Join Steve Kane to explore a remote area of Northern Portugal
Below is his invitation
Torre de Refóios is the home of Dom José Almada. Surrounding the ancient fortified tower are three one bedroom cottages that have been converted for tourism.
Text supplied by Steve Kane
If you stay in Torre de Refóios you'll find that the parish of
Refóios extends far up the hill. This is true of nearly all the parishes
around our mountain (around 3,000 ft and filling the area between Arcos de
Valdevez, Ponte de Barca, Ponte de Lima and Paredes de Coura.) Only one parish
is entirely on the mountain - Miranda. I live there. Within a few hundred
yards is a stream with several mills - four of them working continuously.
Our bit of the village has around thirty working ox-carts and just a handful
of cars.
Wolf
Above the village is wilderness - gorse, brambles, forest - feral ponies, foxes, wild boar, wolves. Very few people ever go there. During my seven years here I have seen only four walking tourists (apart from those few people I bring here) - both couples were lost. Locals go up to hunt on permitted days if they are in the club - or else they look for lost cattle or horses. There are large expanses where nobody goes except for me - because they are hard to get into and harder to get out of. Despite recent fires there are larger dense areas where no humans go - because you cannot - except behind a bulldozer - this is where the wolves and the boar hang out. Although all these places are beautiful some are rather frightening - perhaps it touches ancestral memories - as does the finding of the trail of a wolf - or a recent kill. The wolves are no danger to us but something in us remembers and the hair goes up on the back of the neck. A wild pig with piglets is more of a risk - though undeniably cute.
Five years back a wolf would appear on the hill - kill - be poisoned
by the pony keepers. I'd wander the mountain wishing she'd learn not to return
for 'afters' and so eat the poison - knowing that if she did she'd kill far
more ponies (Dartmoor type - as is our climate - vegetation is more 'New
Forest' but thicker by far). Recently things changed - the pony owners
grew bolder and burned pine plantations to create more pasture and so put
more ponies on the hill (subsidies at work) - the she wolves learnt to stick
to fresh kills, with all those ponies, often only nominally belonging to
residents (only we have the rights) her victims were not missed (those that
survive are sold to be eaten by Frenchmen after a harrowing journey in a
truck). So we have real top predators on the hill with the male wolf dropping
by as needed (I see their prints together for a few days). I'll do nothing
to make it easier for anyone to detect them, I just keep an eye on their
signs and trails - once in a while I see one of the two families - I have
plenty of evidence that most of the time they see me. These wolves do not
pack nor howl.
If you care to come out with me I cannot guarantee wolves - just a land fit
for them, also full of the incredibly rich ecology that such a place needs.
Someone called this place 'Devon on Drugs' - if that means everything more
wild and extreme, but based on common ingredients - then I'd agree.
Etc
I know this place very well, so if its other things you're into we can take them in - on the mountain or off. Although many of the trails I like to walk start and finish in my kitchen - several start on the top and finish in a restaurant at the foot - a real place generally where you can go in grimy from the mountain and eat very well shoulder to shoulder with brickies and truckdrivers. (in some places you brush off the mud and join lawyers and teachers). A lift will get us back to your base. You can do this for a weekend or a week (or a day if you live nearby, or want a break from a different kind of holiday), and we can send you off to do other things for a change - be it shopping in a market, ornithology in the delta flats or surfing on the coast.
Best Times
Off season. Frequently it rains in the winter, but if you bring the right
clothes we can still do fine - some creatures I've only seen in a downpour.
August is the pits. Spring comes early and lasts for months - one set of
flowers giving on to another.
Anti-tourism
Really this place does not need tourists - down in the valley - yes - not up here. What this place needs is friends - tactful types who drop by unexpected but don't make a mess or upset the neibourship. Generally I go about looking like a peasant in search of a cow - or perhaps someone off to beat a Scottish moor (little difference except the peasant has a brolly hooked to his collar). If dayglo Gortex is all you have I won't turn you away but might make you walk 100yds in front or behind. The locals are unaware of the wolves now (they think the Spanish steal the ponies) - it would be nice if they could be barely aware of you - then we can slip alongside their bread baking and corn threshing as it happens. This mountain is changing fast - often not for the best - we will not be part of the problem.. In this way we will differ from eco-tourism - that generally distorts things to make them tourist friendly. If we seem to tell these people that they are wrong - they will do more wrong just to spite us - believe me I know. Everything is different up here - more different than many 'long haul' destinations.
The Deal
You stay with Dom José at the Torre de Refóios or or in
one of the other manor houses owed by members of his family. Four people is
near my maximum - I prefer less, but I'm open to suggestions especially for
a short time. I have no fixed idea of a client except that I prefer them
interested - 'interesting' helps too. Young or old - male or female, fit
or feeble, so long everyone calls me up and we talk it over I reckon there's
few who cannot be included.
I speak English and rather crude peasant Portuguese. I used to speak French
but it gets rather tangled with the Portuguese these days. I am quite good
at communicating with people who don't speak English well.
You sign a 'blood chit' - a legal form to say that you journey at your own
risk. I have training in mountain leadership. We'll carry a wireless phone
for emergencies and you will have the regular travel insurance. We will take
no dumb risks on my say so - this is not that kind of deal.
Money per dayThis cannot be compared to those walk-tours where an imported guide goads you along a fixed route along with a crowd of other folk - that's 'tourism' - this is more like personal infiltration - almost time travel in some nooks and corners.
One or two people - £30
Extra people - £30
(one or two kids free at my discretion)
Fairy Tales
There is a legend that a thousand years ago the original owner of the
Torre de Refóios had a bad day hunting bear on our hill. In frustration
he wounded a wolf and was thrown by his horse. He awoke in a cave - being
nursed by a beautiful maiden. Also in the cave was the wolf and she nursed
it too, perhaps with more tenderness because 
she was none too pleased with him for injuring it, as she had been cared
for by these wolves. Needless to say our hero gets the 'hots' for the girl
and accuses her of bewitching him. She persuades him that she's a nice girl
abandoned by her parents who couldn't care for her. He wants her badly but
she has to stay to look after the old frail wolves who raised her. He returns
in something of a mood and chucks himself off the top of his tower
Fairy Lesson?
This shows all the hallmarks of being based on a far older story. As with the Siberian and Inuit versions the hero travels to meet the maiden of the hunt (Viana de Castelo was called Diana in the old days after the Roman goddess of the chase). His task is to comfort her - but here she cares for him - his job should be to heal the rift between her and his tribe. His desire to own and control drives him mad - in the end he uses his own castle as his suicide weapon. The true shaman does not journey for himself or for mere sensation - he travels into the world of nature to see it reconciled with his people. He returns with nothing more tangible than harmony and the right of his people to their legitimate quarry. Should you meet this maiden on the hill - perhaps sipping at a spring-fed pool - it'll be thanks to the seemingly vital thing you left behind and here are well without.
Steve Kane can be contacted at lumby@manorhouses.com and your email
will be passed to him..