Armação de Pêra: This and That

You know our trip is drawing to an end when I post a blog about miscellaneous stuff. It always happens. I have this list of events that I can’t really tie together. We’ve been in one house in Armação de Pêra for six weeks. It feels like we’re getting ready to pack for a vacation to California. Tomorrow, we will trot up to the bus stop and grab a Rede Express to Lisbon for 9 euros for the two of us… that’s a 3 hour trip on a really nice bus. More comfortable than seats on an airplane—minus the tv screen of course.

Lots of odd things have happened and plenty of “Huh??” moments have occurred on this trip. But then again, what surprises me may seem totally normal to you. For example; though I’ve seen seaweed come ashore during stormy weather, I’ve never seen it so piled up that it was taller than a person! Even stranger was where it would disappear to the next day? We never saw any workers scooping it up like we saw in Mexico. I can’t imagine that the sea just grabbed miles of seaweed and dragged it back out to sea?

There was this SUV in front of our place for five weeks. We assumed it had been either abandoned or the owner was away. One day we came home and viola! It was suddenly an elaborate camper. I guess mommy and daddy came home.

There’s a train that tours people through town. It’s like a Disney transport train. What I thought was comical was it’s called a choo-choo train, but it was made in Germany, so it’s a tshu-tschu train. I guess trains sound the same everywhere.

We were coming home from dinner the other night and Spencer saw us. He’s the waiter at Fabio’s Diner. He flagged us down and asked us to wait while went out his car and got his guitar. He’d told us that he wanted to go to Memphis to hear the Blues… his whole purpose in life is to play the Blues. So we got a thirty-minute private concert sitting out under a full moon. I say this all the time, but it bears repeating—you have to be prepared for the unexpected. We were tired and wanted to go home, but we decided to be polite. Boy was it worth it. This is one of the reasons we like to stay places for more than a couple of nights.

The other day we were watching the unique boat launching process here in Armação de Pêra. If you’re a heavy-equipment operator and want a change of pace, I’ve got a job for you! They use a tractor to push a full boat of tourists down the beach and into the ocean. I think the launch is more exciting than the tour. That tractor has to move pretty quick and then stop suddenly with its front wheels in the water. It also pulls boats out and turns them around too.

I thought the flying quad-runners looked fun.

I also thought the idea of wrapping up your beach-chairs and umbrellas with a towel was pretty clever. That way you could go eat lunch and not lose your space and all your gear too the wind. There are semi-permanent umbrellas along the beach and we noticed that people would lock the beach chairs overnight to the posts with bike chains… pretty smart huh? Speaking of chairs, we were set up around the pool with our little folding chairs and I turned to look back at Joe and all I saw was flailing feet. Apparently, that chair wasn’t working properly!

I was so excited to treat Joe to a place I’d researched. It was a brewery in the foothills nearby. The website showed a nice dark stout beer and they also served wine and food. We picked a rainy day to go since it would be indoors. Well, it may have been a brewery and winery, but we never saw any of that. We spent our time in a beautiful (and expensive) restaurant. Joe ordered a beer from the sweet waiter. He apologized… the cooling system for the beer was broken today. The beer was warm, but they did have bottled beer, which was also warm. He assured us he could put it on ice if we wanted. Joe ordered a couple of bottles of stout and the guy told us that they’d stopped production of stout. So we had lunch with regular beer from a champagne bucket. Definitely not the treat I’d anticipated.

I love typos on menus in foreign countries. Lizard of Black Pig, Bread = Pain (should be pao), and my favorite— Selfish Cataplana. By-the-way, I’ve invented a new drink here called American wine. Every time I order their green wine I ask for lemon slices. Green wine is slightly tart and combined with the lemon tastes a little like lemonade. Whenever the bartender questions the server, they say, “It’s for an American.” At that they all nod and shrug their shoulders. One place would ask me if I want my American Wine.

Well, we did get up to the bus stop a little early and settled in to do our people watching. One of my faults is worrying about whether or not we might miss our bus. This is valid in my opinion, of course. It seems pretty straightforward on the e-ticket; Rede bus #67 12:10. Oddly enough there’s more than one bus by Rede with the same number, and occasionally another bus company will replace them with no notification on the ticket! So, when our departure time comes, I examine each bus. This happened this time—bus #67 arrived and the scrolling sign said Lagos, not Oriente. Another nervous traveler (a Portuguese man) and I questioned each other. Another man piped in, “No, that’s not the Oriente bus.” “But it’s bus #67.” “True, but it’s not the right #67.” When another 67 showed up I promptly interrogated the bus driver because the sign said Lisbon, not Oriente. He just nodded. Again the stranger told me this was the right bus and kept tapping his chest. I didn’t trust this man, though he seemed very confident. Finally, we boarded and the stranger took our driver’s place and laughed at me… “I’m the bus driver—I know it’s going to Oriente!”

