Little Steps Make Big Mountains

My Walking Tour Through Portugal

Read by the author

I lost my parents way too young—my father of a widow maker, and Mom only a precious few years later hobbled by Alzheimer’s, all before I’d turned 35. They left me with a few gifts though. From my father I got my ability to write. From my mother I got a deep, if occasionally resentful, kindness. Together they offered me their best friends, David and Sue, an English couple they’d known most of my life.

Sue never skipped a beat, calling on a regular basis and chasing me down even when I didn’t answer. I never felt they’d forgotten the ties that began in the middle of the 1970s. Each trip they took to the United States, now to see their own son’s growing and wonderful family, they stuck us into the itinerary. 

We talked about traveling together. With our kids on their own, my husband and I are no longer beholden to a full term schedule, and the possibilities are endless.

“A leisurely walking wine tour through Portugal,” Sue suggested. “We’ll have a wander through the countryside.” I wanted to go right away. It might require a little training, but the itinerary she sent called the walking part, “light” to “moderate.” 

How was I going to get my husband to go along? We are not in shape, beyond the occasional bike ride and (spoiler alert in retrospect: a very easy) dog walk through the woods. 

How bad could it be, I reasoned? David will have just turned 76 and Sue is 74. I should have known better. David does a walking pilgrimage called the Camino de Santiago every year with his rucksack and a friend. And only a few years ago, I’d watched Sue chase after her most charming grandsons on the rocky seaside of the Atlantic coast in Cornwall.  

“Oh, look,” I reasoned. “It’s wine tasting. It has to stay leisurely.”

This would be an organized tour. A group of people who pay precious money to torture themselves for a week, in a controlled but wild feeling way. My father enjoyed these preplanned tours with strangers—minus the physical effort, of course—but my husband is way too logistically controlling for that.

So it was a surprise when he said, “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

We were led by our Portuguese guides, a married couple called Lina and Antonio who were lovely, accommodating and concerned. They had deep ties to their country and their love of it was infectious, their walks punctuated by Lina’s nature talks, and Antonio hiding strategically amid the bramble to grab a photo. 

What I learned quickly though is that the line between “leisurely” and “moderate” walking, is wildly subjective. 

David and Sue arrived well prepared for the journey. This wasn’t their first rodeo. And it is a special type of adventurer (or in my case, gossip) who chooses to spend the week with strangers. 

We were sixteen spread out over two vans, driving through the countryside which unfurled like round, oversized staircases spanning entire hills, rolling and pastoral. The group was Brit dominant with a solid representation of Americans and a sprinkling of fellow nature lovers from New Zealand, just for flavor. We made for a brave, curious band, willing to watch a group dynamic play out, no matter how risky the variables. In other words, exactly my jam.

Lina told us that first day that it would be an easy walk through villages and vineyards. Which was technically true. She neglected to mention that it was six miles. All uphill. Beautiful, fragrant miles like nothing I’d ever seen, but by the time we plopped down on the abandoned bridge for a typical Portuguese peasant boxed lunch, I realized I might be in over my head. 

Portugal is famous for Port wine, and part of what lulled me into security was my previous experience of the overly sweetened cough syrup dessert Ports I’d tasted before from home. It would be difficult to overindulge in those. But after we climbed a near vertical hill to that first vineyard, and the vintner explained the intricacies and scope of grapes harvested by hand across terraced and ancient vines, I knew I’d be drinking. My first views on their variety of orchards were perspective changing. And also, delicious. 

We trekked through villages where women who looked older than me dragged buckets of water up cobblestoned hills, and a toothless man on a motorcycle herded his sheep alongside the world famous, free range Meronesa cows. Time left behind this place where subsistence farming is survival. By the time we plunked ourselves down, I was exhausted—happy I hadn’t collapsed, thrilled to absorb the beauty all around me and ready for a nap. Or some Port. Which is delectable when chilled.

I felt privileged to be there, to smell wild mint and heather as I walked perpetually uphill, on terrain much harder than I’d expected. “Small steps,” Lina would say when she showed up next to me, “make big mountains. We’ll be there soon.”

