NOMAD LIFE: Everything Went Wrong in Portugal // S03E13

We're heading south in Portugal to accept an invitation to discover the country from somebody we've never met before. We're hoping to learn about Portugal and the culture and have an adventure in the process as we drive towards Africa. However when you're driving around the world things don't always go to plan but in Portugal there's always a way to put it right. the sun is shining, the Atlantic Ocean is on our right and we are headed south through Portugal in search of an adventure. The geography of Portugal's coastline is so blessed that there are thousands of idyllic beaches and places to surf and none more famous than Nazaré. I can't believe that this is Nazaré. This is the place where the world record for surfing the largest towing wave was set. It was right here. I think it was 80 foot. It was a Brazilian guy that did it. Can you imagine the face of the wave being 80 foot? The swell today isn't very big but Nazaré is famous for being a swell magnet due to the offshore canyon so the waves basically magnify and amplify and always are pumping here. I've got some beautiful barrels going through. Probably a little bit too good for me I think. It's always fun to watch though. It's absolutely amazing. Those waves are just stunning, super heavy. This is something of a mecca of a surfing location so to be here and see it in person is really special. There's no way we were coming past this part of Portugal without swinging in to see what the locals are doing. Of course driving around the world isn't just all about surfing and sightseeing. There is work to be done to make overlanding happen and problems to be solved. Problems you expect and plan for like doing an oil change and routine maintenance in a random car park and problems you don't plan for. So there have been a few breakdowns recently not with a Volkswagen for once but with the camera dying. Focus is pretty good. It's lightweight. It's lighter than the other one. This is the only one they have in stock. It's the demonstration one that's on the shelf. There's no discount. It costs us 500 euros more than it would cost us if we bought it on the internet but we need it right now otherwise we can't record so 500 euros is the price that we pay for being nomadic on this production. What the crap is that? 439 euros and 43 cents in tax. Portugal you're killing us. 23% sales tax. What's that about? And also Lia's laptop completely decided to fail in the middle of us editing an episode right the day before we backed it up. It was almost finished and ready to render but just completely died. New logic board was required to the tune of 650 euros. It's only a couple of years old as well so thank you very much Mr Apple. And as well as that we've been having gas problems so we haven't had a hot shower for a very very long time. It hasn't been working and we haven't didn't know why it wasn't working. What a nightmare. We have been to so many people to like ask like second opinion what's wrong with the gas and lo and behold this guy from Wales, Chris, how you doing mate? He comes walking over and goes you've got problems. We're like yep. Yeah he had the tool that we needed to figure out the problem so we found out that it wasn't getting enough pressure the gas wasn't yeah there wasn't enough pressure to the shower. Yeah which basically made us think and everyone else think that it was the regulator that was at fault. We couldn't find the right regulator anywhere despite going to many different places. We replaced the regulator and nothing. Unfortunately our brand new regulator which didn't solve the problem but we had to buy anyway um has failed on day one so uh it just leaks gas all over the place now. That's safe isn't it? And it's actually holding the regulator which is not good. I think the one that we had on there has been damaged and getting it off. By Portugal this is month seven since we installed our instant hot water shower but like Leah said it's never been hot. When the weather was warm that wasn't such a problem but winter is here now and now it needs fixing. This was the third RV specialist in Portugal alone. The difference was that here finally people were willing to spend the time to find the problem. So we've eliminated the regulator being the issue and now we're basically trying another bottle of gas and putting it through our entire system to see if that works. Slowly narrowing down the problem but it's um it's an elusive one. Nuno here is um working late to help us fix the problem like a hero. We'd now tried everything. It wasn't the tank or the regulator. It wasn't the pipes or the hose or the shower itself. After many hours of frustration and elimination there's only one left that it could be. It's the last thing to try. The last thing to try. So I suppose you have a solenoid. No I don't have it. I don't have it. Nuno might not have the solenoid but the next day he hooked us up with someone across town who did. Finally we have a solution. We have hot water. We have a shower. I can't believe it was the solenoid. It was basically a tiny little hole in the middle of the solenoid. The specs were wrong online and so it was just blocking the gas and now a new solenoid. Boom! Hot showers. Yes! Upgrade. You are gonna love this. It's hot. Hot shower. What the hell? I can't believe it. So good. Having proper hot water on demand in the Kombi is a game changer for off-grid living. We were so grateful to Nuno and the team for staying back late to help us finally fix this problem. By this point after months of constantly moving and with the recent problems we were starting to feel a little burnt out to be honest. But our time in Europe is fast running out so we are on the move again to meet Miguel a Kombi crew member who had invited us to Lisbon where we would also be receiving some vital documents in the post for Alaska's onward travels to Morocco. A few weeks earlier in Spain we had jumped through all of the necessary hoops to get Alaska's certified paperwork so that she could travel to Africa with us. The awesome Spanish bear kindly offered to forward Alaska's updated passport to us in Lisbon but as yet there was still no sign of it. So in the meantime Miguel took us to some of his favorite local hangouts. One thing that was obvious straight away is that the Portuguese people are passionate about food especially seafood. At 89 years old and with an unwavering passion the owner Eduardo still graces his family restaurant to share his customers smiles. I've never been to a seafood restaurant that had such a variety of dishes. I'm from an island and there was seafood here that I'd never seen before. Imagine the most beautiful beach in the world with the most beautiful sand and the most incredible water and you dive and you have a feeling that feeling is what you get when you eat this. It tastes like ocean is the right way to say it. It does taste like the ocean. Being a coastal country seafood is a nationwide passion with salted cod