Category: Travel

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The Hill of Life

Could the Origin of Life on Earth Be Found in the Thermal Waters of a Small, Forgotten Village in the Alentejo?

In 2012, the Portuguese press raised this question and placed the slow-paced life of the village of Cabeço de Vide in the spotlight. All of this motivated by a visit from NASA scientists who, after reviewing the published results of an analysis of the properties of the spring water from Ermida, decided to further study the research done by the Instituto Superior Técnico.

At the time, the excitement was great. The waters, known for their therapeutic properties for about 4,000 years and until then used by a relatively small number of people, could hold the key to explaining the emergence of life on Earth. Apparently, a geological and hydrogeological system so rare was identified in these waters that, besides Cabeço de Vide and a remote location in the USA, it only exists on Mars.

My Roots

For the inhabitants of the small parish, accustomed to the region’s legends and miracles, the news did not cause much surprise. For me, who had known Cabeço de Vide since my childhood, as a place where I had spent many magical days playing around the small pool and the surrounding woods, it wasn’t a surprise either. To this day, I still look at Cabeço de Vide with a touch of mysticism.

As an adult, my visits to Cabeço de Vide became more spaced out. With part of my family in Alter do Chão, my presence in the region was frequent, but work increasingly took up my free time. Thus, on my visits to family, there was little time left for leisurely trips to the famous waters. In fact, since becoming an adult, I can pinpoint exactly how many visits I’ve made to that place simply because I associate them with significant moments in my life. Specifically, there were three.

The First Shift

The first happened while I was in the peak of my career in the television industry. My life was, apparently, perfect. I had a glamorous and well-paid job, a favorable social standing, and a bright future ahead. I went to Cabeço de Vide and the Sulfúrea Springs to visit my grandparents, who were there on holiday. I had no idea that a major shift was about to take place in my life, much less the echoes this change would have to this day. Within six months, everything changed. My internal structure was shaken by the early loss of a close family member, which led me to question my entire existence and begin a deep search for the meaning of life. Ironically, a few years later, NASA visited the place, also in search of answers to the same question. The difference was that the answers the scientists were looking for were biological, while mine were more philosophical.

The Second Metamorphosis

A few years later, after NASA had realized that, despite its scientific richness, Cabeço de Vide was probably not the place where life on Earth began, I returned to the village to spend a few days with my grandfather, now without my grandmother’s company. Once again, within six months, my life underwent a major transformation. I still hadn’t found the answer to the meaning of life, but I was sure I was wasting it in the illusion of a stable career and apparent success. To save myself, I had to detach from materialism, let go of the addiction to work, and rethink my lifestyle. That same year, I quit my job and embarked on a deep transformation process, determined to build a life where I didn’t have to sell my time for money just to pay bills.

A New Return

My third visit was as a patient, about ten years later. This time, without my grandfather, who had since joined my grandmother in the unknown dimension of existence. I went, driven by unbearable back pain, at a time when I was living in Alter do Chão and believed I had everything to be happy, but wasn’t. I was sinking into a spiral of self-deprecation, fed by fragile self-esteem and worsened by a psychologically abusive relationship. I was in urgent need of healing, though I wasn’t aware of it. I religiously went every day to immerse my body in those sulfurous waters, whose therapeutic properties have been used for more than 3,500 years, dating back to Roman times.

I relaxed, improved, and heard, through the voice of an elder, one of the oldest legends of the village. According to him, in ancient times, the original settlement was not where it is today but in a lower part of the hill. This settlement was the site of a violent battle, and the number of dead was so large that it was impossible to bury them. The decomposing bodies became the source of diseases, and a plague spread among the survivors, many of whom were severely wounded from the battle. The hope for salvation was almost non-existent, so in desperation, they began climbing the hill, seeking fresh air. Miraculously, those who reached the top and inhaled the fresh air recovered. The news spread, and the entire population climbed the hill, settling there in search of more vitality. They began to call the place Cabeço da Vida (Hill of Life), explaining the origin of the name of this land.

