Answered Prayer

I doubt news reached the U.S. from searching that I have done on CNN.com and New York Times.com, but truck drivers in Spain went on strike this week. They were striking for minimum rates for each route they drive to help protect them from rising fuel costs. In Portugal, diesel is 1.40 euros per liter. There are a little less than 4 liters per gallon (~3.785 liters). That's 5.299 euros per gallon. The exchange rate has been about 1 euro = $1.54. If my math is right, that's $8.16 per gallon. Diesel is the cheapest in Europe. I think regular unleaded was 1.68 euros, which is $9.79 per gallon.

When truck drivers strike, they basically park their trucks and block the highways. Also, when they strike, goods obviously cannot be moved from place to place. The only country Portugal shares a border with is Spain, so anything that needs to come into to Portugal comes through Spain. Truck drivers striking in Spain effectively shuts down both countries. Truck drivers in Portugal also joined the strike.

On Tuesday, we noticed extra long lines at all the gas stations and wondered what was going on. Some of the lines were literally hours long. All of the gas stations sold out of both diesel and gasoline. You could still buy premium in a few places. There was also some panic buying at grocery stores as people tried to get those items like produce that aren't shelf stable. As a side note, milk is a shelf stable product in Europe. The strike was resolved late on Wednesday night/early on Thursday morning. We were able to find a BP with diesel on the way to our group excursion on Friday morning though we waited for about 30 minutes.

We were particularly concerned because of needing to get Kyle and Jayme to Lisbon on Saturday and several flights were canceled earlier in the week.

Thankfully, the deal was reached and goods and fuel are available in most areas of the country.