being the famous national dish of Portugal. We had lunches with the locals from the neighborhood in the local football association a place we would never have been to without Miguel. It was an unforgettable experience and delivered some of the tastiest and certainly best value food that we enjoyed in the entire country. There seems to be no such thing as fast food here in Portugal with meals spanning many courses and taking many hours too. Mealtime is sacred in Portugal and whenever possible enjoyed with friends. We felt very privileged to be able to spend time with Miguel and his friends and learn about Portuguese culture and history over these long lunches. When we were like until the 16th century we had a very big Jewish community and so because of the inquisition then some of them were expelled and the ones who weren't expelled they had to convert. So in order to somehow maintain their life here they pretended that they still made the sausages like it was pork sausages but actually they made them out of chicken and that was that's how this was born actually. And they're delicious. Would you like him? Yeah. At this point our time in Europe was fast running out. Alaska's paperwork still hadn't arrived. So okay we just found out that the letter was returned to Spain so now we're going to the distribution and knock on the door and see if they still have it there by a miracle so let's just try it. Damn it. So Alaska's paperwork has been lost in the post. It was getting sent from the vets in Spain to Miguel's house here near Lisboa but unfortunately the address was written down wrong. The number of the house wasn't put on there correctly which is same thing that happened in New York actually. It's not our fault and so now we're trying to track it down. This could be a disaster because the package has her blood test official results which we need to get her back from Morocco into Europe and it also has a pet passport which we need to get out of Europe right now like literally in the next couple of days so I don't know what we're going to do here but this is a disaster. Sure everything's going to be all right but this is bad news. It's been a bad weather day but we'll find a way. We tried everything we could to intercept Alaska's passport before it had returned to Spain but we couldn't. This was now a huge problem. So we have come across an issue. It seems like Portugal has just been a whole lot of hurdles that we've just had to come across from the day that we came into Portugal. It's just been challenge after challenge after challenge and now this is probably one of the most challenging things that we've ever come across so far in this expedition and that is we've lost Alaska's pet passport which means that in a few days time when we're supposed to go across the border to go into Morocco that she won't be allowed in with us and I need to get out of the EU else I'm overstaying my visa so I need to definitely be out in a few days. Ben can stay longer so that's a good option. That's good at least as one of us can stay with Alaska until we get this sorted but it's a real headache that this has happened and it's happened so close to us going to another country. We can't leave Alaska here on her own. We can't wait another month for her to get her paperwork sorted which is one of the hassles with overlanding and going from country to country and visas and you know it's a headache. I was lost in the woods on the dust and the ferries found me and they led the way they cleared the way to my heart. Being up here in the misty fresh air of Sintra mountain gave us the time and space to take stock of the situation and weigh up the options. Miguel had kindly offered to allow Alaska to stay with him and his dog Black whilst we went to Morocco but we'd be gone for months or I would stay and track down Alaska's lost passport which would take four to six weeks. In the meantime Leo would need to travel on to Africa alone. Surely there had to be a better option. We'll go left and try to find a gas pump in this way. Do you think we'll make it? Yeah sure we'll survive for sure. I'm not saying that we'll go home tonight but how long have you slept with other people inside of a car? It's been a long time right? Yeah so Miguel I'm really enjoying your company but I don't want to sleep with you in here. Really? Not tonight. How can you say that to a Combi Crew member? I suppose that's true. Leah what are you gonna do? Watch your head. No. I think you should call the vet in Spain and see if they can transfer the details somehow onto a new passport for her. Get a new passport for her and see if they can just transfer the details of the blood tests. Now in the Portuguese vets trying to get a Portuguese passport for Alaska. The only thing that's holding us back is some information about her last rabies vaccine which is in an envelope on its way to Spain as well. So we are literally two days left on our visa. We're a long way from the African continent and we have a lot to do to get Alaska to come with us. How cool is this? We really couldn't have done all this, sort out all these issues without the help of Miguel. If it wasn't for him it would have been this already hectic and complicated situation would have been far more complicated. Just being able to speak the language, him being able to communicate with people in Portuguese has helped a lot because I don't know what we would have done without him. So really really kind for him to be so welcoming and inviting and helpful. He's a legend. I think the guys are back from the vet so hopefully all went well and we have Alaska's passport. Okay how'd you go? Good? I'm ready to sleep. Was it good? Did you get it? Got the passport. She's got her third passport. Her third passport. Thank gosh for that. Alaska is now officially Portuguese. Yeah she's Portuguese now. Brexit can't stop Alaska. She can go wherever she wants. So that's the good news. I'm exhausted by all of these problems. Thank gosh it's all over. Hopefully everything else goes smoothly. We'll see what Morocco has to say about it. We did it. Yeah we did it. That's the Africa. When we first arrived in Portugal we were really excited to discover the country. We had so many pins on our Kombi Crew interactive map for places to explore and we were told that Portugal is a van life paradise of Europe. Unfortunately we were only able to scratch the surface of Portugal as we bounced from problem to problem. However we might not have been able to see as much of the country as we would have liked but whilst working through these problems we saw a side of Portuguese people that we might have otherwise missed and for that and their hospitality we will be eternally grateful. Now with time almost up we are racing against the clock in a mad rush to escape Europe. Everything about Kombi life is about to change once again as we prepare to leap to a new continent. Next stop Morocco. I don't know if you guys can see that but that is Africa over there. But that is a story for next time.