Some centuries later, after yet another visit, in just two months, my life transformed once again. I regained the vitality and clarity to free myself from the situation I was in, returning to the path of a slow-paced life with purpose. Shortly after, I moved to the United Kingdom, where I experienced one of the most rewarding periods of my life: working as a biographer for people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, helping to preserve their memories before they were lost forever in minds weakened by the disease.

Today, Back to Cabeço

Today, I return to this enchanted land, perhaps in search of a new miracle. This time, unlike ten years ago, I have a clear sense of where I am. I know I have much to be happy about, having gathered a wealth of experiences in my quest for simplicity and the essence of life, but I’m struggling to find focus again. A lot has changed here. It’s known that life on Earth didn’t start in Cabeço de Vide, but its waters still have rare and special properties. Those “15 minutes of fame” have sown seeds that have flourished into walking paths among the cool of the trees, the recovery of natural and monumental heritage, and a river beach that helps endure the scorching Alentejo summer days. There’s also the restoration of a castle, with a breathtaking view of the Alentejo plains, which for many years served to defend the land from invasions during the various conquests and reconquests from the Moors, a cycle that began in 1160 by King Afonso Henriques.

I leave with renewed hope that my miracle is happening too. I carry within me the castle of experience and the rare properties of wisdom, granting me the ability to readjust my lens of focus. I realize that I, too, don’t have a clear and objective answer to the meaning of life, but I have what I need to keep carving out my path, breaking with crystallized beliefs and living a life outside the norm, with slowness, simplicity, and purpose.

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Water Over Stone

There are times when I visit a place so beautiful and have such wonderful experiences there that can’t wait to return and write all about it. These are places that offer me such special moments and I can’t wait to sit down and start crafting a story around that adventure.

“Wow!” I think, “So many metaphors, so many thoughts, and so many parallels with life can be drawn from this as I share the story of this place.” But when the time to sit at the computer comes and I open the text editor, no ideas come to mind. I try to write a sentence or two, and nothing seems good enough. No writing path opens up. No matter how hard I try, it’s a succession of writing and deleting that tests my patience and makes me angry with myself, questioning if writing is really what I want to keep doing.

This is exactly what I’ve been experiencing these past few days, returning from a trip to Foz do Cobrão, a village in the municipality of Mação, in the heart of Beira Baixa. This village is nestled between two watercourses (the Cobrão stream and the Ocreza River) and is a very special place. It was a wonderful visit, but now that I so badly want to write about it, I’m blocked, and nothing that comes from this dance of my fingers on the keyboard seems good enough to honor it. I write and delete, write and delete, growing increasingly frustrated with myself. If writing and storytelling are my passion (which they are!), this shouldn’t be happening to me.

I so much want to talk about the huge boulder that forced the Cobrão stream to find ways to continue its course and, despite that enormous and intimidating obstacle, manage to fulfill its purpose of flowing into the Ocreza River. What a perfect natural metaphor for describing life: a small and unassuming stream that, on its descent down the slopes of Serra das Talhadas, encountered a huge stone right in the middle of its bed. But instead of being intimidated, it persisted. Gathering all the resources that make water one of nature’s most resilient elements, it managed, with gentleness, to circumvent the imposing obstacle. Over the years, the seemingly insurmountable stone was shaped by the water’s persistence. This natural phenomenon gave rise to such a peculiar place that it became stunningly beautiful. But my writing today doesn’t flow like the water. It’s stuck behind the boulder of frustration that grows with my writer’s block.

It frustrates me to know it should be easy to let my imagination flow and write another story about how that rare natural phenomenon has captivated the Romans who settled there during their occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. Isn’t that a perfect starting point for developing a narrative about the obstacles life places in our path, the challenges it throws at us, the stones it puts in our way, and how sometimes we don’t have to destroy or overcome them because, with patience and flexibility, they ultimately reveal immense wealth and value in building our purpose?

