a small yacht club. We were glad we did - we enjoyed celebrity status for being
one of the rare cruisers to come to town. It was lovely to have goats on one river
bank and a small town on the other. We did day excursions by bus into the city
centre.
We were interested to learn that at the peak of the Spanish
empire, Seville was the only centre in Spain where the King allowed new world
goods brought in from the off shore colonies to be traded. This preserved the
region and protected the main trading centre from attack by other nations, as
they were otherwise wont to do. It would have been a sight watching the square
rigged Spanish ships, with no engines, working their way patiently up and down
50 miles of river with the tides!
