I woke up for the second time at 11:30, because the maid showed up. She said "desculpe," meaning "excuse me" and "sorry." She then proceeded to say something that implied she'd be back in 2, 12, or 20 minutes. I was out in 2. No reason to get into a tizzy with the small Portuguese woman.
I had the weirdest dream last night. I was in my high school Chinese class, talking with Michelle about how easy the upcoming midterm would be. We all talked about how well we were going to do, and I started to feel a little nervous about it. So I saw a snake on the ground and started to tell a story of something I had seen on Croc Hunter. As part of the demonstration, I picked up the apparently harmless snake, which turned out to be very strong, and fought it. The snake nipped my neck and I dropped it before I stomped the life out of it. Suddenly I was surrounded by kids on my Freshman floor at Wash U. I blew it off like a harmless incident, but they wanted to know if it was poisonous. They rubbed some tape on the snake that I guess measures the toxicity of it's venom. If it was 1 or below, I would die. It was 1.1. We told the guys in hazmat suits to leave, though I'm lost as to why they were there.
I told my dad about this. He said "Wow. That's a real anxiety dream, did you wake up in a cold sweat?" "No," I responded, "I woke up to the damned maid!"
Wandered down to a square where my dad was having a coffee and got myself a Chocolate Quente (hot cocoa).
I stepped away for a few minutes to check out the fish market that was open around the corner. It's been in business for 86 years, and it's not hard to see why. The Marcado Municipal boasted every type of fish. There were prawns, eel, stingrays, fish large and small, octopi, squid, and more. Fantastically disgusting.
Wandering back up the streets, we stopped into our Residencial, to pay for a second night here. Another 30€. It's a beautiful town, and tomorrow we'll go back to Faro to fly home. Today, though, we're doing some area exploring.
We got lost in the backstreets for a while, looking for a place to eat. It's amazing how whenever you get just one block away from the main drag you almost never find tourists.
We ended up at Restaurante A Cascata, where I enjoyed an Omeleta de Fiambre, and my dad had the sardines. Like all the fish in this place, they came as whole fish, which had to be deboned and separated on the spot.
We had a relaxing lunch, full of arguments over some of my dads crazy business schemes. At 2:30 we left and I advocated we get on the road.
Back in the main square, I marvelled at the way there are always dogs running around freely. It's pleasant, mostly because they all have collars and aren't diseased, just let loose.
By a quarter to three we were on the road to Sagres.
By 3 we had picked up two German hitchhikers from Freiburg, near Black Forest. The two women, Evalyn and Lily, were couchsurfing (literally through the website) through Switzerland and Spain and Portugal. They were on their way to Carrapateira, 10km north of Vila do Bispo, while we were headed 8km or so south of there to Sagres.
When we arrived in Vila do Bispo, we figured "hey, we've got nothing to do, let's just take these girls to Carrapateira, it's only 10km."
Using the compass on my iPhone (yea, who'd think that would ever come in handy?!) we followed roads towards the direction of Carrapateira, without any sort of map (we still don't have a map).
We reached the edge of town, and without a second thought began down the only road leading out that way.
We began to wind through the trees and around mountains. Figuring there was no way this was the road we were meant to be on, N268, we figured as long as we were headed in the right direction, why not keep going?
The paved road became dirt. We kept driving. We lost cell service; my dad's cell died altogether, we kept driving.
We dipped into valleys and over mountaintops, using my cell phone as a compass to make sure we were still going north. We picked up service at one point and I got a map up of where we were; it was a windy, sharp-cornered "road" through a national park, the Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentinantinantina. Quite a mouthful.
At one point we got out and walked with Evalyn and Lily to the edge of a cliff overlooking the Atlantic. I know it's dark but I couldn't help but consider the possibility that, were we killers, this was the perfect spot. As of then, we had not exchanged names, no one saw us pick them up, we were in the middle of nowhere on a road no one travels on, in a rented car with no distinguishing marks on it, in a place with no cell service. The perfect crime. But I digress.
Winding our way along the road, we forged a stream, bottomed out left and right and stalled a few times in precarious places. But the real fun began after we got off that crazy trail.
We went left at the end of the trail, knowing it just jutted out to the sea. When we got to the end we kept walking to the edge and got a breathtaking view of the ocean. On our drive back, however, we came to a fork in the road. We went right. And we went right into a puddle, stuck in the mud.
It was quite a scene, watching my dad floor the car in a puddle, tossing water everywhere, even onto the car itself, with the window open. We tried shoving wood planks we found under the wheels to give them traction, we tried pushing the car, to no avail for about half an hour.
Evalyn noticed at one point a car driving down the left side of the fork we had passed. She and Lily sprinted after the car and managed to catch up to it.
My dad was ready to call the Avis emergency line when we saw the truck the girls had gotten come into view. It turned around and backed towards us.
