A night at Vila Real de San Antonio

Ferry crossing the river between VSRA and Ayamonte

Back in the 80's , I was persuaded by a friend of mine , a native speaker of portuguese and spanish, to join him in a mini tour to Lisbon , Madrid, and their immediate surroundings, after which he was to fly to Argentina to visit his ailing mother and me to return home to Israel.

Two days after our arrival in Lisbon, he got an unexpectedly urgent message concerning his mother's condition and was asked to take the plane to Buenos Aires without any delay. I decided, sadly, to go on with the tour without him, and that required some change of itinerary. On the whole it turned out to be a smooth, enjoyable tour except for one very traumatic event.

Here it is:
After several more days in Portugal, I decided to go to Spain for a week , and then return to Portugal for a direct flight back home.
I don't remember exactly why and how that happened, but the fact was I took the wrong train from Lisbon and got off at the wrong frontier point for Spain (it was a border town in the southerneast tip of Portugal), and at a very wrong time- in the late evening hours.

The place looked deserted, the tiny office at the railway station closed, no living soul around .The only sound heard was that of barking dogs coming from what I imagined was a nearby fishermen village on the outskirts of the border town of Vila Real de San Antonio. I headed towards the village to find myself a place for the night. I approached some houses that had the sign 'Pencao' (pension, guest house) , rang the bell, knocked on the door. Nothing. No one would open the door or window to me. They just shouted something like ' it's full', 'no vacant bed' etc..

I was completely in shock. They could have directed me to another pension or helped me in some other way. Afer all , it was dark outside and me just a young female carrying a suitcase. But no. No opening of doors, no attempt to help.

I kept on going and looking for some sign of a hotel or pension ,when suddently I came upon a guy who had the looks and clothes of a respectable middle aged gentleman . I tried to explain to him my situation in the few broken portuguese words that I possessed, and asked for information on accommodation for the night. He was very polite and ...invited me to his house, but before I could even answer with a 'yes' or 'no' to his invitation, his hands were all over me . I panicked and started running back to the railway station. Once there, I found some bench and had myself seated on it . I made up my mind to wait here for the morning. It was cold , I felt tired and sleepy, but I made an effort to stay awake all night, as I had to keep an eye on myself and the suitcase.

I had plenty of time to think about what had just happened to me, and I realized that this was a border town , and as such it had different rules and codes of behavior. There was probably a lot of smuggling and illegal activity going on here on both sides of the river, and people were afraid to open their doors. As for the middle aged "gentleman" - unfortunately, this sort of people trying to take advantage of a person in distress, can be found everywhere.

In the morning , I took my suitcase , glad to leave the area. and started to walk in the direction of the Guadania river. It took me about 15-20 minutes to reach the ferry terminal. Upon arrival at the terminal,, I bought a ticket, showed my passport to the border authority man ,and didn't even once look back to see the place in daylight.

on a bench in Ayamonte (pale, after a sleepless night)