Have you ever been to the airport in Paris? My only memory of it was eating at a table high up overlooking the airplanes. We had connecting flights, and everything seemed to have gone smoothly. Not so this time. Because I chose an airline that didn’t list themselves on sites like Travelocity, I had to piece the trip together. I did okay, but our baggage wasn’t checked through and that was a drag (in more ways than one). We flew in on EasyJet… not a problem there. Then we had to get our luggage. After that our problems began. I couldn’t find any sign that told us what terminal Norse Atlantic was in. A nice airport employee told us it was terminal 3. She pointed and said walk for five minutes, then turn left at the sign “CDGVAL.” I knew I’d never remember that so I wrote it down. It turns out that it’s a tram. We boarded the tram and got off at Terminal 3. Sounds good so far. We began following the signs for 3 and it eventually led us out the door to an uneven asphalt walkway with arrows pointing the way. 10 minutes later after dragging our suitcases in the heat we arrived. Then we made the mistake of going through customs before we ate. On the international side there was one snack bar to service 6 gates!

They finally announced our gate and we hustled over to find a line a mile long. Joe and I wormed our way around to the side and snuck up to a pleasant-looking young man sitting at a desk to the side. I asked him if they’d already loaded the first-class passengers and we were suddenly transformed into celebrities. He stood up and firmly told the crowd to “Back up,” and then he ushered us past all the 400 people waiting. Then he took us to a coded side door and led us straight to the waiting bus. I think we did more traveling just trying to get to our plane than we did in the air! Now we’re done binging movies for the time being and my butt hurts.

See you guys next trip :)

People-watching in Armação de Pêra

People absolutely fascinate me! They’re a never-ending source of entertainment and provide an excellent supply of characters for my novels.

On a grand scale, 180,000 motorcyclists just converged on the Our Lady of Fátima shrine inland from Nazare. They came for the annual helmet blessing. A couple of days before the big event we heard so many motorcycles going by we actually leaned over our balcony to see the main road going through Armação de Pêra. It was a constant flow of motorcycles for about ten minutes.

The other day we were having lunch and we struck up a conversation with a nice couple next to us. They were from Germany. I mentioned that I could remember my mother singing German lullabies to me (though she didn’t speak German—she must’ve heard them when she was young). Mom could even sing Silent Night in German. The lady began to softly sing a lullaby to me. I was so charmed. Then we started talking about the Prussian part of my family (the Schussmans) which always leads nowhere. I think they may have been mercenaries, especially considering the name means “sharp-shooter.” Oddly enough this brought over an Irishman who’s a Prussia history buff. He’d escaped from his tour group and settled down at our table to talk world history and politics in a barely understandable Irish brogue.

At Sardinha’s, we made friends with our waiter, Kareem. He’s a gregarious guy from Bangladesh, who speaks several languages poorly. It was comical when he taught us the wrong way to ask for another beer. He was pretty excited to tell us about his wife and two teens coming to live in Portugal in February. He fell out of favor with me when he was asking Joe about his workout routine and then turned to me and said, “You don’t work out, do you?” I didn’t know what to say… “I work out every day, you just can’t tell by looking at me.” ???

There’s a cool American diner near us called Fabio’s. It’s very popular. We were there on a slow night and Spencer, our waiter, hung out with us and told us about his obsession with The Blues. His dream is to go to America and tour areas famous for their Blues musicians. He’s been waiting for us to come back when he’s not busy so he can play some music for us.

We go to Saboya’s the most. It’s near our place and the food is delicious. The chef comes out periodically to ask if you liked the food. She’s adorable. Our waiter on the other hand has a very good poker-face. It takes time to get on his good side, but we knew we’d succeeded when Joe told him he wanted a scoop of ice cream… with only one spoon! Joe pointed to me and shook his finger, no. The waiter brought a scoop with the smallest spoon I’ve ever seen. Joe picked it up in wonderment. After he got the reaction he wanted, he pulled out a large spoon from behind his back. The other day a lady was holding her cigarette off to one side and he snuck up behind he and snatched it away and then strutted around pretending to smoke it. Then later, same lady, he snuck up behind her again—this time with a pair of scissors. Her friends ratted him out before he could snip off the tip.

Joe’s barber isn’t exactly interesting, but the barbershop is. There’s a pool table, dart-board, and a chess board out front to while away the time while waiting. Joe tried to teach me how to play chess while we waited, but was frustrated with my moves. Apparently, I made some good moves, but he couldn’t figure out what to do because they were so uncommon and didn’t follow traditional chess strategy! I still have no idea what I was doing, but it was fun.

