Portela de Alvite: a cattle fair that you must know

Every year in September, Cachena cows and garrano horses are kings in Portela de Alvite. The livestock fair that takes place in the small village of Sistelo, in the National Park of Peneda Gerês, is genuine and deserves to be known.

Lasts a whole weekend the livestock fair that takes place annually animates Portela de Alvite. There are cattle competitions, deals with horses, cows or goats and even horse races at the top of the hill. People from the surrounding area come to the village of Sistelo, Arcos de Valdevez, but this is a festival that is really worth knowing for its authenticity.

First of all, the atmosphere. There is no sound system blaring “trendy” songs. What you hear are the animals and the conversations that cross each other, the hustle and bustle of the crowd. Every now and then, a hawker announces through his microphone that he’s selling “not 6, not 12, but 24 pairs of socks for 5 euros!”

The women mostly sit on the stone benches in the picnic area, and the men chat and stroll in the shaded area, shaded by towering oak trees. And many walk with their staffs in hand. Many of them because they use it in their daily life, but most of them because they are at the cattle fair and these days the staff is a must.

In the permanent pens, there are goats, calves, horses and horses for sale, but it is mainly in the shade that the business is done. They may be trading animals, goats for horses or vice versa, or buying and selling. And in these last cases, haggling is a point of honour, in an authentic dance of gestures and words that everyone likes and that involves exaggerated gestures and a lot of vernacular.

After much haggling, Amadeu Sousa managed to sell three goats for 150 euros, the price he wanted. He began by asking for 60 euros per animal, and the buyers countered with 30 euros. But until they got there, they had fun, and that’s an integral part of the party.

The livestock fair at Portela de Alvite has always been held, but a few years ago it was renamed Feira Interfreguesias (Inter-parishes Fair), because the village belongs to two parishes and two municipalities, Arcos de Valdevez and Monção.

Besides the “garranos”, which are the raison d’être of the fair, together with the typical “cachenas” cows, there is also music. There are concertinas and typical rusgas  to cheer up the hundreds of people that come to the small village of Sistelo.

But another strong point of this traditional fair is the horse race that closes the event every year. On top of a hill in Portela de Alvite, a rudimentary hippodrome was built. While you can still hear the raids down here, people begin to flock to the hill. Those from the surrounding area make way and all the others follow the road or the footsteps of the first ones. Up here, the scenery is fabulous. You can see the Sistelo terraces that are one of the 7 wonders and, above all, the first Portuguese landscape considered National Heritage, and the peaks of the Peneda mountain range.

It is in this scenario that the horses evolve. They run against the clock in halted stride, a very comfortable movement for the rider and that was used by the nobles of the Middle Ages in parades. Unlike the trot, the horse advances laterally, placing its front and back legs simultaneously.

As the riders are not professionals, the race is done against the clock, seen by hundreds of people enjoying the late afternoon and another of the main attractions of this fair which, being small, is very genuine and worth a visit.