Sunny Portugal: We Are Here

Hello my friends. We’re here. In sunny Portugal. The Algarve, more specifically. And already acclimatized to the heat and the sun. But it’s been tough, people. Not really.

So far my travel wardrobe has been perfect. Mostly because I packed a super casual pair of cotton shorts to wear walking and to the beach and because it’s not really been much over 25 Celsius. So my cropped mom jeans and a tee shirt, and my cropped Rag and Bone pants and a tee shirt have been just the ticket. But… I’m getting ahead of myself.

Like Alan Rickman aka Colonel Brandon said in Sense and Sensibility when he tried to explain the plight of his young female ward to Emma Thompson aka Elinor, “No, I must go further back.”

Just as an aside, is it possible there can be a better version than Emma Thompson’s 1995 film? I think not. You can tell I’ve seen it a million times, thanks to my mum, because random inconsequential bits of dialogue float around in my brain to be trotted out at random moments. Like now.

Anyhoo. Hubby and I had a good journey from Ottawa to Faro, via Toronto and Munich. Long on layover times. But that’s how we chose to do it. We hate to have short, and therefore rushed and stressful layovers. So when we arrived we were knackered. Still, we picked up our car and made a brief stop to get enough supplies for supper and breakfast. Then we checked into our little studio apartment outside of Tavira.

We’re in a sort of complex/community called Pedras D’el Rei. At first we were a bit nonplussed at the extent of the bungalows and small apartment buildings. We almost never stay in large places. But we’ve loved it here. The buildings are mostly older, but in really good shape. And the grounds are beautiful with huge trees and flowering shrubs etc. Plus it’s really quiet. Our studio looks out onto the lagoons behind which is the beach. In fact, we’re almost right at the access to Praia do Barril.

Which is what we did our first day here. Access the beach, I mean. After sleeping for ten hours, of course, then having a leisurely breakfast, then shopping for supplies for the week.

Barril Beach is the site of a former tuna fishing community which was abandoned in the 1960s when heavy commercial fishing depleted the local bluefin tuna stocks. Wiping out a community and a way of life. The “Cemitério das Âncoras” consists of hundreds of rusted anchors which were once used to secure fishing nets to the ocean floor. Now they serve as a memorial to the past. They are stunning in the late afternoon light, I must say.

We only paddled at the beach. But it was enough. Just to be on, and in, the ocean was enough.

We also explored the nearby fishing village of Santa Luzia on our first day.

Yesterday we went on a bit of a road trip to a nearby town of Cachapo. And after a few wrong turns thanks to our GPS, we parked and explored.

I do wish I could edit the bit of video I took when we reached the crest of a blind hill and were quite sure that we were in a farmyard. Still we’ve been on narrow roads before, so we turned left as instructed by “our lady of the maps” and before long saw that the road did, in fact, turn into a farm track. With no place to turn. The expletives uttered by me and Hubby, but mostly Hubby, made the video unusable. Hubby had to reverse up a hill and around a curve to be able to turn around. Avoiding stone walls and the odd chunk of cement on the verge, probably used to signify the edge of the road and stop us from plunging down the hill into a bit of pasture.

Every time we get into a similar situation I marvel at the versatility of some of Hubby’s favourite four letter words. One word in particular can serve as noun, verb, adjective and adverb, sometimes all four in one sentence. No wonder the teenagers are enamoured with that word. Ha. I can hear my friends now. It’s not just the teenagers, Sue. I know, I know.

I have included a short video below, though. This is after we turned around and are on the wider, more palatable part of the road. We have no idea where the gps was sending us, because we realized that we’d driven right through Cachapo already.

Here are a few shots of Cachapo, below.

The two restaurants were crowded with locals having lunch when we got back to Cachapo, so we decided against stopping for a coffee. We simple strolled around and then made tracks back to Tavira. Stopping at a picnic site along the way to eat the lunch we’d packed.

Today we’ve been for a walk and that’s pretty much it. Except for my chatting with you guys. Tonight we have reservations for dinner at the on-site restaurant. And there’s a bar as well with live music, so we will check that out too. Tomorrow we are off on another road trip. Hopefully not through anyone’s farmyard, though.

Still I’m mindful of the time we got lost hiking in the Gorge du Tarn area in France. And as we approached a farmyard a barking dog came pelting out at us. Hubby just put his hand out and murmured “Bon chien, bon chien.” And it subsided. I remember quipping that the dog understood Hubby’s French even with his Ottawa accent. So I know that we each have untapped resources when it comes to getting out of trouble. Ha.

That’s all from me, my friends. Word Press does not like to talk to my IPad. I will try to edit a bit more once I’ve published. If I can’t, please know that I’ve tried numerous times to correct the errors earlier in the text and was unable to so. Plus the spacing between paragraphs is likely to be all wonky… and that always drives me crazy.

Hope you are all having a good weekend. I’m off to shower and change and get ready for our dinner out. I won’t be able to post next Saturday because we’ll be enroute to Ronda, Spain. But I will try to post while we’re there. Just know that all photos and stories will be saved up until we can chat again. 😊