We needed to load our cell phones with money, so I googled Vodophone stores near us. The next day we hustled over to the shop and were told that Google had lied to us… no Vodophone services whatsoever. The nice man explained that Armação de Pêra isn’t a big enough town for Vodophone or MEO or any other phone service. We’d have to go over to Albufiera—a 24 Euro roundtrip Uber ride! First of all, it’s hard to believe that this city with its 100+ condo complexes is considered small, but it actually only has a resident census of 3,000 people. It swells to 85,000 during high season. Sooo, we walked out disappointed. Joe suggested we try the little barbershop/cell phone shop around the corner. They promptly pulled a Vodophone sim card off the rack and changed out our cards for us… 9 Euros each for a month. By the way, they still have operable phone booths here—I know because I picked up the receiver and got a dial-tone!

There’s a boardwalk that goes all the way over to Salgados Golf Course. It’s a very pretty 45 minute walk and a beach restaurant waits at the other end. It was okay. Nice service, but too pricey for our taste. What was remarkable was when I went to the bathroom. When I went in, I noted a large purse sitting on the sink and someone in one of the stalls. Seriously! I can’t even fathom doing this in California. I won’t even hang my purse on the hook on the stall door for fear someone will reach over and snatch it. I’ve even seen this phenomenon in Lisbon, which I don’t recommend—there are tourists there… some are from California!

We were at the grocery store the other day, and I wanted some salmon. So, I went up to the meat counter and saw that a woman was already waiting. I pulled the next ticket from the little machine. Then a Portuguese man walked up and picked up a discarded ticket near the machine. I thought this would probably be interesting. I was right. The butcher called out the next number and the guy looked at his ticket, saw it was correct, and went to the counter. Big mistake. The Portuguese lady ahead of me immediately confronted the poor guy. She pointed to herself and to me. The butchers watched the drama unfold with curious faces. He made it clear that he’d made a mistake, but the lady wasn’t buying it… she seemed certain he’d tried to trick us all. Anyway, he backed up to take his place behind me and war was averted.

At the register, I noticed a posterboard with two plastic boxes attached to it just beyond the check-out. I snuck over and took a quick photo. By the way, you don’t dilly-dally at the register in Portugal. The clerk must’ve noticed my interest and gave me 3 plastic chips. I made the connection that the boxes held the chips and I was supposed to vote on something. I broke out my phone again (after paying for my groceries) and opened my translator app, which translates whatever you take a picture of. I learned that one box was for a youth rope system for exercising, and the other was for cleaning out the garbage from the swamp. I voted for both; one for the swamp and two for the ropes. I felt very neighborly after that!

Today we woke up to blustery cold weather. It’s been raining for days, but it was warm. Today was cold and it was our day to swim laps in the ice-pool. I almost died of hypothermia. Later we wandered along the beachfront until we were thirsty. We decided to head into the town and found a British pub with a rock’n’roll band. They were actually quite good. We sat down near two giant dogs and received a warm welcome. The cool thing was when the lead singer cruised the crowd with his tip jar, he explained that all tips went to a charity for abandoned cats and dogs. So sweet.

There’s an old guy who has a condo facing the pool. Every morning he rolls his wheelchair out onto his balcony and watches the antics of the condo complex. Every other day we are his source of entertainment as I put on my big fins, my scuba goggles, and my snorkel. I step into the icebath and he stares, fascinated. We started waving hello to him about 4 weeks ago. After a week, he started waving back. Last week we introduced, “Bom dia.” He stared. But after several attempts to draw him out, he responds now. This morning was my breakthrough. He laughed at me when I stood shivering in the shallow end watching Joe swim laps. Victory!

Armação de Pêra: Courage, Mastery, Faith...

Armação de Pêra is a tourist town, of course, but its heart is fishing. I found this tribute to some of their more famous fisherman. It was covered with photos of these hard-working guys with words describing them. I translated them for you:

“Strength, soul, demand, obstinacy, courage, mastery, perseverance, faith, dedication, bravery, wild, tradition, complicity, dexterity, resilience, hardness.”  I can’t help but think of those descriptions as I look at these pics!

There’s no marina here, yet the beach is lined with boats that’ve been dragged up onto the sand by the big tractor. Some boats are for tours. Those are fun to watch coming in… reminds me of Mexico. The boat full of life-vested people cling to their seats as the captain hits the sand at full speed. They scramble out as the tractor hooks up the boat and drags it further up the shore.

The interesting part is how everyone on the beach stays out of the way—usually. Every once and awhile someone lost in their own little world keeps walking across the incoming boat’s path. The pilot skids to a stop (in the water) and heads back out for another try.

But fishing is really what it’s all about. Every restaurant proudly displays whatever was caught that day. Chalkboards have smudged out menu items that’ve been gobbled up by the masses. Big steaming pots are set in the middle of the table. The lid is lifted off and everyone leans forward to sniff the air appreciatively. They use big ladles to spoon out clams, mussels, chunks of fish, lobster, shrimp, and octopus.

