Re : Hercules storm hits Portugal
Let me tell you about my 2 Portugal's trips !
First, when I was 16, on summer, with a friend and his family, for their annual native country's trip. His father is a portuguese man, having his own plumber society in France, as many portuguese men !
Their family is from Bragança, in the northeast. We have travelled by night with the working van (
Ford Transit) and a mattress at the back of the van for her mother to sleep.
We had a trailer with 2 motorbikes : the father's
Yamaha 600 Diversion and my friend's
Kawasaki 125 KMX. I was lent an old
Kawasaki 125 KE for the first time I drove a motorbike.
Since then, I had only driven my moped and had my motorbike's baptism, with my cousin, 6 months earlier, on his
Honda 750 VFR (ym. 92).
In Bragança, my cheap moped's helmet has melted and was deformed with the sun as I left it on my 125's handlebar !
The second time, I was an adult (~25 yo.), having my own
Honda 750 VFR (ym. 95) !
I was in a motorbike's club named "The helmeted seagulls", sitted in the Arcachon basin. We were tripping from meeting to meeting, at least once a month, even in winter and having organized our own meeting.
And this time, we were going to a portuguese meeting, to the
Moto-Cube Tuku Tuku's one, from Castelo Branco, in the east.
(We met this club to the
Pinguinos meeting, a famous annualy winter meeting where more than 20 000 world bikers (99% european) are coming !)
We were 15 bikes and 18 persons, starting at 5:30am and wasting so much time with refueling and at the restaurant at midday !
We had only reached Salamanca (~700km) at 7pm, stayed in a hotel and joined by 3 more friends and their bikes.
That was a big party in this hotel where their huge pre-dinner drink's doses and low prices and the well-filled little fridges in bedrooms !!!
Hard, the next day's waking up but good pleasure in first portuguese curves and finally all well arrived, just before the next pre-dinner drink !
We parked our bikes in the meeting site and had been picked up in a pick-up car to a bar, as a trophy in the village !
Because we were very waited : 21 french bikers coming to this humble portuguese meeting ! Of course, we won the "furthest" and the "most numerous" prizes !!!
On the return trip, with a 5 fast bikes group, a low altitude flying stork has almost hit me and a friend with his wife on their
Triumph 900 Daytona have passed over a dead wild-boar by night, around 9pm, just before Vitoria-Gasteiz where we couldn't keep our eyes opened anymore because of tiredness !
And last year, my wife's brother got married with a portuguese woman. They have celebrated it at Faro, where she was born.
But I couldn't be there because of my ... lovely job ...
Surely another time, for the
annual summer meeting !
