Wild Boar Down - Portugal House Hunting Trip December 2023
We drove to Poço Azul (the blue pool) I think, that's what it is called, the other day. It was around a 15 minute drive from Land of Deveza where we are staying and working, in a little town called Santa Cruz de Trapa. I drove for the first time in months and it felt really good. I put on the Flashdance soundtrack and drove pretty slowly, but my wrist was ok! A little achey, but fine. Ben was a little tense and no wonder, with me not having driven for months and not having driven on this side of the road since we arrived. Access to the pool was via a long, steep cobbled path, in the shade, down one side of the valley towards the sound of the waterfall. Then we hopped down some giant, steep stone steps down and around a cliff-edge corner to bright blue and green pool at the top of a giant waterfall. It was a tiny area in direct sunlight! So beautiful. All the surrounding stones were smoothed by the water and some had carvings on them. It had been raining a lot and so the waterfall was furious. It seemed a little unlikely I would jump in, despite having my swimming kit with me, never mind chucking a stick in for Frank. Actually all I could picture was Frank bouncing down off the rocks to the bottom - Splash, ping, snap, bounce, snap, snap... away. I walked a little further down and around to see if I could get closer to the water and the smooth rocks, where I assume people would laze around and slide in with ease, during the warm summer months. I was jumping from rock to rock, concentrating hard on the ground and the stones I was picking to stand on. I suddenly jammed my right hand (the one I broke a few months back) against a tree to stop myself from standing on this horrible gaping little pig face before me. It was a wild boar. Lying on it's side, only a band of fur remained around it's midriff. His frozen little face looked a bit like Alf - remember Alf? Like a cartoon character or a little puppet that had been dropped on the floor from a great height. His tongue was hanging out and his eyes were staring. Flies inspected his body. I was fascinated but at this same time couldn't look at him for the thought of what would have happened if I had actually stood on him mistaking him for a stone. Would he have wobbled around like a jelly? Or been rock solid? Either way I would have screamed and jumped up in the air and quite possibly toppled off over the edge of the path down in to the waterfall. When you break a limb, you really feel quite unstable and imbalanced. This all might sound a bit far fetched, but it was a real possibility through my eyes. Ben and I stood trying to figure out what might have happened to him. Did he pop in for a swim at Poço Azul and get swept down to this point? Probably not - it was 3 or 4 degrees outside. Did an eagle come and bite him on the head? I didn’t see any eagle bite marks, and I'm not sure an eagle would go for such a big creature. I'm no detective I guess. Once I had stood thinking about it for long enough, I couldn't go back over and I didnt want Frank to start licking him, so I asked Ben to take a close up photograph of the little boar's body - which I still haven't been brave enough to look at. As we walked away we looked back and I thought, indeed he did look just like one of Gavin's puppets. Perhaps if I'm feeling brave this weekend I'll take a look at the photograph and attempt a drawing of it. *UPDATE* I asked Ben if I could see the photograph and low and behold, there is no photograph! It didnt take… and so we’ll have to head back and try to find him again and take a photograph with my Sony. But he may have been eaten already, poor guy! I’ll need to draw him from memory…