But no, the pages is still blank. Nothing I write honors the beauty of that place and the surprising history of its early inhabitants. Because there’s more: the Romans, shortly after arriving, deceived by the lush forest and abundant water, quickly discovered that the land wasn’t that fertile for cultivation. Yet, like the water that circumvented the stone, they chose to stay and explore the potential of that seemingly magical place further. Thankfully, they did because the stream indeed hid a precious secret. A secret that needed someone with time and patience to uncover. Small gold particles traveled along the Cobrão stream. It was a contemplative gaze and a prolonged, focused observation that allowed the discovery of this treasure. A treasure that became the reason for the population to not only settle permanently but also to flourish.

Even today, it’s possible to see the “Conheiras” – formed by hundreds of rolled stones resulting from the soil washing for gold extraction – along its course, just a stone’s throw from the village, confirming the gold panning activity in that location over the centuries. What are the odds of such an activity existing in the almost forgotten interior of Portugal and lasting until the first half of the 20th century when gold finally became scarce? But today, I can’t turn this into a beautiful and captivating story.

The highlight of my day was when, while walking through the village streets, I encountered a lady holding a dog on a leash in one hand and a shopping bag in the other. It seemed she was waiting for me to share her story, as beautiful as all the metaphors the village had given me up to that point.

Mrs. Aurora (I call her that because I don’t know her name) approached me, intrigued by my solitary presence in such an unlikely place for an outsider to visit. When I explained that I love to explore precisely unlikely places and write about them, she decided to accompany me on my short walk and tell me how she ended up there.

This charming lady was born and spent her childhood in Foz do Cobrão. She moved to Lisbon in her youth and stayed there, got married, and had a daughter. Despite her life taking root in the capital, deep down, Mrs. Aurora harbored a secret wish to return to her village after retirement and spend her final days in that beautiful yet remote place. She never dared to mention this dream to her husband, daughter, or grandson because the more years passed and their lives solidified in the big city, the more unlikely it seemed to achieve it.

It was precisely her grandson, on a trip to his grandmother’s village during the school holidays, who, upon passing by the village school, said to his mother:

“This is beautiful! This is the school I would like to attend.”

This remark from her son occupied the mother’s mind throughout the return journey to Lisbon. Thanks to the pandemic, she was now working remotely and, on first consideration, found no reason not to fulfill her son’s wish, who was attending a school in Amadora where he faced increasing challenges both academically and socially.

In less than a month, they completed the transfer process for the boy, and the move to the village was done. She brought her parents with her. Mrs. Aurora not only fulfilled her dream of returning to her village but did so accompanied by her entire family. It was a smooth, natural process of redirecting the course of their lives, just like that stream. She ended her story by telling me that since being there for almost a year, not only did her grandson start enjoying school more and getting better grades, but her back pains also improved from all the exercise of walking up and down those cobblestone streets.

“Come and live, too!” she told me before we said goodbye. And I, in my eternal quest for a place to feel at home, whispered to myself:

“Who knows?”

For now, I choose to be inundated by the wisdom of the water and, gently and kindly to myself, allow my fingers to navigate the keyboard, without judging what comes out. And here is the text that finally sprouted out.

What was the lesson learned? I learned that sometimes the biggest boulder we have to overcome is the one we carry within ourselves.

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When Plans Fail

The best plans are those that start off seemingly failed only to lead to incredible experiences that would otherwise have been lost. I drew this conclusion from the weekend I had organized to participate in an activity in a remote village somewhere in Serra da Estrela, a place I really wanted to go. I didn’t reach Serra da Estrela, nor did I participate in the activity, but I was welcomed by a very unlikely place that offered me the one thing I, unknowingly, really needed: peace of mind.

The week began with an invitation from the Parish Council of a small village in Serra da Estrela to participate in and write about the re-enactment of an ancestral activity, a way to preserve the knowledge of yesteryear and pass it on to the younger generation. This is the kind of work I love, where I anticipate talking to the elders and having the opportunity to gather countless stories and knowledge from the past. However, in the middle of the week, I received a message informing me that the activity would be postponed. My visit on that date no longer made sense.

