I decided somewhat impulsively to sacrifice my 8th week of classes for a surf holiday in Portugal. I had seen a Surfline.com feature that predicted Portugal was the place to be to find waves in February and then a few weeks later I got an email from an London Surf Club member who was planning a trip down to the Algarve. I got the contact information from him for the Surf Experience, a hostel that runs surf trips and boot camps out of Lagos. My trip was only Monday to Friday but I was determined to make the most of it. Which meant that as always my flight was at 6 am.
I managed to catch a few hours of sleep and then had a cab pick me up to take me to the train station. From there it was a relatively short train ride to Stansted and I once again was in the position of RUNNING to reach my flight on time. Of course, it turns out that when I got there the line at the gate hadn't actually moved even though the monitors around the airport were claiming the gate was closing. I caught a few more hours of sleep on the plane and arrived in Faro slightly refreshed. I picked up my bag and walked out to catch yet another cab to the train station. The train station in Faro had a slightly frontier town feel. While I waited I had a cup of coffee and enjoyed the bright sunshine and watched these men trade fresh caught fish from a dry bag
The next phase of my travels was slow, the train was a regional and it took its time passing through the countryside on the way to Lagos. There were a lot of citrus orchards. My destination was at the end of the line so it was easy to find. From the station I called the surf experience and Toby came to pick me up. Unfortunately the group was already out surfing and I wasn't going to be able to join. Instead I found a brochure in the house for horseback riding at a place it turns out was owned by Toby's mom. He made a call for me and had me set up for a mid-afternoon ride with another experienced rider. In the meantime I wandered the town of Lagos. It isn't the high season so the town is relatively empty but it is adorable. It was Monday so most things were closed but I took a lot of pictures of the outside of things
I walked down towards the beach and admired the water in the bay
Took some self-timer pictures of myself
Including this one where I balanced the camera on the hull of an upside down boat so I could capture the fortress behind me.
Then I walked back through the city wall and up a very steep hill to a neighborhood that had very colorful houses
I had killed enough time by then and so I made my way back to the surf house so I could get a ride out to the stables. It was me on this horse whose name I have completely forgotten
and I was on a ride with an English polo player led by a Czech girl named Erica.
I voted for the scenic and fast route and that's what we got while I practiced my picture taking skills from horseback. We rode past this grove of bamboo? that was taller than we were mounted.
The scenery was way more beautiful than I was able to capture on camera
This is what the view was for much of it.
It felt so wonderful to be back in the saddle. We had some wonderful gallops up some hills and it was just wild and exactly what I wanted. Even better, when we got back the other woman on the ride gave me a ride back to town so I didn't have to spend money on a taxi. I got back right before surfers returned. Met everyone and realized that I actually had been on a LSC surf trip with the other girl, Christina. It was us and three other guys (one of whom left early the next morning). Toby arranged for us to all have dinner together at a Brazilian restaurant which we stayed at quite late and then slept pretty much as soon as we got home. The next day Bra (short for ?) picked us up at the surf house. We gathered boards and I took a big yellow fish. I don't particularly like fish and it turns out that we discovered over the next few days that this board suuuuucks. We drove out to Armado in the Land rover (I'm just kind of making up that this was the name). The waves were big, overhead + on the sets.
I gave it a go and tried to paddle out. I started in the channel but got dragged out of it and for the next thirty minutes battered myself against the whitewater stubbornly like a fool. I finally gave up and walked the length of the bay back to the channel, started paddling and was outside in two minutes. I didn't really catch anything but felt that I deserved a gold star just for getting outside. My duck dives also improved measurably as a result. I got out for lunch and then tried again a few hours later. Still no real luck, the tide had changed and although there were waves showing, they were rarely breaking, instead we were sitting over what was a deep hole and the water under us was just sucking the waves back down as they passed near us.
In the afternoon we returned to the hostel and recovered before going out to devour all you can eat sushi and came home to watch Lesbian Vampire Killers (as great a movie as it sounds! Go! Watch it now!). The next day we had Jez with us, he was the professional surfer that everyone had hired for tuition for the time they were there. I figured I could use the help as well. Same as before I chose another board and then we drove down to Zaveil. It was TINY. Tiny, tiny, tiny.
