Presentation of “Discovering the Americas” by Maria do Vale Cartaxo at the Municipal Library

“Chris and I left on September 30, 1974, from Vancouver Island, a large and beautiful island in the Pacific, in the westernmost state of Canada, British Columbia – where we had been visiting for almost 5 months (preparing for the long journey we were about to undertake) – after crossing the vast ocean by ship from Tokyo, a huge city where we had lived and worked for about two years.

The transcontinental journey in Lola began in September 1974, and we traveled down to Seattle, in the state of Washington, followed by Nevada and California – when I dedicated myself to recording our adventure in the form of a diary, which follows here, while Chris drove...

Ah, yes, but long before all those routes and experiences, I had traveled from Europe, boarding the French port of Marseille on the ship “Pacifique,” from the company “Messageries Maritimes,” to disembark a month later in Asia, in Colombo, the capital of Ceylon, at the end of June 1969, to reunite with Chris. And from my boarding in Marseille until I arrived in Colombo, I had circumnavigated Africa, at Cape Bojador (which Gil Eanes rounded in 1434).

Author's Biography

Maria de Vale Cartaxo, born in Portimão, as a girl and young woman left her parents' home to study at the high school in Faro and at the university in Lisbon, and soon felt the longing to leave her homeland and go further – not content with little, she traveled around the world and sailed across the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific oceans and other seas. Following the maritime route of the discovering ancestors, she rounded the African continent at the Cape of Good Hope, with stops in Senegal, South Africa, and Kenya, arrived in Bombay, anchored in Ceylon, landed in Malacca, sailed to Macau, traveled through Taiwan, and disembarked in Nagasaki, Japan.

On two wheels, riding a motorcycle with her husband Christopher Gosden, an Englishman also thirsty for adventure, she traveled thousands of kilometers from Singapore, through Malaysia and Thailand, to Laos and Cambodia. Later, they lived and traveled by land for a year and a half, in a small “bread-shaped” VW caravan, throughout the American continent, from Canada to Chile, crossed Argentina, and settled in Brazil. Beyond all the places she visited on four continents, from the Alps to the Andes, from the Canadian glaciers to the Atacama desert and the Amazon rainforest, the author lived in Salzburg, Colombo, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Porto Alegre, and Rio de Janeiro, where she worked in diplomatic missions, multinational companies, schools, and as a freelance translator.

After returning to her homeland, she began residing near Alvor, overlooking the sea that she loves so much.

She was the first recipient of the Manuel Teixeira Gomes Award, established by the Portimão City Council in 1999, with the short story “The Journey” and, after that, she was also awarded in 2002 with the novella “The Legacy of Mrs. Baker” and, in 20