The Algarve Revisited -- Part Two
Several things have impressed me over the few weeks I have been back in
the Algarve. One of the first is the reminder of how expensive the
place is compared with so many other places I have been staying
recently, and that includes the UK.
The food can be very cheap if you are happy with the peasant cafes
which sell the same basic half dozen dishes, usually overcooked.
Unfortunately, they aren't very cheap compared with food in Hungary or
Bulgaria, or the average UK country pub, or the food I'm used to in
Central America. Let's do some comparisons.
A friend of mine went out for a meal in a tasca near Algoz. It's out in
the sticks. He claims the food was poor quality and it cost €35 for
two. They had a spaghetti bolognese, a chicken piri-piri, a carafe of
low grade wine, a bottle of water, a coffee, and a fruit juice. Call
that £27.
Two weeks ago I was sitting in a pub in Buckinghamshire (scarcely the
cheapest county in the land). If someone had cut down the woodland
(which heaven forbid) I could have taken a shot at the M25. A pint of
beer cost me nearly £4 (two halves actually), my friend had a
fruit juice, and we shared six large portions of what was laughingly
called tapas. The cooking was superb, which is why this was a return
visit. My friend had a coffee and a pudding to finish. It cost us
£27.
I could have visited any of a dozen hostelries on my way south from
Bristol airport. All along the A38 the meal deals were legion. It would
seem hard for a couple to eat lunch for more than a tenner. Okay, wine,
due to the tax, is more expensive, so drink the local brew, which is
beer, and that is less than the cost of wine in Portugal. And in some
of the pubs the kids eat for free.
Now factor in the cost of running restaurants in the UK. Rates are much
more expensive than in the Algarve, and wages are twice the Algarve
level, so why does the food cost so much down here?
In Nicaragua my meals plus drinks usually cost me about $15, which is
about a tenner. In Hungary and Bulgaria the prices were about the same.
No, Portugal is rather expensive.
It isn't only the food that's expensive, the real estate is still
insanely high compared with rentals. You can buy a ruin in the Algarve.
It'll cost you at least €50,000, and usually a darn site more. In
Hungary you can knock off a naught. Yes, renovations start at €5,000,
and that's in the tourist triangle from the Austrian border/Slovakia
border/Lake Balaton.
There does seem to be a problem in the Algarve with the way the locals
view money. My neighbour employs a gardener. Several of my friends
employ gardeners. They dont turn up on tuesdays. Oddly, neither do the
builders. Upon enquiry I find the reason is simple. Tuesday is the day
they sign on for their unemployment benefit. So they are getting paid
twice and dont pay tax. Nice one.
My neighbour tells me the land behind him is for sale. Yes, I know, I
once went to look at it many years ago. When I and my friend arrived we
were quoted a price which was half as much again as the price listed in
the local estate agent's window. The price relates to how rich you seem
to be not what the land is supposedly worth. My neighbour told me that
some Chinese turned up a year ago interested in the deal. Apparently
the price doubled "because the Chinese are rich". Of course, they just
walked away. Now the planning consent has lapsed so the land is
worthless.
I find this over and over again. Someone is over-charged because he
looks rich. I guess it is a basic peasant mentality. It chimes in with
their strange way of pricing work.
A Portuguese builder charges €100 a day which brings him in €500 a
week. This goes on during the good times, but when the bad times come
round said builder can only find work for four days a week, so, in
order to make his wages still come to €500 a week, he ups the rate.
When he finds he is now no longer competitive and he is only working
three days a week he has to raise his rates again. He is now charging
€170 a day to make up the €500 he thinks he ought to be taking home.
That, of course, puts him right out of business, so he signs on, and
then works on the side at a lower rate. And that is how things work in
the Algarve.
The Ukrainians who are still here charge only about €40 a day, so they
are the ones who get the work. At least they do work all day, whereas
the Portuguese knock off about 11.30, get back to work about 3.00, and
spend the afternoon talking. My Portuguese neighbour has sacked about a
dozen Portuguese workers over the past three or four months precisely
because he cant get them to do a day's work.
What had once simply seemed to be local habits, and one got used to
them, now seems insane in view of the economic mess the country is in.
From what I can see now there is no way things will improve any time
soon. Of course, the Portuguese who wish to work, but want a better
rate of pay for working harder than their neighbours, go abroad, and so
the country is left with those who dont want to work, and the
foreigners who take lower pay.
The only way things will improve is if the population decreases by
about 25%, and those folks actually start pulling their weight. This,
of course, will only work if the country also decides sometime in the
not too distant future to start using modern practices and much much
more automation. Either people have to produce wealth (currently
unlikely here), or machines have to do it instead. Currently, that also
seems unlikely.
john
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