In the meantime, I had already mapped out – and started – a two-day route to get there, with stops at other places I also wanted to visit. I usually take advantage of my work trips to organize small road trips and discover little secrets from my “wish to visit” list in the interior of Portugal.

Instead of feeling discouraged or thinking about giving up, I embraced the unexpected as an invitation to slow down, reduce the number of kilometers, and spend more time in the places I had only planned to pass through. I now had the best ingredients to let myself be dazzled: time and unpredictability.

I arrived at my first stop earlier than expected and, instead of settling in and preparing for a restful evening, I left the car, the backpack, the external demands, the shoes, and, barefoot, I started walking along the path, beginning right in front of the door of the little house that would be my shelter for the night.

Pracana Cimeira, in the municipality of Mação, in the heart of Beira Baixa, has a population of seven inhabitants. The paved road ends at the last house in the village, and all you can hear are the birds, the rustling of tree branches when the wind passes, and the water flowing abundantly from the village’s two fountains and the stream that invites us for a swim.

In places like this, when external noise quiets down, the internal volume of what inhabits the mind tends to increase. The previous week had been one of much anxiety and worry. Of course that all of it came to the surface as I walked alone, surrounded by silence. At first, I was angry with myself for being in such a privileged place and, instead of enjoying it, letting myself be overwhelmed by a succession of stories and worries. Then, forcing myself to take a few deeper breaths, I decided that, instead of following the flood of drama my head tends to create, I would take the opportunity to do an internal purge and leave behind all those mental habits that weren’t helping me move forward.

As I moved further into the mountains, I practiced the exercise of, instead of following my mind into catastrophic future imaginations, choosing to feel my feet touching the ground with each step, becoming aware of my body’s weight sinking into the earth, and listening carefully to the sound of each of the dozens of birds that passed by me. I recalled one of the many lessons from my meditation practice: we can always choose where to place our best attention.

By giving it time and allowing myself space, nature always has the power to calm me down. The natural and wild world, where everything is present, everything is now, and nothing exists beyond the current moment, reminds me that the future I create in my imagination is just that: imagination! And that I have the great gift of being able to imagine (and, consequently, create) different scenarios much more aligned with what I dream for my future. The good news is that this is a gift common to all human beings.

The next day I woke up early as usual, and, breathing in that earthy, green scent, the last thing I wanted to do was leave. Before departing, I promised myself to return later this summer. Then I headed to another magical stop where, thanks to the cancellation that offered me more time to slow down, I encountered an elderly lady with a wonderful life story, I had the privilege to hear.

I’ll leave it for the next post!

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I love you, so farewell for now

Lisboa. Contemplar o Tejo

Despite choosing a semi-nomadic lifestyle, living constantly between travels in recent years, the intervals when I returned to Lisbon were filled with the joy. Joy of being close to my roots, in a beautiful city with its unique light and coziness, and home to some of the people I love the most in the world. I particularly remember the years I worked in the UK and the good feeling growing inside me whenever the time to travel back to Portugal for holidays or a long weekend was approaching.

In the aftermath of the pandemic, during one of these returns, when I realized it would not be possible to go back to England, I thought that this unexpected stay in Lisbon could be used to honor my city and enjoy it leisurely, calmly, giving me the space to figure out what I was going to do with my life from then on. Little did I know that, during my walks through its streets, Lisbon would reveal more to me than just a confirmation of the passion I have for it.

I spent a couple of months wandering around Lisbon, on unhurried and plan-free days, just enjoying. In my leisurely pace through a city that had known me in a rush for so many years, I chose to observe its streets as if I had never seen them before. One day at Rossio, I stopped right in front of the National Theater D. Maria II. How many times had I been there? Countless. Yet, I am sure that, on that day, it was the first time I truly looked at its facade. It has been there since 1846, but only at that moment did the pillars, windows, and beautiful statues guarding the main entrance start to exist for my eyes.

