Taking me for a ride?

I flew back into Faro yesterday, having spent a long weekend with my dad back in the UK.

He’s not doing badly for a ninety-year-old, not bad at all. My food was laid on, lifts were given, lodgings provided. He just can’t stop being a dad.

When I’m there, I’m not allowed to do anything. I might be getting on a bit, but when I’m with my dad, I’m simply a callow youth once more. It’s weird, but that’s how Dad seems to want it. Or maybe he just thinks I’m broke and incompetent. That’s probably more like it, if I’m being honest.

Anyway, after a good weekend and once he’d dropped me off at Gatwick Airport so that I could catch my flight back to Portugal, everything went without a hitch: I was through security in a matter of minutes; Easyjet staff didn’t query the size of my bag; the plane left and landed on time; and the e-Gates in Faro were up and running – an unexpected bonus.

Then, once I was through passport control and Customs here in Faro, I headed out through the atrium, across the forecourt and made for the taxi rank. It just seems so much easier to catch a taxi these days than book one in advance, even though it’s probably a little more expensive in the long run. But I do feel slightly guilty about not utilising Francisco – he’s always been my local go-to taxi driver. There again, I felt guilty when I DID use Francisco and the flight was delayed, which at one point was a regular occurrence. What a conundrum, feeling guilty whichever way I turn.

Anyway, at the taxi rank, I was directed to the taxi at the front of the queue.

The driver greeted me in English (is it that bloody obvious?!), in fact, good English, and walked around to the back of his taxi to open the boot for me. I told him not to worry since I only had a rucksack with me. I then asked him to take me to Fuseta. I opened the rear door and plonked myself onto the seat before fastening my seatbelt. You can never be too careful, can you?

At the same time, the driver climbed into the driver’s seat, started up the taxi and then turned to me:

‘Fuseta? Which way?’

Eh? There’s only one way as far as I know – through Olhão. So, that’s what I told him:

‘Via Olhão please.’

‘Olhão and turn left?’

Maybe his English wasn’t so good after all – or maybe it was just his sense of direction. To get to Fuseta, you need to head to Olhão and turn RIGHT at the roundabout up near the Marim Business Park – the Area Empresarial de Marim. Oh well. Hopefully, we’d get to Fuseta somehow.

I simply agreed with him and decided that I’d direct him as we went.

And so, off we went.

Before we arrived at the roundabout though, we had to pass through Olhão. We were making good time, since it was just before 8:00pm and traffic was light. But on passing McDonalds, we saw that cars up ahead were braking and queueing. What was that all about? Then something clicked in the back of my mind, something that I’d read a couple of weeks back. The local ‘powers that be’ have decided to build a roundabout at the junction of the main road through Olhão (the Avenida Dom João VL) and the Estoi road (the Rua de Damaso de Encarnassão).

Bollocks. This would delay us.

I mentioned it to the taxi driver and he knew nothing about it. Rather strange, I thought, but maybe most people at the airport want to go west on arrival and not east. Maybe he didn’t travel through Olhão too often. Or maybe he was new to the job. Who knows?

Anyway, it seemed that the only way through was to hit the back streets of Olhão – not a pleasant thought with its narrow thoroughfares and numerous one-way systems. And yet, amazingly, it proved to be exceedingly simple, with the diverted route heavily signposted – a bloody miracle in Portugal, as the taxi driver rightly pointed out:

‘Which way we go now? You know the way? Ah! Signs! Good! Very good! Not normal in Portugal. Normally no signs and you guess…’

Even the locals understand that sometimes things are not that straightforward in Portugal.

Unfortunately, as we headed out of Olhão having successfully navigated the diversion, there weren’t too many signposts for Fuseta. What a bummer.

As we passed the Galp garage just up from the campsite:

‘We turn left here?’

Eh? ‘No, carry on to the roundabout.’

When we reached the roundabout, he then proceeded to miss the turning for Fuseta and started heading for the N398 that would have taken us inland towards the A22. Bloody hell, what was going on?!

‘No! No! You missed the turning! That’s the way to Fuseta!’

‘That way? Not this way?!’

‘No! This way!’

‘You know the way then?’

Well, I should do. I’ve only lived there for the past six years…

‘Yes, I know the way. Take this exit…’ the one that we were about to miss for the second time. Eventually, he got the idea, and we were back on track for Fuseta.

Phew.

Then I began to wonder if he’d thought that I was a tourist, and he’d, in fact, been trying to cheat me, that he’d been taking me for a ride. Mmmm… that was a possibility. We drove in silence for a bit, and then suddenly, the driver seemed to have suffered some sort of eye-opening revelation. As he turned to face me (not the sort of thing you like to see a taxi driver do as he’s driving along at 70 km/h), I could virtually see him slapping his forehead – metaphorically speaking, obviously.

‘You said Fuseta, didn’t you?! I was thinking Moncarapacho! Ah, I work too many hours today. I go home after this.’

Well, they sound similar, I suppose, Fuseta and Moncarapacho…

Was he having me on? Was he coming up with an excuse to excuse his attempts to take me the long way round to Fuseta? Or had he really envisioned taking me to Moncarapacho when I’d told him where I’d wanted to go? I have to be honest here, we will never know. But he was still apologising as we pulled up close to my house in Fuseta, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt, followed by the fare and a five-euro tip.

Am I a mug? Am I a glutton for punishment? Well, I might well be, but I like to think the best of people. OK, so I am a mug. But he got me home, he apologised for nearly going the wrong way, and he gave me a nice smile when I paid both the fair and a tip – and I can’t ask for more than that now, can I?