Day 12 : Sunrise & Sushi

Not pictured, my sleep deprivation

 This is our last full day in Lagos, so we decide to take a bit slower. The weather has taken a decidedly spring turn, with rain, wind, windy rain, and just generally, The Weather We Are Vacationing From. My wife is a big fan of sun. Full sun, sun sets, sun rises, sun sun sun sun. Whereas my affinity for sun sits somewhere between an albino hermit and those sea creatures that evolve at the bottom of the ocean, surviving only on the sulfureous fumes from underwater vents, never seeing a ray of sunshine their entire, very lucky, lives. 

But, we are in Portugal, and on vacation, and she wishes to see the sun rise, so we do. We wake up at some ungodly hour at which only early morning radio DJs and probably vampires are awake and trudge out, leaving our kids blissfully asleep. Now the sun could stay where it went to sleep for all I care, but we are up, and at the cliffs. Cliffs into the Sea is the majority of what I've seen of Portugal. 

It's coldish, and so early it's quiet. A dead silence that is so complete we actually discover a small farm nestled in the park at the cliff. There's a goat, a sheep, two dogs. And a gate, so I assume it's either the most successful squatting exercise or this farmer never signed off on having his property used for a public park. It's well hidden by some high hedges and some undulating hills, but it's not far from the official wooden track, a stone's throw, for someone not particularly good at throwing stones.

The sunrise, like the sunset, never becomes spectacular. You need clouds, not too much for a really nice sunrise. An appreciable dose of air pollution can help as well. But with the winds the way they are, and the clouds well, being cloudy, we see nothing. A glimmer of something that might becomes really nice but then just fizzles into the cloud cover.

The plaques that adorned some of these lookouts were, SACRILIGOUSLY, all the same.
You're on notice, Portugal.

Our eternal struggle for food and our colony
survival is NOT a mere spectacle for your AMUSMENT.

Back to home, a breakfast with the kids and we are off to walk the wooden path. If it's up to my wife, it's to walk the wooden path until it ends, perhaps somewhere around Spain. It's the ocean and cliffs again, and the wind that will not let up. It keeps things from getting too stuffy, perhaps. We sit, eventually, and become endlessly entertained by an army of ants hauling a Dorito chip home, while, off in the distance, the eternal majestic of the Atlantic Ocean battles the Portuguese coast completely ignored by us. There is no message here, except ants can be pretty cool.

What we would see if we just look up about 30 degrees from the ants.

Nothing much else to report, except when we first got our rental suite, there was this diabolical keypad that might have been installed in the 80's, at the very least the tech was. Somewhere there is an octogenarian programmer wistfully remembering writing assembly to power this damn thing. I assume they repurposed the keys from a Japanese pay phone, I'm not sure why, but it has very Nintendo at the Height of Power, Nakatomi Plaza is really how American's view us, Japanese vibes to me.

Annyywways. It was notoriously difficult to make it register a key. We'd start punching in the code and it would only start registering on, like, the 3rd or 4th key press. We tried all sorts of things then eventually I hit the star key and it registered. So we had it SOLVED. Except the next day, smug in our knowledge we had figured out the intricacies of this 80's Japanese sourced keypad puzzle  Except star didn't work, and no, neither did pound. 

We texted the owner and learned we just have to, you know, press the keys really hard. Somewhere a retired technician for the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone company is gesturing at the screen and saying 'Of course, duh'. 

Our last meal in Portugal I really wanted to have a seafood heavy meal, as that's what this region is known for, and probably Portugal in general. The only issue is one of the family is NOT a big fan of seeing fish whole. It's a thing. So I wrack my brain, and google it, and there is a highly rated sushi place nearby. It's called 'my sushi'. And yes, I realize I'm moving away from the 'eat local' mantra, but what I really wanted to experience is the freshness of the seafood. Yes, it was fresh, it was incredible. 

And thus ends our trip to Europe. London, Spain, then Portugal. Lots of sights, lots of walking. And a varying degree of excellence in plaques. But we'll always have Nico.

Day 11: Boat Trip!

 Today  was the day that the boat charter said would be good to go. We wouldn't be able to .. sail.. boat.. move the boat into the caves, but we'll be able to see it from outside. We are disappointed, but I'm sure these salted, veteran sea farers with hundreds of years of water exploration know what they're doing. Me, I've been on a few car ferries. 

We head to the dock, it's a normal drive, until the last 200 metres or so that seem like it was developed for experimental tank training. Potholes and mud and gravel and I can see why most people are wary about buying rental cars; because I just gun that Skoda through the patch of road like shocks are for free and tires are optional.