In the picture below, up on the hill is Steven Segal's house (allegedly).
Apparently everything else would have been too much blown out by the winds. We decided to unpack and stay for the day. It was a frustrating day once again. The waves were small, hard to catch and fast to break, so if you did manage to catch one you had little time to react. My reflexes are slow from not surfing every day so they aren't where they need to be. I tried three boards over the course of the day without noticeably more success on any of them. We took a lunch break and then went back in but it improved only slightly over the afternoon. It was a case of too much the first day and too little the second, I felt like goldi-locks.
That evening was much the same as the others. We hunted down a hole in the wall place to have dinner and then went to sleep.
The third day was cloudy and a bit rainy. We took a quiver of boards with us, including an over 9 foot log and a smaller fishy foam board. We drove all the way to Barrencos (*spelling made up). We got there and it looked depressingly flat. We decided to wait and see what would happen. The first thing that happened was that this man got out of his car, stopped on the beach in front of us, disrobed completely, and then ran into the ocean to wash himself off, then ran back in our direction and modestly covered himself to change. When we finished laughing a set rolled in and sealed our decision to stay. I paddled out on the log and sat on the left side of the bay by the peak. It took me a few waves to get used to the board but once it did I was UNSTOPPABLE. It was incredible. I sat there with the peak practically to myself (when it was I hung out and sang to keep myself company) and occasionally sharing with one or two other people. I took occasional short breaks but otherwise stayed out for five or more hours. It really was like being Goldi-locks because today was just right. It was easy enough to paddle out during lulls between the sets. The waves were consistent. I ignored the thunder and lightening that passed by in the distance and let down a little bit of a shower on us. The sun cleared back up and I caught wave after wave after wave after wave after wave. I got an e-mail a few weeks later from Jez (the pro who was coaching us) that they named the break after me (Shinobes - using the nickname one of the English boys working at Surf Experience used instead of being able to pronounce my actual name). I remembered belatedly to take pictures of the break as we drove away in the Landie.
In the above picture you can kind of see the indicator rock I was sitting near.
And I was finally out long enough to pick up some color
We went out that night for a fish dinner at a Portuguese restaurant with Jez, his girlfriend, and his 6 month old daughter. It was delicious and I finally had a chance to try the local moonshine Mehdronho or something like that, then finished up the night with some beers and darts at a local bar.
with a fairly friendly puppy
I started off not the worst and then got to be pretty bad
And I insisted on sitting on this very tiny little bar stool.
The next morning I, of course, had to wake up extremely early to catch the train to the airport for my flight. I walked through the dark streets to the train station and had plenty of time to catch my flight without any panic. What this meant though, was instead of panic, mind-numbing boredom of sitting in line to wait for the doors to open to the gate area. When the doors did open the queue dissolved into a mad rush to get downstairs to the next one. Then we all waited there until they scanned our tickets. Then we waited inside the gate area to be let onto the plane. I think I'll go back to running for it at the last second.
I got back into London, hoofed it to Sidney Webb, threw my clothing into a different suitcase, hung up my wetsuit and went to go rent a car with Valerie for our trip to Devon. The rental place was about two miles away, in the not-so-nice part of town. It was also run by the most incompetent man I've ever encountered. He was completely incapable of multi-tasking but also incapable of sticking to only doing one thing at once. Instead he would just start a whole bunch of things and then leave them unfinished. When he finally got around to starting to process our rental he got part of the way through then answered the phone. But instead of putting the person on hold, he starts working through that guy's problems and ignoring us. We waited about 10 minutes before insisting that he hang up the phone, or put the guy on hold, or mention to the person that he was busy. He kept refusing and we kept demanding he give us the phone so we could tell the guy to call back. Eventually we got our way (kind of) and finally had the car. I drove. It was confusing and terrifying at first. Driving in London is madness. Like every other city, people leap in front of your car, and lanes become turning lanes without warning. Thank goodness all I had to do was drive straight up the road and only made one minor mistake that someone was nice enough to let me fix by letting me back into their lane.