I also realized that, unlike London, a huge and impersonal city where I felt the weight of loneliness, it was not hard to find old friends in Lisbon. It happened more than once, during these aimless walks, to encounter a familiar face that sat, by chance, in the empty chair next to me on the subway. Taking advantage of the coincidence, we decided to get off at the same station to walk to one of the terraces on Rua Cor de Rosa in Cais do Sodré and talk about life, arrivals, departures, and plans for the future. On the way, we stopped suddenly, amazed by street artists playing on Rua Augusta, becoming aware of where we were: one of the most beautiful streets in the world, connecting the city center to the Tagus River, ending in an impressive Triumphal Arch, opening to Terreiro do Paço, where the city surrenders to the river.

These were very good months, during which I confirmed, in my slow rhythm, my love for Lisbon also in familiar places like Chiado, which welcomed me during my academic years, where hipster shops and gourmet restaurants bloom wherever there is a small space. Or the old Bairro Alto, guardian of some of the unspoken secrets of my adolescence and, alongside Fado houses and typical restaurants, hosts art galleries, second-hand bookshops, artists’ studios, tattoo shops, bars, and nightclubs.

Lisbon is the place where I was born, where I grew up, and where I began to be the person I am today. It has been the witness of the best and worst life has offered me. It was so good to feel welcomed by it during those months, giving me time for it to reveal to me that my future, at least the immediate future, would not be here. During my walks, Lisbon showed me that it was succumbing to gentrification, unrestrained haste, mass tourism, and loss of character. Lisbon was in a hurry to enjoy the prominence that international eyes had suddenly given it, and a part of it got carried away, enchanted, without thinking about the consequences. And I, who was on the exact opposite movement, in search of a life lived leisurely, more authentically and close to nature, I realized that in order to keep my love for my city, I had to step away.

Deciding that it was not in Lisbon that I would live, made it an even more beautiful and sunny city, confirming my unconditional love for it. Sitting quietly by the Tagus River, eating an artisanal ice cream near the Cais das Colunas, I bid farewell on the eve of moving to Alentejo, where I currently live and from where I depart and return from my travels and adventures around the world. This decision reinforced the fascination and pride I have for my hometown, in which I still trust that someday it may tell me that the time has come to welcome me back entirely.

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The Hidden Spiritual Gem of Catalonia

Catedral de Manresa

What’s so special about Manresa, an industrial city in central Catalonia, Spain? Why should I go there? Little did I know that, on that morning, as I resisted getting on the bus that would take me there, I was about to change my entire perception about faith.

At first glance, it seemed that apart from the famous Santa Maria de la Seu Basilica and St. Ignacio de Loyola’s cave, there was little else to see in Manresa. My mind kept telling me that it wasn’t worth the visit. Staying a few more days in Montserrat to explore it more deeply felt like a better option. But despite the noise in my head, something unexplainable kept pushing me there.

Upon arriving, I was greeted by cloudy and uncomfortably hot weather. It didn’t help with my grumpiness. I went up and down the street but couldn’t find the restaurant that had promised me the best vegetarian paella. Then I decided to look up instead of down, and there it was: on the first floor of a building, the door opened to a beautiful white dining room. When the paella arrived, accompanied by the welcoming smile of the chef, I realized I was putting too much effort into maintaining my bad mood. Everything was delicious and done with so much dedication. Even if it was only to honor the Chef’s work, I needed to surrender to what was and summon a more relaxed state of mind.

And there it was, my first wise decision of the day: to change my mood. As is often the case, reality started to change accordingly. From then on, I started to realise that Manresa was probably the right place to be at that exact moment of my life. I just needed to be willing to give it a chance. Why?

Enter Jordi Piñero, a historian and investigator whose work is focused on the holistic aspects of Manresa’s historical monuments. He invited me to visit the Cathedral as he started explaining how it was carefully built in a very special place: a strong telluric current – a geomagnetic movement generated by Earth’s magnetic field, flowing parallel to its surface. Or, from another perspective, an energy field with the power to influence our well-being. My skeptical brain looked at a gothic Catholic church from the 16th century and wondered if this was not just a coincidence. Back in those days, people didn’t have our knowledge and surely they didn’t have the proper modern scientific gadgets to measure all these currents and geomagnetic movements.

