Since you are reading this, you can assume we survived our trip from Sesimbra to Ferragudo. My plan-B went fairly well. The taxi picked us up and hauled us to the metro. From there we went to Sete Rios metro stop, walked one minute and arrived at the bus depot, and there we sat for 2.5 hours. Fortunately they had a snack bar outside, so I spent my time watching a lady working the crowds for a hand-out. A man came up to me and asked if I spoke English, then he said he was from the Ukraine, hungry, and needed money. Yeah, right.
Generally, if some scruffy person asks for money for food, the person they asked buys them some food. They gratefully accept it and eat it. Not like in the States, when the bum gets mad because they really wanted the money. I’ve also seen lots of people give cigarettes to each other. Can’t say I approve of that plan, but they seem appreciative. This seems to be a pay-it-forward culture.
The bus ride was an uneventful 4 hours. Then we scrambled off the bus at the big depot in Portimao. Turns out we should have stayed on for a few minutes longer to be dropped right at the shoreline… next to the taxis. I didn’t know that. After waiting in the sun in an empty bus-lot for a non-existent taxi, we called a taxi number from the web—the number was no longer in use. I finally texted my host at the Ferragudo Airbnb. She promptly came and got us… that’s way above and beyond.
Our place is a two-bedroom two-bath house with a balcony overlooking the valley. Honestly, it’s as big as my house in California. The kitchen is big enough for a table and chairs, whereas the front-room is huge with two loveseats, a dining table, and room to spare. The downside is we are top of the hill that Ferragudo is built upon. The upside is we are able to burn off the calories we consume at the restaurants.
Today our plan is to take the ferry over to the neighboring town of Portimao. There’re two reasons; one, we want to see this high-rise condo city with its giant beach. The other reason is we want to do a trial run at using the ferry because we have to do it tomorrow for a tour going on to the Benagil Caves. (p.s. we didn’t go because we are lazy bums. We'll just wing it.)
For the mundane things I can give a little travel advice for self-care. For your skin you should bring whatever sunscreen you like. But for lotion, just buy a little bottle of olive oil. Its molecular structure allows it to soak into your skin and keep it luxuriously silky without feeling oily. In Portugal, there’s no need to buy drinking water. The tap-water tastes fine and has no health issues. We bought a bottle of water and refill it with tap-water for taking to the beach.
What to wear: Start with the shoes. Shoes are incredibly important for hilly travel, which is all of Portugal. I’ve found it’s not the bottom of the shoe that is important, but the length. I recommend going a half size bigger than normal because as you go downhill your toes ram against the shoe and it’s painful. If weather permits, use a high-quality sandal instead. Bring bandages for the chaffing. Pick out the very best pair of shoes and the best sandals you own, then go from there.
Pick clothes that dry fast. Don’t bring white clothes—It’s not that you can’t wash them, but it’s difficult to do small loads (all washers are small here). I have one white tank-top that I keep having to wash separately because I don’t want it to get grey from all the dark stuff. Try to imagine throwing everything in your suitcase in one load of wash.
Washing your clothes can be a challenge. Either make sure your place has a washer and a drying rack, a laundromat nearby, or bring your own detergent and wash your stuff by hand. For the washing machine: The machine is almost always in the kitchen here. They use these little pods that disintegrate in the machine. Unfortunately, you usually have to buy these at the local market in a container of at least ten. That’s way too many. I suggest you bring a small hard container to take the number of pods you think you’ll need for your trip from the box you had to buy. The clothes washing machines take a PhD to figure out how they work, and they run like a jet engine warming up for flight. Washing by hand is easy enough, but after awhile it gets harder to do bigger stuff like jeans, but certainly doable.
Here's another tip. Buy a sim-card in Europe. I’m not sure if this is possible for phones with a locked sim-card (That means the entire phone service through a cell company like Verizon or T-Mobile is locked into a contracted service plan). We choose to use the pay as you go service… like a phone card which has an automatic payment to reload. The sim-card is not locked in that case and it can be removed in another country and replaced with their sim-card—then you have full phone service. It cost us 40 bucks and now we have local service. Beware!... Do not lose your sim card from the States. You’ll need it when you go home.
Joe is changing his facial hair almost every day. I don’t know why he only does this on vacation, but he likes to try new things. Last time, in Italy, he grew a beard. This time, he shaved it off to a goatee. After a couple of days he shaved off the goatee. He’s teased me that the moustache is next. That would be a miracle. He’s had that moustache since he was a teen. I’ve never seen his upper lip, and we’ve been together since 1979.
The Ferragudo beach is beautiful with a castle clinging to its cliffs. There’s a couple of beach restaurants and a place that rents lounge chairs for 15 euro a day (a rip-off). The little commercial area of this town is adorable. They have a town square packed with tables and umbrellas and a dude playing a guitar. Last night we went down one of the back streets to a packed local’s place and had one of the best meals so far… two huge kabobs loaded with chicken and pork, and French fries. I had my glass of wine and Joe had his two stout beers—$32.00.
My first impression of the Algarve is hot Mediterranean sun. It cools nicely at night and we’ve been sleeping with our windows open. But during the day it’s hot, not Sacramento Valley hot, but it’s got that closer to the equator feeling. The ocean is slightly warmer than Sesimbra. I think if I get hot enough, I’ll get in. We’re going to head over to the castle beach now and see. For some reason I like the cheap little snack bar on the right better for beverages than the nicer places to the left and above. It just seems more real, but the food is mediocre.
It's difficult to put into words how safe it is here. I’m sure there’re streets and alleys that are dangerous, I just haven’t found them yet. We walk around at all hours of the night along with all the grandmas and grandpas. Even when we’re walking deserted streets, there’s no sense of danger. Yesterday, our neighbors across the street got into a rip-roaring yelling match. A teenage boy was seen marching up and down the stairs with his stuff—yelling the whole time. From inside the house came the answering shouts. I have absolutely no idea what it was all about, but it felt localized to that family dispute. When I went outside our front door to see what the fracas was all about, the pissed off lad made eye-contact with me. I saw no threat at all on his face. He was mad at someone inside the house… not me.
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