Construction

Just a quick comment on the state of affairs here. Although there is currently a recession, you wouldn’t believe the amount of building here. True, not all of it is active: in some cases you will find just a shell of a concrete structure, all derelict and covered in graffiti; in slight less abandoned projects, you find a crane as a permanent fixture but which is never active – in fact it is hard to scan the horizon of a city without spotting at least one crane somewhere. However, plenty of projects are active; they may not be the most efficient of operations but throw enough people at a problem and they actually get completed pretty quickly. Two underground parking garages have been constructed in Lagos since I arrived. And the guy running the hostel in Portimao stated it is the city of roundabouts and shopping malls when I commented on the proliferation of construction.
Everything is the same: concrete edifices, whitewashed and either flat topped or covered in red corrugated tile. But the homogeneity is contrasted with the somewhat ‘higgledy-piggeldy’ architecture of some of these concrete blobs, delivering a definite Portuguese style of architecture.