Stops Along the Way

Travelling is hard work. And I don't mean the heavy lifting of finding the right terminal, the right road, the right house or even the packing/unpacking, lifting, walking and waiting. It's the differentness of everything; the toilets and undrinkable water, the keyboards and road signs, the language and the customs but mostly it's the changed routines, of doing things differently because you're in a different place. I wrote a piece I intended to post last night but when I went looking for it, it was gone. I'd mostly finished it the night before, waxing eloquently about socks, or rather, their absence for the last two months and then highlighted it and copied it and went to bed. So there it sat, minding its own little electronic business until Deb got up to do her thing on our shared iPad. Because I'd left it highlighted, the first keystroke wiped it out. It's backup on the clipboard was erased as soon as she copied something and several hours of brilliance disappeared. That's the hard work of travelling, shared space and equipment, working your new routines into the routines of the people you're with. It's massively outweighed by the joys of the company I share but you're not going to hear about my socks.

We're now in the Algarve, a large region that covers all of southern Portugal. Specifically, we're in a villa atop a hill overlooking the town of Loule´ about 20K from the shore but beautiful in the distance. I'm now typing on my Kobo cum word processor and enjoying some independence (though  if I wasn't travelling I'd have the advantage of a mouse) and wishing I'd thought of this sooner. And look, now I can use italics... We came here from Lisbon and, like our move from Porto to Lisbon, made several worthy stops enroute. Betwixt Porto and Lisbon we explored Bacalhau Buddha Eden and Ovidos. Bacalhau is salted cod and can be found on the menu of any self-respecting Portuguese reastaurant so not sure what it had to do with this well-groomed park or what the emphasis of the statuary on Buddhism had in common with a predominantly Catholic country. But there they were, Buddhas galore, big and small with dragons and hundreds of Terra Cotta soldiers only in bright blue. The woods were littered with hundreds of gnomes and the acres of lawns sloping towards the lake were pockmarked with modern art like the headless guy standing on his, well, neck. I liked the two curvy statues made of wine bottles and the sea of hands reaching out of the sand but indifferent to the spinning diamond and intimidated by the giant ant. The exit, like most tourist attractions, was through the souvenir shop but here the only thing on offer was wine and the specialite was a blue concoction as incongruent with red grapes as a buddhist garden in Portugal. Still, it was a nice walk.

Our second stop was Ovidos, a medieval town with enough of its bones intact to make restoration worthwhile. The Roman cobblestones were repaired, the walls rebuilt in (mostly) original fashion and electricity was added to run the airconditioners. The original layout was maintained so the 'feel' was as if you were there several hundred years ago and the view from those walls was undeniable. It was a nice spot for lunch and a taste of their special concoction "Ginja". It's basically a cherry liqueur with lots of cherries in the bottle and goes spectacularly well with chocolate. So well, in fact, that it's served in 1 oz chocolate cups which are consumed immediately after the bevvie. I had to buy a bottle but suspect it won't make its way back to Canada.

Our second abode in Portugal was a penthouse suite in Monte Estoril and I told you about our time there in my last post but not about our crib. The last on was a mansion out in the country but now we were in a penthouse suite that overlooked the ocean. There was a pool and deck below but why go there when you can bikini watch a few minutes away? We tried a day at the pool but Bob was there courtesy of the peacocks next door and there were no pounding waves, no ocean to entertain the eyes, ears and nose. The ocean at Monte Estoril is the north Atlantic, so not particularly warm but a refreshing counterpoint to the 37 degree heat.

The light festival was on in Cascais while we were there so Lui and I thought we'd check it out. We hadn't actually spent any time there so it was a good opportunity to explore its attractions and see what a light show was - it wasn't fireworks. It was better, lighting technicians and artists combined their strengths to bring some 'whoah!' displays to the common man. Imagine a three story antique building used as a backdrop for multi-coloured light projections in multiple shapes in sync with the tune that kid is playing on a piano or another building covered in spyrograph shapes that change with the movement and figures held by the childen under those lights over there. Dancers and walkers were followed by lights on the rink-sized floor that changed with their speed. Wish I was stoned. Sprinkled amongst the wanderers were beer stands, burgers and bacalhau. I especially liked the first beer stand that sold me a beer for 3E in a solid plastic cup. When I brought it back its refill was 2E. Great idea, great party.

But now we're in Algarve and spent today at a beach 26K away which we achieved with our rented bus. But about that and our stops to get here I'll tell you next time cuz the Kobo's out of gas, my eyes are weighing heavy and I still have to figure out how to get this from here to the blog. Cheers.