The Valley of Death
A warning but also an inspiration
“Well, now you just need to get through the valley of death, don’t you?” was the unexpected message of encouragement from one of our recent guests.
I met Professor Eric Lambin at Stanford University in northern California where Ana and I spent a fabulous (albeit COVID-interrupted) back-to-school journalism fellowship year.
He might be a world-renowned geographer, a member of the European Commission’s Group of Chief Scientific Advisors and a Blue Planet Prizewinner, but he was also one of the three students rocking up for beginning Portuguese classes every weekday morning.
All of us wanted to learn European Portuguese, but with more than 200 million Brazilians out there, that wasn’t an option and so we were learning to say the word city (cidade) with a swagger as “sid-AD-gee” rather than “sid-ad” and speaking virtually “shush”-free.
There’s quite a difference between the two versions of Portuguese and every evening Ana would make me rewrite all the verb tables adding the “tu” form (second person pronoun) which is largely ignored in Brazil, where você is favoured for everything.
And the letter S is often pronounced as a “shh” in Portugal at the end of a word or before a consonant – it’s why it sometimes sounds like Russian...and while the Portuguese can understand spoken Spanish it doesn’t work the other way around.
You’ll get a better idea if you listen to the audio version of this despatch, but here’s an attempt to explain what I mean through a few words and a Portuguese tongue-twister:
Three plates of wheat for three sad tigers (Três pratos de trigo para três tristes tigres) is pronounced Tresh prAT-osh duh TREE-go pah-ra tresh trish-tesh tig-resh)
Festa meaning party is pronounced FESH-tah
Ratos meaning mice is pronounced RAT-oosh
Oh, and hashish is spelt haxixe!
But I digress...
Eric’s disturbing talk about death in the Valley of the Stars was taken from his knowledge of Silicon Valley and a pattern which leads many startup companies to fail.
As a geographer myself, graphs and maps always help illustrate a point, but Investopedia describes “the Death Valley Curve” as “the span of time from the moment [a company] receives its initial capital contribution until it finally begins generating revenue.”
In other words having spent almost all our money we need to keep going and finish everything until we officially open and guests start providing us with income to pay our costs and pay off our loan.
Now, I know this is not world-changing tech we’re developing: we’re not trying to train drones to swarm, or reinvent The Facebook (interestingly pronounced FacEY BOOK-ee in Brazilian), we’re just trying to build a few houses to rent out.
As regular readers know, there’s a bit more to it than that – building a totally solar-driven off-the-grid eco-luxe lodge is very challenging – although the only world we’ll be changing if we don’t make it through death valley is our own, but you know what I mean.
We’re nibbling away at the to-do list a bit slower than we’d hoped, but every little thing left to do by the builders needs to be done by us...and there are still a lot of projects.
Connecting the new Starlink to our ethernet network was a nightmare – I mean have you ever tried to wire up a fiddly little ethernet plug? Madness. Is it A, is it B...there must be an easier way of doing it?
Skirting boards remain un-fitted and un-sealed, headboards aren’t putting themselves up and the remaining furniture is slowly being assembled.
Next is to rename our buildings in a snappier way. For two years we’ve been using the arbitrarily labelled names from the architectural project: E, F and G.
Building E is the “main building” or the “pool house,” F is the villa and G is the row of en suite rooms. Maybe we need to name them after wine grapes...or stars...hmm.
Senhor Manuel the builder returned for a final run through of what still needs to be finished or tweaked and he brought an unusual warm glow and broad smile on his face...which could be either relief or perhaps pride?
After nearly two years he’s transformed this hilltop from a tatty, overgrown eucalyptus plantation into a stunning tourist lodge...and the only big part of the job left to finish now lies with the electrician who hasn’t been well.
What’s the problem with the occasional live wire sticking out here and there?
Hopefully he’s feeling better and will be back this week.
We’ve been helped hugely by the surges of activity provided by visiting skilled friends, and hosting our first sardine and wine dinner at our main building gave us a real boost.
Our Portuguese winemaking friends Mauro and Rita stayed with their kids for a few days, road testing the pool and bringing a small lake of their own wine and some much needed help and advice.
They make amazing wines and are just starting on a similar tourism project in Cuba, Alentejo which claims to be the original Cuba.
They’re naturally putting natural wine at the heart of that project and I’ve written about them in a previous wine blog – it’s in the Vidigueira region famous for Alentejo white wines and talha or amphora wine made the way the Romans made it.
They’ve put us in touch with someone who might help us navigate these last crucial stages of the project, and have proposed a little arrangement that will allow us to have our own house wine this year...watch this space.
Ana’s old pal Joanna is the third person we’ve lured to buy a house in this still-undiscovered part of Portugal, and she was here to get to grips with what needs to be done to the new place.
She has a Wine and Spirit Educational Trust (WSET) diploma in wine as well working in Greenland (I mean how cool is that...quite cool apparently...well actually pretty chilly, but stunning)...and so we’re trying to persuade her to run wine training courses at Vale das Estrelas.
Her partner Paul also arrived from Shanghai to take a first look.
Paul’s very handy. As well as working on their place he spent some time helping us out, creating an amazing storage space and daybed headboard for one of the mezzanines (in just one day), and helping bring an added bit of Irishness to some sports watching.
He could have been slightly more sensitive during the final of the Euros, but did put in some hanging lights above the bar while Ireland beat South Africa in the rugby and stepped in with a drill when the new braai inexplicably needed installing.
It was chaos in the kitchen as Mauro and I tried to fit the taps and U-bend before people arrived (ultimately unsuccessfully) and it took an age for the coals to fire up.
But with the pink sky of a sunset over the valley, a mountain of sardines sizzling on the table, and with Mauro and Swiss winemaker friend Niels’ wines flowing we began to realise that we really have created something special.
This was just the first of many fun-filled al fresco evenings of wine and stories ending under a dark sky crammed with stars and the Milky Way flowing across the valley.
It was a great reminder of that first night here when we decided on the name Vale das Estrelas, or Valley of the Stars.
Maybe we’ve climbed up the steepest side of the valley of death, or maybe it’s a false summit...but as I never used say at the end of a BBC report (because it’s a terrible cliché) “only time will tell.”
We’ve decided that encouraging people to visit with a lure of a package, or some form of retreat is the best way forward.
Prof Eric may have scared us a little using the phrase “Valley of Death” in the Valley of the Stars, but he and his wife Régine also greatly inspired us with their project in central Portugal.
They bought an estate house, spent a few years doing it up beautifully and now run a successful business at Qunita da Marmela and run cultural tours and horse-tours...packages of things to do...reinforcing our idea this is a good way forward.
They wanted to hike some stretches of the Rota Vicentina long distance trail and loved it – despite the summer heat.
Rather than walking to a new guesthouse each day, they used our place as a base and balanced time on the clifftops and beaches with the pool and the serenity of our countryside.
“This could easily be a five day package,” they agreed.
So there’s the first idea...then there’s the wine...and perhaps a painting retreat...and something involving exploring Europe’s last wild coast.
And if you have any ideas about “content” to fill a week while enjoying an undiscovered part of Portugal - or experience of leading retreats - and would like to explore a collaboration...do let us know!
Looking for the message "Notification" on my Android phone I lost your query about why I thought you re-released "The Valley of Death" month old episode...
Perhaps it's an Android clean-up thing?
Paul - great to hear from you...and I'll definitely be ordering your book..I think we met briefly at Rocim's Amphora day a couple of years ago...I was recording for a BBC piece and our podcast...which is now being released. I'm six episodes in and I think you'd like episode 4!...
https://wineportugal.substack.com/p/episode-4-going-roman