I woke up at 10:03. Why so early? My dad apparently has an alarm set for 5:03am on his phone in the states, and since we're on a five hour time shift here.........
I got up and looked out the window. The view is incredible during the day.
After the morning packing, we found ourselves at a little cafe, cafe buondi, on the praca, and I buried my nose in a phrasebook to figure out how to order a hot chocolate.
You'd think it would be easy to pronounce: Um chocolate quente. In Spanish world, it would be. But when you have to say oong chocolate kaynt.... Basically, between my dad and I we can read all the signs, and can't pronounce any of them.
So we watched the world go by. Tourists on buses, a street band banging away at nothing, and the occasional plane flying overhead and ruining the moment.
At noon a few drops of rain fell, so we left the cafe. A pastry, two cups of coffee and a hot chocolate was 6,80€. not bad, eh? We checked out of the hotel and put our stuff in the car.
Wandering down the street, we found ourselves in a supermarket. We picked up two 1.5L bottles of water, a litre of fanta, a bar of chocolate and some local olive oil, and only paid 5,07€. We're on a serious budget until we decide to actually get money from a bank; until then we're living on the euros I managed to find in my room before I left.
My dad decided he needed to walk into a store that only sells socks. Apparently shoes are to women what socks are to my dad. Fortunately, he didn't buy.
This entire town is tiled, from the streets to the stairs to the walls of the buildings. Probably one of the last remaining vestiges of either moorish or spanish armada-era influence, it makes for a beautiful walk through town. Ornate tiling winds and twists its way through pedestrian streets in intricate ways.
Apparently 50% of the worlds cork comes from a few miles north of here, and we found a shop that sold cork bracelets, cork handbags, cork hats and cork umbrellas. It was very beautiful, but we were wary of a material we'd never seen used for something other than wine stoppage, and didn't buy.
We spent an hour walking along the wall of the old fortress city, between that and the water, and then up through the old city. We walked briefly into an old convent, which was built in the ancient Faro Jewish quarter. Wherever I go there seems to be a Jewish quarter this, a Jewish quarter that. I guess we have been on the run for so long we were bound to end up everywhere at some point.
We wound our way back to the car, and started our trip west along the coast. Driving through Vila-lined hills, we found our way to the small town of Quarteira, a small rundown area right on the water. Apparently Madonna spends some time in a fancy schmancy mansion down the road, but who needs that when you're on the Atlantic that is as calm as the Mediterranean.
We didn't have time to stay in Quarteira, as we wanted to be elsewhere by nightfall, so at 3:30 we once again got in the car to drive through Vilamoura, the resort that Madonna stays in near Quarteira, on our way to Albufeira, an old Moorish town-turned-touristed.
In Vilamoura, we stumbled on some old Roman ruins. At the height of the Roman Empire, between the first and fifth centuries, Portugal had been integrated. These ruins were a spa complex, with a private villa section for wealthier guests and larger pools on the outskirts for the general public. We got to just walk all around the ruins, figuring out what each place was for. It's amazing how the Romans had mastered the art of water movement, heat transfer, and plumbing. It reminded me of Pompeii. One interesting note; what was marked as a bedroom was apparently considered small for the time... My dorm room is smaller. Oh, how the rich then lived.
At 4:30 we left the ruins and headed to the beach. I beat my dad in a race to the Atlantic (not hard to do) and was the first to get a piece of it. I even swallowed a bit... The beaches here at Vilamoura are beautiful. The sand is so soft, and farther down the beach the sand and the water meet with bright red sandstone cliffs. It's a gorgeous thing.
By 5 we were leaving Vilamoura, on our way to Albufeira. It was only a fifteen or so minute drive.
The most touristy place we've seen so far, Albufeira is a villa-ridden, restaurant-infested town on a hill, rolling into the Atlantic. We parked just before the pedestrian-only street and couldn't walk three meters without having to stop in a liquer shop.
I picked out a little flask of Jameson Irish Whiskey for only 5€, and my dad got 5 Montecristo cigars in a box for us to share. We stepped outside and lit up 2 of the cigars for our walk through Albufeira. Only hassled by 3 or so street vendors before we got to the beach, they were excellent cigars. We sat by the water on a wall overlooking the beach, between two bluffs topped with villas.
