Another story from the other side
A couple of weeks ago I went on an impromptu exploration to the other side of the Tagus river, in Alcochete. It was interesting to explore the area around Montijo and the Tagus Estuary Natural Reserve, as I kept seeing this sandy streak of land across the river through my window basically everyday. I got so curious — thought I noticed some beaches and cute white houses… guess what, I was right!
It only took me a 30min bus trip from the Oriente bus station (431 is the most frequent!), I guess it’s also possible to take a ferry from Cais do Sodré to Montijo, but then you will have to hop on a bus again as I don’t think the walk is that pleasant (and quite long, too).
Alcochete, the former residence of rich and cultured (i.e. the royalty), left me with a very, very good impression — I didn’t expect to see a long, white promenade, parks filled with children, beach cafés full of people and beautiful architecture resembling that of little inland villages.
What really fascinated me though was the vastness of the surrounding landscape — the Tagus on low tide was something else completely.
I heard stories about a park in Samouco (a town right by the Vasco da Gama bridge) before, about swamps and flamingos there, so I thought it a good idea to walk a few kilometers on the coast and reach it (spoiler alert: didn’t make it in the end, something to look forward to next time!).
I kept seeing groups of people overtake me, they all wore gumboots, were armed with tiny shovels, a type of tool that we use for gardening back in Lithuania (getting rid of annoying weeds in summer time anyone?) and buckets. Everyone was digging up the ground/mud and looking for something. Having never seen this before (and, being a Lithuanian, of course I thought that they are looking for amber…), I had a chat with a couple of locals enjoying the sunset and turns out they were collecting shellfish.
As I learned, the Tagus has a special type of sea and fresh water mix that makes it a very happy place for different types of shellfish to grow. And, as it is very difficult to collect it on a larger, commercial scale, the locals use it as a main source of income here, selling the collected goods to local businesses even though it is a very hard, menial work.
I was so happy to have brought my new medium format camera with me, the Yashica Mat-124g, that I forgot the type of film I was using and exposed it using different speed. But it seems it all worked out well and I am super happy to share these photos with you! What a magical afternoon.