Fuck that, I thought. Big steps make quick mountains and sit my fat ass down at the next wine tasting. Oh, was I cocky in the beginning. But by the third day, when each night she told me the next trek wouldn’t be quite so difficult, I knew Lina and I had a very different version of easy.

I found new respect for my husband who was always at the back of the pack, unlike me, not interested in proving anything. He did his walking like he does his life—willfully oblivious and never in a rush. He was carrying our water.

At one point I leaned against a rock, the humid Portuguese sun having its way with me, sweat soaking my shirt. I was just going to lean on the moss for a second. Then the world shifted. 

I was dizzy suddenly. In that moment before I realized I had no choice, I thought about how embarrassed I would be if I vomited, and then I was leaning over a rock, hurling.

Nurse Jenny got to me first. She had clear eyes, a charming accent, a calm voice and a wet bandana to give me.

I had been “conserving” water after being told that the bathroom would be hosted by, “Mr. Bush”—the foliage not either ex President. That was my mistake. I drank up finally, understanding it was longer going back than it would be moving forward.

Suddenly Lina was there, a pack of electrolytes and a cheery voice telling me I could make it. It was very close now. Why had I done this to myself? I felt embarrassed, ashamed and helpless. 

“Little steps,” she whispered, “Will help you climb mountains.”

Maybe there was more to this grapevine travel? I tried to find my breath. 

“Wear light clothes. You do sweat a lot. Take small steps,” Lina said, now keeping pace with me. “And drink.” It amazes me that after screaming at my athletic kids to hydrate, I totally forgot about it. 

I started to feel steadier, the knowledge that I was holding the group up heavy on my mind, Jenny's bandana cool against my neck. “Go at your own pace,” my guru instructed.

I positioned myself behind the 83-year-old. He had no cartilage in his ankles and still marched at a decent rhythm. I wanted to move like he did, I told myself as I forced my strides shorter. He was out there trying to keep up with his younger wife somewhere in her 70s. David and Sue were out front at an admirable clip. As with so many aspects of their lives, I am hoping to grow up to be just like them. I’m not sure there are enough small steps to get there, but I do want to try.

I marched on, no longer trying to be one of the quicker ones.  Instead I watched the terraced olive groves give way to ancient and wooded waterways called levados beneath my smaller steps, having conversations with strangers so far from my everyday life.

At one point, a tractor parked perpendicular in the path, blocking us. A ridiculous place to pull over with no human to be seen. As a group we decided to climb in and over. Before we knew what was happening, the 83-year-old without ankles was on his back shimmying beneath like a pro. And it hit me with an explosion. That’s how you manage a trip like this, a vacation where the goal is the challenge. However the fuck it works. 

David and Sue appeared offensively jaunty and ready for the next adventure each day. After the third bottle of tawny Port appeared, I was feeling no pain, but unsure where morning would find me.

Everyday there was a wine tasting. I’d like to say more on that but I can barely remember.  Sometimes it was white but called “green.” Sometimes it was red or rose, but brown. Sometimes it was called red, and presented white, or wound up a tawny or vice versa. I bought a case at our first stop just so I could pay less attention during the lessons.

Ultimately, I was left with a choice. Acknowledge every hard earned step, no matter how far uphill, or take in the wafting smell of olive trees and bask in the indescribable sweetness of a sun ripened fig right off its tree. I appreciated amber villages and dogs still living in an antiquated paradise—stunning and unlike anything I’d ever known to exist, even when my feet hurt.

More importantly, when I didn’t come out quite so hot on the cobblestones, halved my stride to smaller steps, it worked! I was barely winded no matter how far up I had to go. Every night I told myself I could take the next day off, but besides opting for a shorter version of the last walk, I made it through.

“Small steps make big mountains,” Lina taught me. Also, hydration is worth the investment no matter how far away the toilet is. Important lessons, both.

Country walking gave way to the earth shatteringly beautiful city of Porto. David, Sue, my husband and I sat at a table for our final meal. Our fellow passengers were making their way back—lives so intertwined for a week, happily unraveling.

“Well?” they asked.

I looked at my smiling husband and shrugged. “Where to next year?”

To my fellow celebrants, I wish you an adventurous, sweet and love filled New Year.