A couple of days ago, thinking that a few quiet hours to myself would be well spent by a drive into Spain, I took off on A-28 with great expectations. Believe in my near-conscious brain I formlessly expected I might run into haughty, corseted Spanish beauties with roses in their hair, looking with dark eyes over their fans, perhaps a matador or two…suit of lights and all that, a brace of Andalusian horses, certainly ancient windmills with jousting wounds, a few Basques innocently carrying bombs and quite likely Hemingway. eating an onion sandwich while counting his grenades.
And surely if I’d gone up through Caminha and stayed near the coast, all my expectations would have come to me, but I started out on A-28 and almost immediately dithered off numbly into the mountains and crossed the Spanish frontier inland by 20 or 30 kilometers. Crossed the frontier into the land of huge belching cement plants, rows of roadside trash and one truck repair cavern after another. I haven’t seen such squalor since my last trip through Tacoma.
It is very interesting to me that the Portuguese side of the border is so orderly and the Spanish side so chaotic. I wonder if that will prove a cultural phenomenon. Everyone I’ve spoken with about Spain raves about the food and glamor though, so I’ll go back for sure.
Back in Viana, I discovered the local rowing club which is just peachy keen. I say local, but the club is an amalgamation of two former clubs and between them the huge shell house and display cases are stacked with trophies from success in national and international regattas. The shell house contains 60 or 70 shells, yawls and ocean boats of every description and purpose and it is like walking through heaven if you are enamored of the sport. There are two types of membership, Competitive and Casual. I’m about as Casual as they come and indeed have some trouble walking sometimes, but once I sit down, Look Out!
Assuming I pass the obligatory class tests and get assigned to a geezer boat, there will soon be an 11 kilometer row up the Lima River and back in the company of other shells and support craft.
Who would ever have guessed I would be afforded the privilege of pulling an oar in a four or an eight, in the company of brilliance and in a setting of such magnificence. I believe this is part of the advice from a dear friend who said, “Don’t forget to enjoy the process.”
Dandy process.
Skip to content
