Hello there! Ember seems to have been a bit too lazy to keep her blog up to date so she asked me if I wanted to do a post about Portugal. She seems to have misjudged my laziness though and as such this post is a couple of weeks too late. Better late than never though, right? (Editor's note: That's a lie...you all know I'm not a lazy person :), I just haven't had reliable internet in Africa...go figure!)
So anyway, who am I? I'm Ilmer - don't ask about my name, that's a whole different and painful story! Just a random person living in Lisbon, Portugal. But this blog isn't about me, it's about Ember and her travelling stories so let's quickly get back on topic! I had the pleasure of meeting Ember when she passed through Lisbon and had some great adventures with her. To be honest, I was somewhat reluctant at first when I met Ember. As one of the CouchSurfing Administrators in Lisbon, I have been meeting so many random people lately that they all kind of blur into one big mess. I was looking forward to spending a lot of time with some other friends, relaxing and taking a break from hosing CouchSurfers.
I have no idea why, maybe I had one beer too many, maybe I just felt sorry for her as it was raining a lot at the time and she threatened to sleep on my doorstep or maybe it was the fact she claimed to be exiled from California, but I soon found myself agreeing to let Ember stay at my place for a couple of days. In retrospect it's painfully obvious that it was all due to her joyous expression and immediate familiarity, but, being a bit slow on occasion, it took me a while to realize that.
Let's fast forward a bit now... I'm supposed to be writing about her last weekend in Portugal. Ember mentioned that she wanted to go to the southernmost part of Portugal (the Algarve) and as my brother lives there along with his wife and their young baby, I figured I might as well visit them and as such we stayed at their place for the weekend. It's right in the middle of the Algarve, in a small village just inland from the coast. The Algarve is a famous tourist region and a large part of the coast is basically one resort after the next. I had already tried to convince Ember to avoid this area in general as there's not much to it that you can't find elsewhere in the world as well but the small villages inland are quite charming and the western and eastern parts of the Algarve are also quite nice.
We had been talking about kayaking a couple of times before, so when I mentioned that my brother had two kayaks Ember seemed pretty excited at the prospect. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very helpful and between the large waves on the sea, menacing rain and cool weather we figured it might be best to put it off for another day and explore the Algarve a bit. Ember kept saying that she was up for anything, so it wasn't really hard to come up with something we could do.
We decided to pick up my car from my parents house. It's a Citroën 2cv that has seen better days and I was a bit nervous about driving Ember around in it. While the prospect of her staying longer in Portugal was certainly pleasing, I didn't think that having her in the hospital for a couple of weeks would be ideal. Considering all that has happened in the past with this car-the hood flying off while driving, brakes not working, spontaneous fire in the engine, holes in the floor and what not-I had been crossing my fingers. By the end of the day, I was pretty glad that the most eventful moment while driving was when the roof almost flew off at some point, but luckily we managed to re-fasten it before it was too late.
Our first stop was Lagos which is a pretty important city in Portuguese history. As you may know the whole Age of Discoveries started with Portugal in the 15th century. Stuck between Spain and the Atlantic Ocean, the Portuguese didn't have much of an option other than to try their luck overseas, and many of the ships set sail from Lagos.
After a short stroll though the center – during which we didn't manage to see much as I'm possibly the worst tour guide ever – we walked along the riverside to the sea and decided to hang out on the beach for a bit. By now the sun was shining,, the beach was deserted and the ocean was gorgeous. Ember was running and dancing around with a huge smile on her face and I don't remember seeing her that happy before. We were having a wonderful time at the beach until...two big waves caught us unaware and completely drenched us. That definitely was the sign that we had been on the beach long enough if we didn't want to end with severe pneumonia. After a stop at the beach bar to dry up a bit, we felt ready to venture out again and decided that we were up for something fun. Since we had some successful hitchhiking adventures by now, we wanted to take that to the next level and catch a ride on a boat! We had seen several boats coming down the river into the ocean so we decided to go back to the river. Unfortunately our hitchhiking luck seemed to have run out by now as only a single boat passed and they just ignored us. Still rather wet and getting cold, we figured it was best to move on, so we grabbed the car again and headed further west....
