The Walking Festival. Part 1

Monchique. I first noticed the pungent smell during a hike. Something didn’t seem right with the natural surroundings and the path I was taking from Caldas de Monchique. I was coming from the oversized resort hotel known until recently by the name of Longevity, which had been built there a decade ago without a building permit, although this was subsequently approved. I crossed the N 266 from Montinho and headed towards the village centre, turning off the tarmac road onto a dirt track. This was before I reached the water factory. There was an inconspicuous turn-off to the left, so I walked down it over a small bridge spanning the stream coming from Monchique and climbed up a path that was supposed to take me to Nave. Here I noticed the many manhole covers lining the path, one every few metres, and they stank of shit. Not a good start to a hike in the Monchique Mountains, I thought.

At the beginning of this century, the last specimen of a Dinosaurus Rex still lived in Monchique. At least, that was the name that had been given to a politician who ruled over Monchique for 27 years and was finally voted out of office in autumn 2009. One fine day, this last specimen had the crazy idea of building a 27-kilometre-long sewage pipe from Monchique to Portimão and even succeeded in getting the EU to co-finance this pipe dream. Back then, such things were possible. José Manuel Durão Barroso was still President of the Commission. What happened?

The highlight: taxpayers’ money from Brussels for a pipeline.

The town’s own sewage treatment plant in Nave, a small village south of Monchique, had been abandoned for many years. The keeper of this prison where the town’s own faeces had previously been processed had taken his well-deserved retirement and there was no suitable successor. No one in Monchique wanted to do the job, and the training was complicated. And who in Monchique wanted to deal with their own shit? So the sewage treatment plant overflowed and (almost) all of Monchique’s faeces poured into the stream, which flowed downhill through the beautiful village of Caldas de Monchique and so on and so forth…

The first tourists were already taking photos of the toilet paper and sausages floating downstream. The management in Caldas complained. That’s why Monchique came up with the idea of outsourcing the sausages. Portimão! And some clever clogs even spread the rumour that the district of Monchique would soon be closed down and come under the control of the mayor of Portimão. Mayor Nuno Mergulhão died and was replaced by Manuel da Luz, who became famous for building a motor racing circuit in the countryside. However, the incorporation of Monchique into Portimão turned out not to be true. Funds were raised from Brussels, and a fantastic fantasy was built: a 27-kilometre-long pipeline running along the edge of the stream that flowed south from Monchique towards the sea, a pipeline that transported whatever came out at the back further and further, until it reached the suburbs of Portimão and then the River Arade.

The sewage treatment plant in Portimão itself was still just a pipe dream. That’s how politics worked in the Algarve in the early years of the new century. At that time, sewage treatment plants only existed on paper. In reality, they still had to be built – which was completed by the company Aguas do Algarve SA. And so, for many years, until 2022, nearly all the sewage from Monchique flowed via a pipeline down to Caldas de Monchique and on to Rasmalho, then to Porto de Lagos and down to Portimão, where it was discharged untreated into the River Arade and from there into the sea: out of sight, out of mind. Whereas, in other countries, gas was being sent through pipelines, faecal matter was allowed to flow from Monchique to Portimão. And when the bathers at Praia da Rocha wondered what smelled so strong there, it was the perfume that came from the Monchique mountains. And, with this smell, I made my way to the Walking Festival, which was once again taking place in Monchique, just as it does every year when winter approaches and it starts to rain…

To be continued next week.