We meet the guide.. the guides. The boat is a very very large zodiac, maybe with a seating capacity for 20 folks. But it takes something like 10 staff. Ten thirtyish to middle aged well-salted, tanned to mahogany sailors all with a grim expression like they've just lost 3 tourists on the last outing and that was a good trip. I mean, we are going to take this vessel along the coast and look at several extremely (to me) similar looking caves being dramatically pounded by the Atlantic Ocean while I try to keep the theme song to Pirates of the Caribbean out of my head (you can't, can you, and now you'll be humming it all day you're welcome).

I'm not sure if I should be concerned with this many able and experienced sailors, or maybe the tour company pays extremely well; and maybe, just maybe we all pay too much for a 1 hour boat ride. Or maybe this trip requires the sort of personal waiver form that might be mistaken for the Bible, large print edition. Again, my wife plans the trip, so I have now (voiced) opinion. We're probably going to be fine, fine.

The guide who does all the talking has several well worn and practiced jokes. And even though  he recites them as someone who's calling Shipping and requesting another pallet of 25 lb stock paper for this years tax returns, they are pretty funny. 

There were dramatic cliffs, dramatic caves, sometimes with what most caves are named in most parts of the world with an trade activity (Smuggler's Cove). 

This cave was famous for being featured on a Windows screensaver. The height of fame for a geological formation  is to somehow catch the eye of a Microsoft project manager while he takes a scattering of days vacation from his high pressure job and maybe he takes the only solid 2 hours of sleep straight he's had since he was 13 on the beach and now you are plastered across every accounting office, architectural firm and law office in the world. I'm sure the geological formation doesn't care either way.

Dramatic waves!

Pretty water!

A hole in a cave ceiling that I'm sure has a story but I've since forgotten over the roar of the engine and spray of sea salt and I wonder of Johnny Depp does his own stunts.

More ocean caves. The project manager never made it this far, he had to finish a report on quarterly KPIs and burn down metrics for Q3. 

We make our way back and the captain just opens up. It's pretty exhilarating. There are wave and swells and other sorts of ocean water formation things that would have made going into the caves really perilous, but going back, full throttle? I mean, we all signed those waivers.

Last pretty picture of the sky, ocean, and a cave, maybe this one is called Cutthroat Cave? Or maybe this is one of the less glamorous ones "Squid Gutting and Fish Descaling Alcove", I'm not one to judge.

We drive back.

On the way we see these enormous nests. They look so comically large and so clearly unplanned for I can only imagine the sort of government/conservancy intervention had to be put into place to keep these from being destroyed. I'm thinking radio campaigns and flyers and those uncomfortable discussions around family tables when the teenagers who have just discovered Pearl Jam and have their laptops plastered with Greenpeace stickers are having it out with their staid, unfussy parents who note 'that's no way to run a business, with a 100 kilo next right on top of your chimney while you try and produce widgets or what have you'. They are the nests of the white storks around these parts, who summer in Africa then return to the same nest. 

They are absolutely massive. I saw one gliding against the wind, the airspeed over his wings making him seem to hover. This is all well and good for seagulls and terns and other birds who probably can't swoop down and spirit your toddler away. It's something else to see them defy gravity, good common sense, and any sense of safety a parent might have for their small child.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, anytime they put up any sort of retaining/sound wall on the highway it gets graffitied like this is the 80's and everyone and their uncle has a breakdancing crew. It gets a little jarring watching the idyllic countryside and then seeing some art that, for all intents and purposes, might be Portugal's best Run DMC cover band. 

Pretty road. 

Driving in Portugal is not too bad. The one thing they have an abundance of is round abouts. If you are uncomfortable with the laws of a roundabaout, drive about 10 minutes, you'll have practice navigating about 20 of them. Yield to those coming in, never overtake someone in the roundabout, stay on your toes and also be quick about it.I didn't see many senior citizens driving, I assume after a certain age you just kind of make the wrong move and the fiery wreckage of you and your poor decision making skills gets pushed into the center of the roundabout, to serve as a warning for future motorists.

A highway careering perilously into a roundabout. Sometimes there's a crosswalk just as you exit one, so that's fun.

We haven't had enough coastline, so we go to see a bridge of some sort. There is another rainbow. Somebody is trying to be noticed by a few project managers.

We end our day with some peri peri chicken, because I need to have what every tourist asks for (besides McDonalds) in every country I visit.

And then we end with a nice walk about Lagos. Certainly not reminding me of the sort of quaint seaside town the Black Pearl would ransack.