There was more inside. As I followed him in, Jordi explained that the cross-shaped structure of the building represents a human figure with open arms. Along its centre line, it is possible to observe seven circles. “The 7 chakras,” Jordi said. I asked him how did our ancestors know? How did such a conservative institution as the Catholic church allow it? He just shrugged and explained that chakras have many names. “They represent human potential for spiritual evolution. It is a universal concept.”

The theory “everything is connected” makes perfect sense here. It now seems obvious to find the relationship between concepts of different religions and beliefs in one single monument built more than five centuries ago. I could have stayed there all afternoon listening to Jordi. My long quest to understand faith, the divine, and the meaning of human life was anxious to learn more. But there was more waiting for me, although I wasn’t aware of it yet.

I walked to the Cave of Saint Ignatius, a pilgrimage site where it is said that the Saint spent several months meditating and writing his famous Spiritual Exercises book. St Ignatius arrived there after a long walk of 2000 km from Loyola in the Basque Country, determined to discover, understand, and consolidate his connection with Jesus.

A Jesuit priest opened the cave door and invited me in. The priest briefly narrated the Saint’s life story, ending with a summary of Loyola’s spiritual findings: “To discover the light, one needs to conquer the ego. In order to conquer the ego, one has to surrender.” Surrendering has always been a challenge for me, a control freak. Just the sound of the word made my body retract. But a little tingle in the tip of my fingers awoke a kind of familiar yet new pleasant sensation.

As if he knew what was going on inside of me, from this moment the priest changed his speech from a simple Catholic point of view to the same holistic and integrative theories shared by Jordi earlier in the Cathedral. My host kept explaining that apart from whatever our beliefs are, during the course of our lives, between our 40s and 50s we start experiencing an urge to question, to explore, to transform (check!, I’m exactly there). We can embrace it and become explorers of our inner selves or ignore it and move on to the next phase of our lives. The Jesuits – inspired by Saint Ignatius’ experience – believe that we all should dive deep into this transformational opportunity, offering their expertise to guide anyone who feels the call to embrace the process. “That is the purpose of this Center,” he told me as the elevator door opened to the top floor.

There, he invited me into a large beautiful wooden room with a skylight in the middle illuminating an empty bowl resting directly below it. “We don’t care if you are a Buddhist or a Muslim or a non-believer. As long as you enter this meditation room with your inner bowl empty, if you silence your ego, if you surrender, you can experience the light filling your space. This is what Saint Ignatius realized on the 24th of March 1522, the day he became enlightened.” The moment the priest mentioned the date, the tingling sensation exploded through my whole body.

Throughout the day, I had been learning all these theories as if they were answers to my inner doubts about faith and religion. I was starting to understand that maybe we don’t need this or that symbolism to ignite our spirituality. It was becoming clear that it is not Christianity or Hinduism or Islam or New Age theories that hold the ultimate truth to transcendence. I was realizing that as long as I was determined to follow the path of self-discovery, I could become a better human being. By doing that, I would be fulfilling my share of the greater good of humankind.

As these thoughts were running through my mind, the priest mentioned that special date. A date so familiar and so important to me. It was as if that little detail had the power to hook all that I had heard so far and anchor it deep inside myself. On the same day, March 24th, but 450 years apart, I was born. Saint Ignatius solved the mystery of existence on the same day I arrived in this world, 5 centuries after.

At any other moment, I would only find it a funny coincidence and move on. But this day had become so full of revelations and epiphanies that I decided to accept it as a sign.

So, I – a skeptic, a woman of poor faith, an explorer of mysticism always looking for its flaws – I surrendered. I surrendered to that day and all it had offered me, I surrendered to my stubbornness and bad mood, I even momentarily surrendered to my ego.

What’s so special about Manresa? Now I know: It is the place where after so many years scattered, wandering around, I made peace with my faith. My God, what a long way I have ahead of me now!