My story – sunrise over the Tejo

The year 2000 was a crazy concoction of tech bubbles, Y2K coding nightmares and assurances of Armageddon. Personally, it was an uplifting year for me as I took off from Cape Town International airport and landed with a soft bump in Lisbon. I was all set to spend the next six months working through the hot summer of the Algarve region of Portugal. Life was different back then, traveller’s cheques and taxis ruled the roost as I made my way from the airport to a hotel near the Lisbon Zoo. I had a nagging feeling I was being ripped off by my apparently angry taxi driver. Later I double checked. I had been.

Shrugging off the inevitableness of lousy taxi drivers that do this kind of thing all over the world, I ventured on foot down through Lisbon’s Avenida Liberdade. It was a large treelined avenue and unbeknownst to me, I sauntered casually right past the offices where my future wife was slaving away. I wasn’t set to meet her for a good few years yet, so I carried on down to the river. Objective achieved, I settled down for what became my meal of sustenance for the summer — a beer and a toasted sandwich: “imperial e uma tosta mista”.

At this stage one would imagine my thoughts would turn to the absurdity of the situation I was in.

• Two months ago I was slaving away at a new IT job which I was struggling to understand the technicalities of.
• My fiancée had finally moved on and the Cape Town summer was on the wane.
• Life wasn’t super fun.

One long afternoon around the braai (a South African barbecue) changed all that. Sizzling sausages flavoured the air as my cousin reached for another beer. His belly echoed the traditions of a good life, as he turned in his seat and announced that it would be better if I came to work for him in Portugal.

“I have opened a new restaurant in the Algarve and I need a manager I can trust. Come work for me, Nick”. I looked away, remembering my reply to him last year. I focused on his eyes and said with great conviction: “I’m in”.

It was dark as I fumbled with my bags, left the hotel and grabbed a metro down to the very same river where I had wearily consumed my “tosta mista” the afternoon before. A ticket later, I clutched my belongings and scaled the gangplank to one of Lisbon’s finest ferries. Paint was peeling, wood was willowing but I didn’t mind. A brilliant sunrise unfolded behind me and I was mesmerized. The Ponte 25 Abril supported a few billows of wispy clouds and the sun pierced right through them, beams landing on the glassy waters as we chugged over to Barreiros to catch the train. I was now a stranger in a strange land.