Having just got a track (um caminho) built from the entrance to my land up a relatively steep hill to my (still yet to be completed) house.
Given that the distance of said track is about 100 metres and given that it is two metres wide so delivery trucks can get up this would haven taken many, many days of extremely arduous labour to do by hand.....
Hence why I got a man with a very large digger in to make said track (caminho).
And while he had the digger there, he also doubled the size of the half-assed attempt (from the previous residents) at the existing sharka, making it deeper and wider so it actually functions and retains water.
NB - I could get my head around the idea of making a track by hand, but just the sheer amount of work that would be required would be sooo arduous, soul destroying almost.
As to digging out the sharka by hand - errr, NO, that's too soul destroying to think about!
One needs connections for maximum efficiency!
So this guy with the very large (and nearly new) digger turned up on Wednesday this week at 8.00 in the morning, and by midday he'd already made around 25% of the path and done around 2/3rds of the sharka - making it deeper, building up the walls, making it wider.
By Thursday, 17.00 he was finished!
His rate was 50 EU an hour, so around 800 EU for two days work to make a track and a MASSIVE sharka, not too bad!
So three things about this....
- Just the sheer amount of moving-earth style work one man with a digger did in half a day is INCREDIBLE.... compared to what I could have done with a spade! Like 20 times as much, maybe? It's just testimony to the power of machines.
- One needed to be connected to get this guy - a friend of mine who speaks Portuguese fluently helped me out the day before with the explanation of where I wanted the track etc. and the price, and BOOM, he came the day after!
- This is a great example of where 'DIY' doesn't really work: one man with a MASSIVE piece of industrial machinery is literally 20 times as efficient as one man with a spade!
And Portugues is BEST!
There is a local English speaking guy who does digging services, and he's all the rage among the local Facebook group, primarily frequented by English speaking foreigners...
HOWEVER, he is NOWHERE near as efficient as my non-English speaking guy, BUT you need to be able to speak Portuguese to phone him, get him to come out to give you a quote, OR know someone who can translate for you.
NB - I had the same with my lawyer who did the land purchase for me - I got half price compared to the local English speaking lawyer who nearly all the foreigners use.
OK I have to pay my friend to translate for me, but that's like an extra 50 EU for a 50% saving on a fee of several hundred dollars.
And hopefully by this time next year I can do all the speaking myself.
It sure does pay to have connections!