Lots of menus brag about having cuttlefish with black ink. Why in the world would anyone want black ink in their food?

Down by the fisherman’s shacks are piles of netting. Little wood stools are occupied by silent men working on the nets or whatever else needs repairing.

Throughout the city are various grocery stores with excellent fish counters—twice as big as the meat counter. The most intense is the open market. Everyone is shouldering their way around each other to get a better look at that fresh octopus or golden bream. It absolutely stinks to high heaven, but no one seems to mind.

Joe got shamed into ordering sardines at a restaurant the other day. He’s glad he tried them, but they were too much work getting around the bones. I’ve had fresh cod several times (not a local fish anymore here in Portugal) and it’s much, much better than the bacalhau (the national obsession), which is dried cod that’s been rehydrated. Unfortunately, every time I’ve tried it, it has been stringy and chewy—not my favorite.

So, I hope you enjoyed the photos as much as I did. :)

Crazy Cyclists and the Seven Hanging Valleys

We’ve settled into the pattern of going to our favorite restaurants over and over again. One we really like is a little Italian place called Restaurant Smiley Food. Isn’t that the weirdest name for an Italian place? We didn’t stop there for weeks because of the name, but one time an Englishman was coming out while we inspected the menu… “Best food in town!” he claimed. We’ve been several times now for two reasons; one the wine is excellent, two the pizza is great and cheap—7 bucks for a loaded combo.

Last week we were eating our pizzas (I had the salmon and capers) when we struck up a conversation with what seemed like a nice, normal couple from Canada. They recommended the Seven Hanging Valleys Walk. That should’ve been my first warning that they were not normal, but we googled it and decided to give it a try.

Then the conversation shifted to what they were doing while in Portugal. They started in Porto and cycled their way to Lisbon… rode bicycles! That’s between 200 and 310 miles (330-500 km) depending on the route you take. They stayed overnight in different towns and sometimes stayed more than one night. When we met them they’d started their second stage of their cycling trip from Sagres to Vila Real de Santo Antonio (west to east across the bottom of Portugal), which will probably take about a week (120 mi /193km).

We decided to go on the Hanging Valley hike from Pria do Marinho to Pria de Vale Centeanes. It’s a one-way 3.5 to 4 mile hike/walk (depending on how lost you get) along the cliffs and down to the seven beaches. We’ve walked along the cliffs like that before, so we felt confident we could handle the terrain. 3 ½ hours was more of a challenge. I mapped it out on my app (incorrectly) and we called an Uber to take us to the starting point.

Sooo, if you decide to do this beautiful walk, go early not at 1:00 pm! It was blazing hot out in the open. Be sure to wear good shoes. Put sunscreen on your nose—at least. Bring water, seriously. We were rationing. There are cafes along the way (we stopped at one) to get a bottle water (or maybe a cold beer).

The trail is marked by posts, but that sounds easier than it is. Often the trail was over a large flat area or along multiple small trails… those signs weren’t always visible. When that happened everyone would randomly disperse like ants over a disturbed trail. 

Some parts of the trail are climbing rocks with fairly good footholds. If you can’t hoist yourself up occasionally by grabbing a tree branch, or a friend’s hand, then this is probably not the walk for you.

They have a pretty little picnic area in the forest to stop and nibble on your beef jerky and peanuts. At one point there’s a bench touted as being the best bench in the Algarve. It’s not. Not by a long shot. It’s just a bench along the trail that looks straight out over the ocean. With all those gorgeous cliff formations to admire, why would they think this was the best?

In my personal opinion, you shouldn’t climb over the fences that surround giant holes in the ground. It made me cringe when I’d see some dare-devil trying to get that perfect photo into the gaping cavern. I must say it was pretty cool to walk past the Benagil Caves after having been on the boat tour last spring. Not as cool as going into the cave, but still pretty neat.

By the way, I recommend researching your Benagil tour-boat first. There’re several types. We chose the one that sat low in the water with seats up front (rigid inflatable boat). This meant we could get into lower hanging caverns and all the way into the Benagil Cave. The bigger, taller boats had to stop outside the entrance.

I digress… we started to feel discouraged after three hours of walking and seeing that we weren’t even close to the finish. I thought we were walking at a decent clip! At three and half hours, with hurting feet and legs, and overheated, we called for an Uber to rescue us. When we got home, we went straight into our cold pool and stood there drinking wine and beer. Thank goodness for that pool.

I was so disappointed that we didn’t make it. We thought we were made of tougher stuff. The next day I was looking at my map app and realized I’d mapped it wrong. We did finish the entire walk! It didn’t change anything except how I felt about it.

So, we made it and our legs felt it the next day. There was no way I was going for my speed walk. This impressed me even more with the people who do the Camino de Santiago. That can take three months not three hours!