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Oh, To Be in Obidos
©2007 Sarah Fogarty
Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack.
The wheels of my rolling luggage bounced off the cobblestones and made a plastic racket that reverberated through the narrow alleyways. Folks relaxing quietly at a street side cafe looked up from their beers and gawked at my husband and me as we sweated and yanked our suitcases up the steep street. “This can't be right,” my husband rasped between breaths.
I peered through damp hair that flicked in my eyes. Way up the hill above me loomed the walled city of Obidos. I wasn't sure how to get there, but I knew that was where we needed to be.
“Just a little further,” I said. I had no reason to sound so cheerful. This city, featured in every tourist brochure printed about the wonders of Portugal, had an entrance as difficult to find as the Lost City of Atlantis. We had just flown into Lisbon from New York that morning. The plan was to meet our friends who had arrived a few days earlier. We were to take the train from Lisbon to Obidos, an hour north, and join them, where they had a car, a hotel room, and hopefully, a large pitcher of beer waiting for us.
When we got off the train, the dusty little station was deserted - no telephone, no taxi, nobody but my husband and me and two other tourists who had disembarked. An empty road led around the bend. The ancient city with its crenellated walls soared above us. A rough path snaked up the hill from the station, the sort of shortcut that intrepid backpackers or lightly laden day-trippers might take. It was certainly not suitable for jetlagged and exhausted tourists with luggage. Off we set down the empty road, a small parade of four confused travelers. Gerard and I were in the lead, suitcases bumping our ankles, the other two tourists blindly followed.
The road did wind around the base of the hill, as hoped, and then it joined a more modern and heavily traveled road. This was encouraging. At least until it headed straight uphill, narrowing down to a road so constricted that only the tiniest European car could possibly navigate it and worst of all, the pavement ended. We started to stumble on those unevenly laid quaint cobblestones, and that’s when the noise began. Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack. Suitcases with plastic wheels are not designed to quietly navigate the irregular surface of centuries’ old cobblestones. My husband quickly passed beyond the acutely embarrassed stage into barely concealed rage as we advanced towards the cafe with its customers contemplating our clattery approach.
We smiled a silent greeting, and then sank down, exhausted and sweaty, at an empty table, our suitcases clustered around us. Gerard headed into the cafe. He returned with two cold beers and a vague idea that we were supposed to continue up the hill, go through the gate and bear to the left, but then again, he admitted, none of that might be true. He spoke no Portuguese, the barmaid little English. We sipped our beers, looking mournfully at our fellow cafe mates. Perhaps one of them would wander over to their car and beckon us to join him as he headed straight to our hotel. But none of this happened, of course. It never does. We stood, gathered our spirits and our suitcases, and began to trudge uphill. Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack.
We came to a series of steep stone steps. Up, clack, clack, up clack, clack, up clack, clack. It was very hot. Our shirts stuck to our backs and sweat trickled down our necks. We stumbled on, so out of breath we couldn't even exchange the usual accusation: whose dereliction of directional duty had put us into this mess? We clattered along, the stone walls drawing closer, their cool shadows inspiring us to soldier on. Staggering at last under a grand archway, we lurched to a stop. This must be it, we grinned at each other. Obidos.
I felt like Dorothy entering the Emerald City. Elated, I didn't even care that I had no idea where our hotel was. Our friends were waiting somewhere in this medieval city, and with them, a cold pitcher of beer. I leaned against the cool roughness of the ancient walls. I felt more confident, more energized. I was ready to carry on with our adventure. I hoped Gerard was feeling the same way.
“I'm done,” he wheezed. He stared disconsolately at the labyrinth of alleyways in front of us. “This is ridiculous. We don't know where we are. We don't know where we’re going. We barely know where we've been. We can't just keep going like this. There has to be a better way.” He sank down onto the curb and looked glassily at the next obstacle, yet another series of stone steps. What should have been a quaint and scenic spot had transformed into an insurmountable relic of medieval torture.
“Okay,” I said in a moment of sweat-induced insanity, “you stay here with our stuff. I'll go on up, find the hotel and then come get you.” Too tired to argue, Gerard waved me away.
Past the second set of stone steps, without my suitcase, I felt free and intrepid and full of exploratory vigor. I caromed up the maze of alleyways, past cute shops selling pottery and postcards and cafes with their intriguing smells. I found no street signs, no information booth, and certainly no guidepost directing me to my hotel. After a few dozen twists and turns, hiking ever higher and farther away from that main gate where my beloved sat, I gave up and searched for someone who spoke English.
I popped my head into a restaurant, and greeted the young woman tending the cash register. I waved my hotel confirmation letter at her. “This hotel, donde esta hotel, por favor?” My Spanish was pathetic, but my Portuguese virtually non-existent. She gestured to the right and then to the left, her hands fluttering as fast as spoke. The hotel was not far away, around and down and to the left, but most importantly (“importante!”) along the wall, not through it. I thanked her (“Obrigado!”) and headed back down to get Gerard.
I navigated the tangle of alleyways, and found Gerard still sitting on the curb, surrounded by the luggage, but now with four or five dogs all sitting around him, looking hopeful. Glad that he had made new friends already, I cheerfully lied to him and told him to follow me, we’re nearly there. “Do you know where the hotel is?”
“Pretty much. It’s around and up and to the left, and along the wall but not through it. It’s not far.”
Up past the cute shops and the cafes we clattered, by now so tired and hot that we didn't even care about the noise any more. The handles twisted in our hands, the wheels jumped around on the uneven surfaces. It was a constant struggle to keep the suitcases, and, increasingly, ourselves, upright. Just when Gerard was about to ask yet again if I knew where I was going, we rounded a corner and there it was, the hotel. I was so relieved, and feeling a bit euphoric at my discovery, marched into the lobby and announced our arrival to the desk clerk.
“Welcome,” he said. “But, unfortunately, Mrs. Fogarty, your room is not ready.” I leaned over his counter, my shirt stuck to my back, my hair dripping sweat down onto his immaculate blotter and I repeated back to him, a little breathless and with a rising note of hysteria, “My room is not ready?”
“Si, I am so sorry, it will be a little while before it is ready for you.”
I stared at him in disbelief. My hands trembled as I held my slumping body up from his polished mahogany counter. Fatigue and heat made conversation difficult. All I could focus on was how I really wanted to get out of my wet sweaty shirt.
“Well, then,” I said, and without thinking, I began to unbutton my top. “I need a place to change my clothes, and I really need to use a toilet.” My shirt was halfway undone when the desk clerk tore his eyes away from my chest and began tapping furiously at his computer. “Oh, no, Madam, wait just one moment, I think, yes, I see, we have a room for you, a very nice room, a room that is ready for you.” And he looked up, smiling, a key in his hand.
“Oh thank you, very much,” I said, as my fingers left my buttons alone and grabbed the key instead.
Just then, like a miracle, in walked our friends Girvan and Kathy. In mere moments, it seemed, we were lounging around a cafe table, sharing a pitcher of beer and laughing about our afternoon navigating the alleyways. We vowed on the spot, to trade in our suitcases for backpacks. No wheels required.
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