which brought us to Sagres! Surely you must have heard of Sagres!? Well, probably you actually haven't, but anyway Sagres is the southwesternmost point of continental Europe. Since prehistoric times it has been considered to be the end of the world and has been a sacred place for many cultures since. There's a big fort there where the Portuguese dreamt about far away lands and planned future voyages of discovery. The landscape in the western part of the Algarve consists of rocky cliffs with small sandy beaches between and rolling hills beyond. It's a beautiful area especially with the dramatic coastline. We stopped by the fort, on top of a cliff. The wind blows in straight from the Atlantic and the first obstacles in its path are the cliffs and people standing on them. The waves bash against the coast, some reaching the top of the 30 meter high cliffs, and there's nothing but water as far as you can see. All in all, it gives a tremendous idea of the strength of nature and it's easy to feel somewhat insignificant. Each year many tourists as well as local fishermen who stand on the cliffs miscalculate the danger and fall down the cliffs to certain death. The day we visited, it was so windy that for a moment when Ember wanted to take a picture from the edge I feared she might become part of the statistics, but thankfully that all ended well.
The next day we decided to finally go kayaking. In order to spare us the trouble of mounting two kayaks on the roof of my small car, we went to Faro where you can rent kayaks for free. We arrived while the place was still closed for lunch, so we killed some time with a nice walk and lunch at the beach. By now some laziness was also kicking in but we still had to go kayaking! We gathered all our energy (or at least I did, Ember might have not been that lazy actually) and went to the sportsclub to get the equipment. First thing we had to do there was to fill in a form describing... well basically your whole life story. This is Portugal after all and unnecessary paperwork is still very much a popular thing here. When we were finally ready we got the equipment and the lifeguard on duty started explaining some stuff. Apparently we weren't allowed to take the kayaks more than 50 meters to either side of the club and we had to stick to the lagoon side (the coast here is characterised by a system of barrier islands with a lagoon between the islands and the mainland). We were however allowed to go into a canal between some islands, so that's where we headed. As luck would have it, it had just become low tide and we got stuck in a shallow mud hole! We decided to make the best of it and just sat there for half an hour relaxing, talking and enjoying the sun before making our way back. So much for kayaking!
To wrap the day up we went for a quick stroll through Faro and had a conversation in Portuguese, which Ember was quickly picking up by now. Unfortunately that also meant the end of Ember's stay in Portugal. I'm really glad to have met Ember and had a great time while she was here. By now I was actually quite reluctant to let her go. To quote Tim Cahill - “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles” - and these days with Ember were certainly one of the best journeys I have had in a long time. Cheesy? Sure, but hey, sometimes you just gotta be cheesy.
My original assignment was actually to limit myself to three words as Ember didn't seem very confident about my writing. I guess I'll leave it up to her to edit it all down to three words but my suggestion would be: Come back soon!
So anyway, who am I? I'm Ilmer - don't ask about my name, that's a whole different and painful story! Just a random person living in Lisbon, Portugal. But this blog isn't about me, it's about Ember and her travelling stories so let's quickly get back on topic! I had the pleasure of meeting Ember when she passed through Lisbon and had some great adventures with her. To be honest, I was somewhat reluctant at first when I met Ember. As one of the CouchSurfing Administrators in Lisbon, I have been meeting so many random people lately that they all kind of blur into one big mess. I was looking forward to spending a lot of time with some other friends, relaxing and taking a break from hosing CouchSurfers.
I have no idea why, maybe I had one beer too many, maybe I just felt sorry for her as it was raining a lot at the time and she threatened to sleep on my doorstep or maybe it was the fact she claimed to be exiled from California, but I soon found myself agreeing to let Ember stay at my place for a couple of days. In retrospect it's painfully obvious that it was all due to her joyous expression and immediate familiarity, but, being a bit slow on occasion, it took me a while to realize that.
Let's fast forward a bit now... I'm supposed to be writing about her last weekend in Portugal. Ember mentioned that she wanted to go to the southernmost part of Portugal (the Algarve) and as my brother lives there along with his wife and their young baby, I figured I might as well visit them and as such we stayed at their place for the weekend. It's right in the middle of the Algarve, in a small village just inland from the coast. The Algarve is a famous tourist region and a large part of the coast is basically one resort after the next. I had already tried to convince Ember to avoid this area in general as there's not much to it that you can't find elsewhere in the world as well but the small villages inland are quite charming and the western and eastern parts of the Algarve are also quite nice.
We had been talking about kayaking a couple of times before, so when I mentioned that my brother had two kayaks Ember seemed pretty excited at the prospect. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very helpful and between the large waves on the sea, menacing rain and cool weather we figured it might be best to put it off for another day and explore the Algarve a bit. Ember kept saying that she was up for anything, so it wasn't really hard to come up with something we could do.
