After what seemed like an eternity packing and unpacking and re-packing the car in an attempt to squeeze in everything we wanted to take, we finally set off. Oil and water levels verified and topped up? Check. Petrol? Check. Passports? Check. Kids strapped down with enough entertainment to last them three hours? Check! Let's go!! And after one brief stop off at the garage to check the tyre pressures we were at last, and very much thankfully, on our way. Hurrah!!
Once we were on the motorway there was a distinct raising of spirits in the car and a further second raising of spirits, at least from the designated driver, ie, me, as we crossed the bridge over the Tejo. The stresses of suburban life but most importantly the stresses of driving through Lisboa were behind us. The kilometres drifted past with the sun beating down and with each passing olive grove, barragem and pine forest we drew ever closer to our destination at an old friend's farmhouse in the southern Alentejo.
Time was also ticking on and as we started to think about which service station to stop at for lunch the trouble started. "Cough, cough", went the car. " Everything okay?" asks my wife, to which I reluctantly replied, "No, everything is not okay", and it seemed that the decision to stop at the next services or the one after was made for us. I managed to limp the car up the slip road and into the nearest available parking space. We got out and clutching the blue cool-box found a picnic table to eat our lunch and talk about what we going to do. We were just under an hour's drive away from my friend's Quinta (Farmhouse in Portuguese) and so after much deliberation we decided to go with the "It's an intermittent problem and the car will get us there" option. So we finished our lunch of bread, cheese and fruit and set off on the continuation of our journey.
We got about 30 kilometres down the road and were just leaving the motorway when, at the toll booth, the car started to misbehave again. Just as before, I drove the beast into the nearest available parking space at the side of the road adjacent to the toll booth office. Out came the insurance documents and a mobile telephone and the call was made. All we had to do now was sit and wait for the tow truck to come and get us.
So we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And then, with an unequivocal inevitability, my mobile phone rang. It was the tow truck driver. He spoke no English and my Portuguese is hopeless over the telephone but fortunately for us, the guys that worked in the toll booth office were both bilingual and keen to practice their English. So now, once more, we had nothing to do except wait for the recovery truck. Well nearly nothing. We still had to decide on the destination of our tow truck ride? We needed to make a decision as to whether the tow truck took us onwards to my friend's house or back all the way to Estoril. Tricky choice. After much discussion we eventually decided to throw caution to the wind and go onwards to my friend's Quinta. Our children were hungry for a holiday and we would worry about getting the car fixed later. (Besides, we'd learnt from our previous Car Trouble that the recovery vehicle would only take one passenger, which would mean that if we returned to Estoril the rest of my family would have to get a taxi to the nearest train station at some considerable expense.) An hour later, and one more phone call later, my friend arrived at the toll booth with his 9-seater van, albeit on the other side of the carriageway. The tow truck had also arrived and both of the toll booth attendants had joined us in the lay-by for a veritable roadside knees-up. The attendants, refusing to allow my children to cross the carriageway, ushered my family through the service tunnel under the road and back up the steps on the other side to where my friend had parked up his big blue van. Then they set off in one direction, with me in the tow truck headed in the other direction, both destined to circle round somehow and finish our journeys almost simultaneously at my friend's Quinta in the Campo.
And with the journey at it's eventual end an enormous sense of relief filled our hearts. Clearly the second leg of our journey to Spain and Gibraltar would no longer happen, but none-the-less, we were happy to have arrived in the Alentejo safe and sound. That night we tried to forget about the car, enjoy the company of our hosts and relax over a few beers. Tomorrow we would make some phone calls and try and get the car fixed.
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