The man in the truck managed to figure out our little Fiat's trailer hitch mechanism in a few minutes, and before long had a rope tied between our car and his truck, and he pulled our car right out of the mud, through some thickets (because we were too far on the right side of the road), and to safety.
We thanked him heartily, and my dad gave him 50€. He didn't want to accept it at first but my dad wouldn't take it back.
We were back on the road, went down the left side of the fork this time, and hit N268 before long. A few minutes more and we were in Carrapateira.
Evalyn and Lily left, and I think after what we went through, they were happy to get out of our car.
We left them in Carrapateira immediately, around 5, and went south towards Sagres. What took 2 hours to travel took less than 30 minutes this time. We were in Sagres by 5:30.
The southwesternmost town in Portugal and Europe, Sagres is quite nice. We guesstimated our way to the peninsula. First we came upon the northern peninsula, which boasts a very impressive old fort. But we wanted the other one.
Before we went to the other, I hopped in the drivers seat. Although i've had some practice with stick shift in the past, I had never mastered it. So I practiced. Did pretty well, and now I get to say I learned a manual farther southwest than perhaps any European in Europe has.
We climbed onto the real peninsula. At the edge we found a cropping of rocks below us. I climbed down while my dad stayed above. I climbed out to the very tip. I was, for several minutes, the closest person in Europe to South America... The southwesternmost person in existence in Europe. Kinda cool. We drove back to Lagos, stopping along the way for a ceramics warehouse we passed (for the second time today), next to the Good Feelings Hostel, which caught our eye. We picked up a few souvineers.
At 7:30 we were back and parked in Lagos. Our car covered in dirt and mud inside and out, we felt proud of our stupidity.
We walked to a pastry place in some back alley and got some weirdly delicious almond pastry thing, and my dad got a coffee.
At 8:15 we found ourselves back in our room for a quick siesta.
At 9:15 I woke my dad up. We needed dinner, afterall, and we had to go out tonight.
At 10 to 10 my dad and I walked into a restaurant closing at 10. The Restaurante A Forja served us the best meal we've had so far. We had found it in some back alley of Lagos. There was no English menu on display outside, the workers inside it spoke no English, and we had to communicate using our limited Portuguese, basterdized Spanish, and their extremely limited English. I had the steak (because they were out of veal), and my dad got the chicken. Superb cooking and quick service meant a great time. We left at 11.
We headed straight to the bars. Walked first into a place labelled as having the "Best Mojito in Town!" I had one, of course. It was very good, but I've made better mojitos in my dorm room. My dad had a port (surprise surprise). I had a glass of Bailey's Irish Cream and we moved on to the next bar.
We stopped off at Eddie's next. I got a big glass of southern comfort. Jeff had another port. Tamlin was there, ready to serve. When I was ready for another drink, I ordered up a White Russian for my dad and I. Tamlin said he didn't usually make the cocktails, but he tried his hand at it. They turned out more like Black Russians. And they weren't very good at all. We mentioned this to him. He tasted both and agreed. He apologized. Apparantly they don't have that on their menu, he had to run to another bar to get the cream... Yea... Bad. We didn't even finish them. So we went to Bom Vivant, another bar. Few games of pinball and we were out.
Next up was ZanziBar, where I was dying for a white Russian. So I got one. My dad had another port. The White Russian was delicious, but I cut out before my dad finished his port to move on.
Headed to Eddie's again. Got myself a glass of Jameson to sip until my dad showed up. Talked a bit with Tamlin. He offered me a free shot of Jägermeister, which of course I took. He took a fancy to some pretty Portuguese girls that were walking by. I guess Lagos the city wasn't the only reason he moved here; the girls are a draw as well.
Speaking of girls, two cute girls walked into the bar with a few friends and one came right next to me. She was so drunk she was rythymicly bumping into me as she swayed from side to side. They took her outside to puke or something.
I had a long island ice tea before heading out to find my dad. He was still at ZanziBar, nursing his port and answering business emails. According to him: "I didn't want to disturb you!" BS. He didn't want to leave his business.
Side note on port: Port in the states; at least, the same quality port in the states, would cos about $15 per little glass. We're picking up a glass for 1.5€. It's good to be in the only country in the world where port is made.
So I dragged my dad back to Eddie's and we sat at the bar. I leaned forwar to Tamlin and asked "Do you think I can mix my own Tequila Sunrise?" He motioned for me to get behind the bar. I went around the bar and he pointed out the ice, the OJ, and I already knew where the tequila and grenadine were. I mixed my best Sunrise yet; Tamlin had a sip himself and said it was "damned good."
When we were ready to leave, I told Tamlin and we said our goodbyes. I tried to pay for the Tequila Sunrise I had just made, but he wouldn't let me. Just told me "Alright mate, good to meet ya, come see us again if you're ever in Lagos."
It was 2am and we were back at the room. We were asleep by 2:30.
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