Have been queuing for an hour at the Avis office in Lisbon.
There are still several people in front of us waiting to be seen. Full disclosure, I’m not queuing personally, it’s the boys who are waiting. I’ve just spent half an hour wandering around the nearby streets. We are very near the posh shopping area here, modeled on the Champs Élysée during the rebuild of the earthquake in 1755. Unfortunately everything is closed because it’s Sunday.
The AVIS office is right next door to the Hotel Intercontinental and the Ritz. Clearly rich people are not interested in staying in the Alfama district. Where would the valets park their Lamborghinis? I must say it’s a beautiful location, with a lovely park right across the road.
My question for you is whether our tour guide yesterday was doing a number on us, or if you think he was genuine. At the last palace, with the beautiful gardens, he said there was one tree there that he’d never been able to work out where it comes from. It was called a pohutakawa tree.
I asked him if he was joking, and he said no, what did I mean? So then we said, it comes from NZ. Oh really? He said, in seemingly real surprise. What a coincidence! Simon threw a curve ball by saying it had white flowers, but that didn’t seem to put the guy off. What he’s noticed most about it was not the flowers but the giant plates of aerial roots that hang down.
He’s right about these, but it’s not something most of us even notice. They aren’t in every tree. He said a lot of his clients think the tree has some sort of terrible disease that’s causing them.
As I’m writing this, it does seem like it’s most likely the guide was playing us, but it’s true the little sign next to the tree only said Pohutakawa and nothing more about it, certainly nothing about its origin.
He said he was very grateful to us for identifying it, and he’d be able to tell all his tour groups in future about where it comes from.
So, what do you think? Crafty ploy or genuine question? Five minutes on Google would have given him an answer, but he is a Boomer, so maybe??
Another half hour has passed and the boys are finally at the front of the queue. Soon we will be off to the Algarve. Looking forward to some swimming. Tchau Lisbon!