Day 10 Ferragudo

We had planned to take a boat to see all the pretty coastal caves but the spring weather, wind and waves had other ideas, and our trip was cancelled. At some point we realized the trip from Lagos to the cave is likely the longer of the trips we could take. It'd be easier to get a boat trip from a charter that was closer to the caves. Less water to cross, etc.

Anyhow, the important thing is that my wife and I, as we often do, found a small little loop that'd we repeat ad nauseum, along the lines of: 

"Ohh, so, it's you know, BECAUSE it's so far away.."

"Right, right, we should get a boat trip from a company CLOSER"

"Totally, because then it would be closer, right, less water, less likely to be cancelled"

"Because Lagos is, you know, so FAR AWAY."

And somehow find a way to loop it back or give it a rest until we bring  it up again. Merely to troll our teenagers. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, our kids are pretty immune to this, so it takes quite a few performances to even crack their I Am Not Annoyed And Or Embarrassed by You Two exterior. We have so precious few years together with our kids, we really know how to drag it out.

Families that Troll Together Stay Together, or something.

So we went to Ferragudo. A touristy town to the east, yeah, let's say to the east of Lagos. I just follow wherever Google maps tells me to, even if it might drop me in the middle of a pedestrian only cobbled street, deep within a European town during Holy Week. The apps speaks so authoritatively. I mean, to some extent. It has a tendency to have the worst of the worst American accents when saying Portuguese street names, which normally would just be jarring, but we are in Portugal, so we end up feeling this low grade resentment towards Americans. Ugh, they just butcher the language that I took cannot speak at all.

We found a lovely spot with that bordered a canal that had approximately fifty restaurants all fronting a square. Ok, it might not have been fifty, it just felt like it. And you had that a situation when there is over competition for tourist dollars. Restaurants owners standing at the door of their restaurants, hoping they can will you inside, others approaching and talking far too much about their menus for any tourist foolish enough to linger and read the restaurant placards. I suppose we were visiting before true tourist season so it was definitely a case of, too many restaurants not enough tourists.

But I finally got to try paella. True, it's a Spanish dish inside Portugal, but that's pretty close. As I'm not a connoisseur of paella or a foodie with an educated palate, or.. much of palate at all, full stop, this is close enough. Paella to me is always a dish you should say if there was a trivia question asking about Spanish dishes and you needed an answer that makes you seem both well-travelled and well-read. Possibly with a following anecdote about backpacking in Andalusia.

You can almost hear the Portuguese teenagers all
 complaining at the same time ,
"As soon as I'm of age I'm OUT of here"

Ferragudo is a tourist/fishing town. Really the definition of a sleepy town. Tiny cobbled streets, narrow and winding. Architecture that looks like it hasn't had an update since corsairs invading from the Ottoman Empire were a real concerns. 

Somewhere up this street, around the corner,
 past a few more warning
 and past those bushes, I hear the
 houses are absolutely darling.

It has become a bit of a social media darling because of a street where the houses (contiguous houses.. I'm not sure what they are called.. townhouses without a strata? houses with limited yard space?) are painted in bright colours. Of course, this has only lead the town to put up signs forbidding anyone to wander the streets looking for the perfect selfie. I can't blame them.

Anyhow, we then go to see the Benagil caves from above. Benagil caves are these ocean caves, with a gigantic hole that opens into it from above. It has a large, sensible wood perimeter around it. I can only imagine the number of Instagram/selfie deaths/maimings that this hole has caused. It's a very low gate, and is, like may safety measures, merely a strong suggestion. I see far too many tourist climb over it to get a better look at the hole while the Atlantic ocean rages inside. 

Every cave here reminds of the 2000's remake of the Count of Monte Cristo, or probably, if I'm being even more honest, one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I expect to see plunder floating somewhere or a vicious knife fight to the death in 17th century appropriate clothing.

And we wrap it up trying to see a sunset back at Lagos. The sunsets and sunrises here have been lackluster for the same reasons they can be lackluster in Vancouver. The clouds. 

The buffeting winds and Blink And It'll Change Weather made it interesting, however. I positively saw birds start flying from a bush, then kinda nope right back to where they started. Luckily the wind is blowing from the ocean to land, if it was the other way around I would not have left the parking lot.

Our final dinner is at slightly fancy fish and chips place. All seafood here is incredibly fresh, even for seafood battered and deep fried, so much so that even my non-palate can taste the difference. 

It as a lovely day, nice sights, good food, and I hardly noticed the American accent on the drive back.