We decided to pick up my car from my parents house. It's a Citroën 2cv that has seen better days and I was a bit nervous about driving Ember around in it. While the prospect of her staying longer in Portugal was certainly pleasing, I didn't think that having her in the hospital for a couple of weeks would be ideal. Considering all that has happened in the past with this car-the hood flying off while driving, brakes not working, spontaneous fire in the engine, holes in the floor and what not-I had been crossing my fingers. By the end of the day, I was pretty glad that the most eventful moment while driving was when the roof almost flew off at some point, but luckily we managed to re-fasten it before it was too late.
Our first stop was Lagos which is a pretty important city in Portuguese history. As you may know the whole Age of Discoveries started with Portugal in the 15th century. Stuck between Spain and the Atlantic Ocean, the Portuguese didn't have much of an option other than to try their luck overseas, and many of the ships set sail from Lagos.
After a short stroll though the center – during which we didn't manage to see much as I'm possibly the worst tour guide ever – we walked along the riverside to the sea and decided to hang out on the beach for a bit. By now the sun was shining,, the beach was deserted and the ocean was gorgeous. Ember was running and dancing around with a huge smile on her face and I don't remember seeing her that happy before. We were having a wonderful time at the beach until...two big waves caught us unaware and completely drenched us. That definitely was the sign that we had been on the beach long enough if we didn't want to end with severe pneumonia. After a stop at the beach bar to dry up a bit, we felt ready to venture out again and decided that we were up for something fun. Since we had some successful hitchhiking adventures by now, we wanted to take that to the next level and catch a ride on a boat! We had seen several boats coming down the river into the ocean so we decided to go back to the river. Unfortunately our hitchhiking luck seemed to have run out by now as only a single boat passed and they just ignored us. Still rather wet and getting cold, we figured it was best to move on, so we grabbed the car again and headed further west....
which brought us to Sagres! Surely you must have heard of Sagres!? Well, probably you actually haven't, but anyway Sagres is the southwesternmost point of continental Europe. Since prehistoric times it has been considered to be the end of the world and has been a sacred place for many cultures since. There's a big fort there where the Portuguese dreamt about far away lands and planned future voyages of discovery. The landscape in the western part of the Algarve consists of rocky cliffs with small sandy beaches between and rolling hills beyond. It's a beautiful area especially with the dramatic coastline. We stopped by the fort, on top of a cliff. The wind blows in straight from the Atlantic and the first obstacles in its path are the cliffs and people standing on them. The waves bash against the coast, some reaching the top of the 30 meter high cliffs, and there's nothing but water as far as you can see. All in all, it gives a tremendous idea of the strength of nature and it's easy to feel somewhat insignificant. Each year many tourists as well as local fishermen who stand on the cliffs miscalculate the danger and fall down the cliffs to certain death. The day we visited, it was so windy that for a moment when Ember wanted to take a picture from the edge I feared she might become part of the statistics, but thankfully that all ended well.
The next day we decided to finally go kayaking. In order to spare us the trouble of mounting two kayaks on the roof of my small car, we went to Faro where you can rent kayaks for free. We arrived while the place was still closed for lunch, so we killed some time with a nice walk and lunch at the beach. By now some laziness was also kicking in but we still had to go kayaking! We gathered all our energy (or at least I did, Ember might have not been that lazy actually) and went to the sportsclub to get the equipment. First thing we had to do there was to fill in a form describing... well basically your whole life story. This is Portugal after all and unnecessary paperwork is still very much a popular thing here. When we were finally ready we got the equipment and the lifeguard on duty started explaining some stuff. Apparently we weren't allowed to take the kayaks more than 50 meters to either side of the club and we had to stick to the lagoon side (the coast here is characterised by a system of barrier islands with a lagoon between the islands and the mainland). We were however allowed to go into a canal between some islands, so that's where we headed. As luck would have it, it had just become low tide and we got stuck in a shallow mud hole! We decided to make the best of it and just sat there for half an hour relaxing, talking and enjoying the sun before making our way back. So much for kayaking!
To wrap the day up we went for a quick stroll through Faro and had a conversation in Portuguese, which Ember was quickly picking up by now. Unfortunately that also meant the end of Ember's stay in Portugal. I'm really glad to have met Ember and had a great time while she was here. By now I was actually quite reluctant to let her go. To quote Tim Cahill - “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles” - and these days with Ember were certainly one of the best journeys I have had in a long time. Cheesy? Sure, but hey, sometimes you just gotta be cheesy.
My original assignment was actually to limit myself to three words as Ember didn't seem very confident about my writing. I guess I'll leave it up to her to edit it all down to three words but my suggestion would be: Come back soon!
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