Old rocks and dinosaurs are a big thing, here in Portugal. Big Rocks have been moved about by ancient humans and stood up in circles or lines everywhere and dinosaurs have left their footprints all over the place, none more accessible than those here in Praia de Salema, in the South.
There are tours that pass through from time to time, to see the haphazard structure along the limestone cliffs that are dated to the Lower Cretaceous period and were more recently additionally smashed about by the big earth-quake and tsunami that whacked Portugal in 1755. And I promise not to give too much information like this because I bet I’m not the only one who is cretaceously ignorant and has no idea what it means. Around 150 million years ago will do, as if that concept is easy to grasp. Very Old. Many examples of prehistoric human activity are also accessible in the district and there are very accessible, really interesting dinosaur footprints.
On the west end of Salema beach there is a flat rock, roughly 8mx2m-ish, where people sometimes sunbathe or maybe have a little picnic or, when the sand disappears as it does from time to time, it can occasionally be used to fish from. A little while back, I had a little gig singing and playing every mushy love song I could think of, for a couple from Canada, with their picnic at the rock all about him proposing marriage to his lady friend. He spooned; I crooned. It seems everything went well as I was hugged as I was paid.
The rock is, in fact, a section of a path once trodden by a large, swivelled hip herbivorous biped. Its prints, indentations of various depths, run along the middle of the rock. Sometimes you can sit on the rock with your feet on the sand. Other times, when the sand disappears for a while exposing metres of rock beneath, you need to clamber on to one end.
At one end of Salema Beach is this large flat rock with dinosaur footprints running up the middle They show it to be a swivelled-hip beast with not a hint of a nasty claw. The movement of sand is such that the rock is sometimes almost covered. Then a big storm might reverse that, depending on all the seagulls being aligned to produce the right currents and activity required to be in the sand shifting business. It seems to spend a lot of time a metre or more above the sand.
The massive movement of sand on this coast is astonishing to see. When it mostly rushes off somewhere else for a while from Salema Beach, exposed rocks at the eastern end of the beach have various prints on them, mostly smaller animals. These are not as obvious as what is colloquially known as the (wait for it) ‘Dinosaur Rock’ and definitely not as large as those in the next little cove along from Salema beach, directly down the valley from where we live. These are serious prints of a serious beast. Definitely not an herbivore. It was a Big Beast.
Usually, the cove is very rocky and the prints are only accessible by clambering down from above. But occasionally the sand fills in the rocks and they’re accessible from the beach.
There are many brown colour signs on the roads hereabout pointing to ancient sites, including menhirs (otherwise known as standing stones) of about 5,000 years ago. A Portuguese term for a Menhir is Pedra Escorregadia, literally, slippery stone. Many pedra must have slipped over, but many were toppled by religious fanatics in the Middle Ages. Some have been inscribed with Christian symbols. Interesting how the muslims, who occupied the place from the 8th to 15th century, didn’t see it necessary to deface the menhir.
With all this old stuff, inevitably there are stories within stories about the whys, whens and wherefores and there are many locals who can tell you all about it.
The fishing village of Salema, with its fishing prominence being overrun by up-market holiday homes and general tourism, doesn’t need extra visitors, especially in summer, but it is an increasingly popular stop off point for many tours to do with things ancient. I guess that’s the price of having special old stuff just lying about on your wonderful beaches. And I’m not talking about the tourists.
I had a little gig singing and playing every mushy love song I could think of, for a couple from Canada, with their picnic at the rock all about him proposing marriage to his lady friend. He spooned; I crooned. It seems everything went well as I was hugged as I was paid.