As my dad made a sweeping generalization, assuming that perhaps the street cleaner was the last in a 1000-year blood line that owned a rotting gutted villa just above where we were, that very street cleaner walked up to us and asked us - motioned for us - to move our feet. Inevitably we struck up a conversation. It turns out this man is from Ukraine, and he wanted to compliment our cigars. He spoke little to no Portuguese, and that's as far as we got with him. My dad tried asking in Portuguese where in Ukraine he lived. He just told us that Ukraine was "that way." when pressed for where, he responded "5000km that way." language barrier can be a bitch.
Being from the US we think of immigrants as Hispanic, originating from Mexico or south thereof. Perhaps Ukraine is Portugal's Hispanics in America?
Several dozen raindrops began to fall. We started a waltz back to the car. As we retraced our steps, there were no more hasslers, no more people wandering. The shop owners were closing up their outdoor displays; the rain scared them away.
We squeezed out of our parking spot and were on our way, again. As the sun set around 7, we were still on our way to Lagos, which we had semi-decided would be the end of the line today. We were winding through back roads, past a lot of construction. We found ourselves playing England involuntarily; that is, the right side of the road, having recently been under construction, was rough and bumpy. So we drove on the left side of the road, only returning to our side when another car came along. It was a hybrid between the Hungarian Chicken Dance and the Shanghai Tango, (ask me about that if you want more...) and was rightfully frightening. We did end up finding Lagos, much to our surprise, as we were seriously in need of a map we didn't have. We passed Portimao on the way, a city we may go back to tomorrow.
As we drove along the edge of Lagos, we passed the walls of the old fort. Needing/wanting to see the interior of said walls, we drove up the hill the city was built on and proceeded to drive inside the first gate we could find. That could not have been more of a mistake.
Winding roads, sharp corners, and narrow berths are only three under-exaggerations I can fathom to describe this hell hole of a drive. We were driving down roads at a 60 degree down angle, leaning back in the car to take weight off the front in a futile attempt to stop bottoming out. We were backing down one way streets, zipping between cars, and desperately trying to find our way out. I've been to Sienna, Italy, and that was supposed to be hard to navigate; that's a childs game compared to Lagos.
As we made our third trip up R. Prof. Luis de Azevedo to the top of the hill, looking for our way out the bottom, we attempted each new turn we hadn't made previously. By some glorious act of God, we found our way out of the walls. Promptly parking, we got out to wander the old quarter we had slaved to escape a minute before.
On foot, the town of Lagos is quite quaint. We meandered up a street, looking for a place to stay the night. I suggested a church floor (fairly certain it's in church scripture that those without shelter are welcome in church), and was serious, but my dad turned it down. We stumbled onto the Caravel, a government-subsidized cheap minimist hotel. For 15€ apiece (I was tempted to argue down the price even more) we got two beds, a shower and a sink (in the same room), and a bathroom down the hall. Perfect.
We ran outside to find a place to eat. My dad had had breakfast but I had yet to eat today. While searching we met Andreas, a man visiting from Norway to sell his grandfathers house for the old man. He was surprised we are American; apparently most English speakers here are British. We invited him to eat but he declined.
We passed by the touristy places, empty on this off-season night, to a place with locals, the O Cantinho Do Mar, Adega Grill, where we devoured a fantastic meal. I had a Portuguese version of lasagna, followed by some lamb chops, while my dad ordered the whitefish dish. We both had a local beer.
After dinner we stopped at a gelateria for a nightcap. I had a glass of fine port and my dad had a decaf espresso.
We took a quick break by the room before dropping by a local pub, the ZanziBar. My dad ended up having two glasses of port, while I had two shots-worth of Jameson Irish Whiskey, 5 shots-worth of long island ice yea, and a white Russian.
We got bored of the ZanziBar and left. We wandered around the streets for a while and stumbled into Eddie's, an Australian owned bar. I downed a glass of Irish Cider while my dad had another glass of port.
At 2:04 I ordered another drink, but the bar apparently closed at 2. The bartender told me "mate, you can have it if you drink it fast." so I got 2 shots or so of Bailey's Irish Cream in a glass and downed it. My dad had another glass of port.
I got back from the bathroom while my dad had started talking with one of the two barkeeps, Tomlin. Australian born, he had come here in '94 and caught the "Lagos bug." His colleague had done the same in '96. They just loved it here.
We started talking American history. Tomlin is very keen on American history because, as he said and I put more succinctly, "if you want to learn European history, just look at American history. In 1/10 the time it's covered the entire span of the European timeline."
As we walked out we introduced ourselves. Jeff and Marshall. Tomlin commented as we left, "Fuck man, you sound like American Presidents." needless to say if we're here tomorrow we're going back to Eddie's.
We left the bar at 2:15 and were in the room by 2:30. To bed.
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