Day 9 : Lagos 2 It's basically hiking

 This is the day my wife has been waiting for, walking along cliffs and enjoying the view! Hiking, but slightly less strenous, less gear, and almost no goretex.

We head out dressed for chilly, windy weather. But when we  arrive at the first choice, it's crammed with cars. Of course, it's the weekend, so the tourists and the locals will be cramming to the hot spots to get their nature time in. This must be a popular spot because we counted at least 10 cars idling in the middle of the lanes, hoping for a parking spot to open up.

We go to a different spot. But it's hot. Well, it's warm. And, as I've said before, I tolerate heat like a chocolate Easter bunny. So I end up having to roll my sensible slacks up and just grin and bearing it along the way. Yes I look ridiculous and someone that perhaps mothers with young children should give a wide berth but I'll probably not drop from heat exhaustion and who am I here to impress anyways. My kids, perhaps inoculated to my... middle agedness, don't even bat an eye.

The stretch of cliff/water/beach has absolutely no railing anywhere. The misuss is used to this sort of sight seeing and gets heart attack starting, 'hold up let me curl into a fetal position in a corner and rock' level of anxiety inducing close to the edge of cliffs to get a 'nicer view'. I end up just trying to look away and not panic, thinking about all the loose rocks near the edge of each cliff. I likewise fight the urge to Google 'annual deaths of tourists in Lagos near cliffs' because there will likely be too MUCH information, or worryingly little. 

Afterwards I let her know that getting close enough to a cliff where a sneeze would lead to a fatal fall is a NO GO for me. Thankfully she complies to my worry-wart hen like instincts. Taking risks where you might break a bone? Ok. Where you might die? Maybe not.

We walk for about 20 minutes but the heat (really, just a pleasant spring day for most folks) wilts me and my daughter, and our intrepid crew is forced to turn back. 

So back to home base, change, shower, get ready to go out again or form some sort of plan.

On our way back we stop at a gas station. After puzzling over the on screen options to even get it in  English, I have everything set. Then I grab what looks to be the simplest nozzle.. the least expensive nozzle..? And try and fuel up, but it doesn't fit. Uh oh. I think. The fuel types in Portugal are given letter and number designations, like B7, or E5. I, ignorant Canadian, assumed the diesel would be at a different pump, or at least be named something that someone could guess at, like Dieessel and Gasolina. I am aware I am no linguist. 

After some frantic googling I find out that yes, I did just try and put diesel into the gasoline rental car and who knows what sort of horrendous explosions might have occurred. I pick the right one, the nozzle fits, we are off to the races. Or.. the trip back to our room, in any case.

We get back, have a little rest, then off for lunch/dinner. Empanadas! This is one of those Latin foods that made it's way into Filipino culture so we are excited to try it at it's source. It's great! As we predicted, seeing as the restaurant was entirely dedicated to empanadas. Pockets of meat in a pastry is a universal recipes that gets repeated across cultures, and it's neat to see a hip cafe serving a food that really only rings true in our memories as something our moms would make at Christmas time with a suspicious amount of raisins.

We next make out way out to another cliff/water .. formation.. thing. This time, with a wonderfully safe boardwalk, where I will not take years off my life watching my family pick their way through a path that is one clumsy mistake away from oblivion. The weather is perfect, very Pacific Northwest. Cool, windy, with enough intermittent sun to remind you you are are in Portugal.

Look at those wonderful, death averting railings.
Good to be hyperventilating from the walk and not from paralyzing anxiety

The views are admittedly, spectacular, but I'm not fooled, we are hiking.

Here is a picture which also reminds me we are in Portugal. This sort of decorative roof which really provides no cover from the rain would NEVER be countenanced in Vancouver, where rain is the norm, and dry weather is something to be mistrusted, and perhaps appreciated before some form of precipitation takes its place.

The kids plead/ask/jostle us to get gelato. Of course we get it, what is vacation without stuffing yourself with treats and sugary goodness that makes you think a few weeks later "oh why did I eat so much ice cream". It's also a bit of celebration for me, a little hip hip hurrah for the wonder of guardrails.

Day 8 : Lagos - of Skodas and Burgers

 And here we are at the slower part of our trip, our time in Portugal, where we will stay and just chill for a few days. Our itinerary is mainly finding lovely cliffs/beaches to wander along. Was this iternary created by my hiking wife? Yes. Does she do every iota of organizing for our trips? Also yes. Do I then deserve any opinion about this 'hey aren't we just hiking but in a different counry?' trip? No. No I do not.

