5 Jan 1989 - an interrupted night

We decided to stay in this area overnight, it is in the middle of nowhere with not a soul in sight. At about six‑thirty yesterday evening a police vehicle pulled up; no questions asked but we could stay there for one night only. Fine. At sometime in the small hours there was a banging on the camper door. It was the police again, the night shift wanted to know what we were doing. The guy with the torch asked if we spoke French, and his face fell when I said no (not at that time of night anyway!). We showed him our passports and the bird book, saying that we were looking for 'aves'.

This morning I check in the phrase book that I had the right word for birds, only to find that birds are 'pajaros' and 'aves' are chickens. The police must have had a good laugh at us, look­ing for chickens out here. But we are told later that aves is the scientific term for birds, so perhaps we impressed them instead.

The reason for our interrupted night, we think, is that there was a drug smuggling problem around Lisbon, and our stopping place for the night was at the end of the Tagus Estuary where a small boat could have brought in con­tra­band. Thus the police probably made a point of checking the area regu­larly.