snakesssssss

Praia do Norte, Nazare, Portugal, 2023

How about a funny little story today?

First, some back story:

I am terrified of snakes.

Like “freeze in terror and horror if I see one out in the wild” terrified.

Even seeing a photo of a snake is unnerving.

Frankly, thinking about snakes is so off-putting that as I’ve been typing this story, I’ve lifted my feet off the floor and am sitting cross-legged in my chair.

Keep all this in the back of your mind because it becomes relevant in just a moment.

Several months ago, I was looking at a real estate listing for my favorite town on the Silver Coast of Portugal. I look at real estate listings in Portugal all the time and have for a couple of years because my husband and I are hoping to immigrate there in a couple of years.

I have seen SOME STUFF in these listings, folks.

American and Portuguese real estate listings differ wildly. This is an understatement. American real estate listings often have professional photos that are staged carefully to highlight the home’s best qualities. Meanwhile, Portuguese listings are more casual. As in, frequently the photos are of poor (or even terrible) quality and it’s not uncommon for the homes to be cluttered or even really messy.

Anyway, back to the listing I want to describe.

The home in question was an apartment in a small building on a hill in town. The location is terrific, plus there are great views of the ocean, which is always a draw for me. As I scrolled through the photos, I liked almost everything I saw.

Near the end of the photos were several of the rooftop pool. As I was examining the photos on my phone, I saw something … unusual. I zoomed in on the unusual thing but the image wasn’t clear, so I pulled up the listing on my laptop.

As I looked at the photo in question, I felt my heart rate spike.

Y’all, there was a mother-effing snake lounging next to the mother-effing pool. In fact, there were TWO mother-effing snakes in the photo. Surely I was mistaken.

I scrolled to the next photo, which was from a different angle and, yep, there were two snakes in the photo. So help me, one of them looked suspiciously like a cobra.

I closed my laptop and put my phone in my pocket. I was both distressed and confused.

When we were in the early stages of deciding between moving to Portugal and Spain, my husband researched the snake situation in both countries and assured me that Portugal does not have venomous snakes — unlike here in Virginia, where we have three different kinds. I have held this information close to my heart ever since.

HOWEVER, the photos I was looking at seemed to contradict the information I had assumed to be true. AND, the snakes in question had decided to slither into town, climb to the roof of a four-story building, and hang out by the pool of a building I could theoretically live in one day. This was terrible.

After thinking about it, I texted a friend of mine who lives on a farm several miles from this apartment building. I figure if anyone knew anything about snakes in Portugal, she would be that person. I sent her the real estate listing and she was just as perplexed as I was. She said she had never seen any snakes on her property, only discarded snake skins. In fact, after having lived in Portugal for a couple of years, she had only recently seen her first Portuguese snake.

After texting back and forth several times, my friend decided to call the real estate agent who listed the property and ask about the snakes next to the pool.

Less than an hour later, we had answers.

The snakes that had me unsettled and questioning my proposed life choices were toys meant to scare off seagulls from hanging out by the pool. Bits of plastic, not living reptiles.

This of course begs the question why didn’t someone remove the toy snakes before taking the photos? I would think that any potential buyer would be put off by the possibility of snakes around the pool and that realtors would want to make the photos as attractive and enticing as possible. But as I’ve already mentioned, Portuguese real estate photos are … different.

As it happens, a few weeks later, the photos in the listing were updated to include better ones taken by a professional. The rooms of the apartment looked great. The lighting was perfect. The rooms were beautifully staged. Really, this was a place where I could see myself living.

I scrolled to see what the rooftop pool looked like when photographed by a professional. The plastic reptiles were still there.