Hokay, another set of busses, nothing to repr, but this bus station was quite pretty:

We find out way to the Faro airport, to pick up our car, the scene looks something like this:

This seems like something you'd see at the turn of the century when things like the BBB or car safety regulations didn't exist. Who knew there were so many car rental company's I have NEVER heard of. The misspelling of "Shuttle" did not fill me with confidence either. Or the general disarray of the line (not pictured), there were real concerns we'd take the shuttle and be left in a tumbleweed filled junkyard with some fellow who's name is pronounced with sounds that do not usually go together, and a pack of junkyard dogs that haven't tasted human flesh in hours. 

There is some drama involving our shuttle driver. He comes by, he doesn't pick us up, he comes by again, he promises to pick us up next time, he comes by again, and he forgot he promised to pick us up. My wife is getting to the point were we might get 'assertive'. I hold my ground to my passive 'live and let live hang loose we're all on vacation let's not worry about it' style of confrontation, and let me tell you, everything just kind of resolves itself by dumb luck and attrition.

We finally get the shuttle the rental car spot, which is just a series of fancy train boxcars welded together. The confidence is not high. But then when finally get a car, a Skoda no less (I don't know what the reputation of the brand is now, but when I was a kid it was regarded as perhaps a driving lawnmower rated for highway driving if everyone has signed a waiver). The engine sounds like a family of rabid racoons are having a fight to the death with rusty bike chains but somehow that, and the fact that there is a "Oil Change Required Now" light on permanent blink makes me less worried about the whole thing.

There is perhaps a mystery to driving in a foreign country. To me this is the last, or near last stage of adulthood. Sure I don't understand the language or, technically, all the traffic laws and signs. But I know how a clutch works and by God Google maps will see me through. The shifting, the absolute butchering of the language Google maps does as it reads out roads is a further comfort. Before long I'm driving just under the speed limit keeping my 5 -10 second distance from everyone around me jsut like at home. Do I perhaps make people think I'm a pensioner? Maybe. But is it safe? I sure hope so. 

We follow the Google maps to a spot it says we have to go to get a meal. The kids have been putting up with my 'let's eat someplace that has as close to local fare as possible' vibe for long enough. They deserve a proper burger. But of course, it has to be from a Portuguese fast food spot, Burger Ranch it is! It seems to be everywhere, proudly declares itself to be Portuguese, and it's website has strong 'we did this once in 2015 and we will never do anything like this ever again. The lack of prices is a dead give away. 

So, going to Burger Ranch, we again, trust in the Google Map gods. The thing is, Google maps doesn't actually care if it's awkward as all get out, or if the path becomes so narrow that the walls leaning into the street are plastered with other car rental's paint. I felt like I was in a Bond movie, where he commandeers a Mini Cooper and drives haphazardly down cobbled streets, sparks flying as he scrapes wall. Except this is a Skoda, I'm going far, far slower, and the only sparks flying are from my wife's eyes as she shoots me daggers for continuing to follow the instructions to our certain doom. 

We have to keep going because the streets can't KEEP getting narrower, I reason. There has to be a loop because this street is only EVER one way, forever. If this road didn't get wider we'd end up at the end in a pile of car rentals, likely Skodas, all with trapped tourists begging Google maps to guide them, out, the last flickering of their phone screens as their battery dies the last thing they see. 

Clearly, we didn't die in a pile of trapped cars. But we did have to loop around and walk in. Now, in the smaller cities, we realized we had to look where we wanted to go, then search for a parking lot near by. 

After the burger and fries (good, btw), we get some Portuguese egg tarts. Excellent, obviously. And we realize the Portuguese egg tarts we get at home are more Portuguese egg tarts as understood by folks who usually have Chinese egg tarts. One isn't better than the other, but one is certainly more authentic.

Then we go for nice walk alone the sea. It's beautiful but a little too nature minded, not enough historical buildings for my taste. But at the end is a fort! Sadly, tragically, bereft of any plaques whatsoever, but did possess a lovely chapel, whose ornateness only made the lack of plaques even more disconcerting.

We then drove to the nearest  beach side and
wandered amongst the cliffs and beaches, more or less what we are going to be doing for 4 days, might as well get a head start on it, the thinking goes.

And we round out going to a local-ish place with, I'm sure, local delicacies, but clearly setup for tourists. The peri peri chicken was grilled to perfection, a proper juicy chicken breast being quite a tricky thing to do, I've found. I had the pork cheeks. I try not to think, which cheeks, but the thought does come unbidden.

Tomorrow we dive into full on hike/walk mode. About which I have no negative opinions of whatsoever.