18:33
Today I'm in a village called Monsanto, in Portugal. And it's very cloudy. There's no sun. Just clouds. Very low clouds. This is fog. In my bag I have a raincoat. For the rain. A container with food. A bottle of water, and. a fork. I hope it doesn't rain. I'm parked at the bottom of the village. My van is here. So I'm going to explore the village by myself. There are many water fountains in this village. But it's not drinking water.
It's not water to drink. Here's a fountain. Now the difficult ascent begins. You can't see it, but it's a good climb. The ground is covered in moss. This is moss. What spectacular views! Wow, incredible. I'm going to climb the mountain backwards. I think it's less tiring. Although it's winter and it's cold. I've only put on a scarf and a sweater because I get very hot going up the hill. I warm up quickly. Well, here we can see some very small cars.
Very small cars with only one door. And they're perfect cars for these little streets in these Portuguese villages. A little window. A tiny little window. Oh, a kitten. Oh! It can't be! How cute! Oh, here comes another one. There's one, and here comes another. Well, babes, I'm going. In this village, there's absolute peace and quiet. Another cat. My goodness! How many are there?
It's the village of cats. How cute they are! Goodness! Well, in this village, it's very peaceful and they even leave their keys on the doorstep. Like on this door. Those are the keys there. Here's the clothesline. To hang clothes. But with this weather, it's not going to dry. It's all wet, in fact. Look at the water droplets. The clothespins. And there's a bell. Over here, we have another water fountain. The truth is, the water is very clean.
It's not dirty at all. It's crystal clear. There are lots of fountains, but the truth is, I wouldn't drink the water. That's why I brought my own water bottle. Because I don't know where the water in those fountains comes from, and I don't want to get gastroenteritis tomorrow. And here we have another fountain. This fountain also has clear, very clean water. This one here is the tourist office. But I already know the town. More or less. Over here we have some restrooms that in Portuguese are called "sanitarios" a bit of an open-air concept, outdoor toilets.
Actually, they're very nice. A bit of a cold ass, for sure, but at least they have water. My toilet in the van doesn't have water. And over here there's a fork in the road. We can go left and uphill. Up, up, up, up, or to the right and go down. And right here we have a café. The houses we see around here. All stone houses. They're all stone houses. And in the town all the doors are green. I think there's some kind of law or something to unify the town, and everything is green, everything is green. This must be the water meter. Water. And it's green too.
Over here we have another set of toilets in case you need to pee or poop again. And we have more toilets. This is a toilet but I'm not sure if it's gendered. A restroom, with a toilet, a sink, and that's it. And here we have another one. Oh look, yes, it is gendered. This one is for men. The men's restroom. And here we have the men's sticker. And normally these restrooms would have a spectacular view. But once again, it's all white.
It's all fog. There's nothing else. Right here we also have some benches with small stone tables. Everything is made of stone around here. This is the village of stones. Here the houses are built under these giant boulders. Here, for example, we can see, the stones are enormous. And between the stones, in the space that was left, There was a little house. This is a grotto, like a cave and apparently, this is where the pigs were kept. It has a little window and a door. That's how it looks. But it's spectacular because it's. It's literally two rocks together.
One big rock, another big rock. And in the middle, the grotto. This village is really cool. It has a lot of hobbit- like houses, to be honest. And now the difficult climb begins. The steep climb. It doesn't look very steep on the camera, but it is very steep. And I just love moss, I just love it. The green looks so good. Here we have a fascinating photo. Who is this man? Why is he at the window? Oh, oh! It's starting to rain. Shit. This is a house.
I don't want to make too much noise because I don't know if there's anyone inside and the door is open. I'm going to put on my raincoat. Let's see how I can do it. They've closed the door. I'm going to try and find another shelter. Everything is getting wet. Oh my god. Here, under a rock. Okay. I'm going to sit here and cross my fingers that the rain will stop soon.
I don't think it's going to stop soon. I think I'm going to be stuck here for ages. Let's see, let's clean the water off the lens with my pants because I don't have anything else. Literally. I mean, I'm cleaning this with my pants, you know. The village ends here, I climbed all the way up and now there are only more rocks. Rocks covered in moss. I'm under a rock. In front of me there's another rock. A big rock. A fountain, a lamppost, and more rocks.
It's very peaceful and I really, really, really like the whole village. I think it's spectacular how the houses are built with the rocks that were already there. Because what are they going to do? Take them away? No. And I think it's beautiful. This village seems like something out of a fairy tale. And even more so now in winter, because in summer it's very nice, but now in winter everything is a super bright green. It's a beautiful green and I love green. coming to these villages; it feels like I've stepped into a book. I love it. And thank goodness I found this. this rock shelter. It's a big rock.