Valerie, Marissa, Ellen and I packed up the boot.
Then Ellen navigated using Valerie's phone to get us out of London. It was only mildly complicated. Eventually we got onto the Interstate and it was a pretty straight shot from there. We spent close to an hour trying to convince the iPod connector to let us listen to our music. We tried everything. Different iPods, iPads, music players. We tried voice commands to the car. We tried voice commands in British accents. Nothing. Could not get it to work. We drove for a couple of hours with the radio on and then stopped for coffee. Valerie switched into the front seat and then played her iPad and we serenaded Marissa and Ellen's sleeping bodies for the next two hours. It wasn't too hard to find the cottage, until right at the very end when we didn't know exactly where the cottage was but the owner Trish, was kind enough to come out and find us.
Trish and Stephen greeted us and showed us around the cottage. It was beautiful. Downstairs was a modern kitchen with a living room and upstairs two bedrooms. Valerie and I, as usual, shared the master bedroom with the double bed.
Everyone pitched in to cook a dinner of pizza and salad and in the meantime I made Challah.
Ellen, Valerie, Me and Marissa.
The challah didn't rise as much as I had hoped that it would, so it looked kind of weird. But more importantly, it tasted delicious anyway.
The next morning we woke up and the sun was shining brightly and the birds were literally chirping while Ellen took pictures of the ones in the bird feeder.
We drove over to Launceston, a nearby medieval market town. It wasn't too difficult, except how at certain traffic circles the same signs would point in opposite directions. Launceston was exactly what we had pictured it as. There was a guildhall (in the foreground), an ancient castle (background) and a farmer's market
(Marissa and Ellen)
There was also a medieval church
And classic English countryside (Launceston is apparently known as the "gateway to Cornwall")
We shared Cornish pasties for lunch and explored the Launceston castle grounds.
I took a lot of pictures there and it's really hard to separate out which might be good ones.
We had a few minutes to kill before we had to leave so we did a bit of shopping and I got ice cream with honey comb in it and bought a Cormac McCarthy book (Blood Meridian), before we returned to the nicest looking car park I've ever seen.
The car park toilet's had this all-in-one hand washer/soaper/dryer miracle of technology.
Then I drove us in this funny car where everything is on the right!
To go horseback riding! We got kind of lost on the way and it was a little terrifying to find the farm because the roads were exactly 1.5 cars wide. Not actually 2 cars wide. And bordered by impenetrable hedges.
But let's talk about the riding. Ellen and Marissa both have extensive experience so the three of us had booked a trail ride through the woods and Valerie had a ride through the farm. The barn had arranged for us to ride to a Devon cream-tea and for Valerie to come and meet us there. We started with a quick warm up in the arena to make sure everyone knew what they were doing and were on the same page.
Then we were off!
We had a bit of a false start actually, because on a muddy country lane leaving the farm we ran into "Granny on a scooter," literally, a grandmother, on her mobility scooter. And the guide's horse would NOT GO anywhere near that horse-eating cyborg. It took some coaxing but we eventually made it past and continued on our ride.
I honed my picture taking from horseback skills
OMG LOOK AT THESE TINY LITTLE PONIES! They were shorter than the fence and they had these tiny little legs that could not have been more than a foot long and then they cantered at us! SQUEEEEEEEEE
We walked, trotted and cantered through some typically lovely countryside.
It was wonderful. I'm running out of adjectives to describe how wonderful.
We dismounted at the house and walked inside for our tea
I honestly am still not entirely sure how this got set up, it was at the private home of one of the girls that worked at the barn and her mom prepared all of this for us. It was so nice! Then Valerie was driven back and we rode back to the barn to meet her.
That evening we were exhausted so we just got a pint at the pub near the barn and then drove back to the cottage for a quiet evening in front of the TV.
The next morning we woke up and Valerie made Challah and banana bread french toast for us before we said goodbye to Trish and Stephen and all of the glorious amounts of space in the cottage
Then we drove Marissa to church and Valerie and Ellen and I had to amuse ourselves for an hour. So we broke into the Okehampton Castle.
And had the place all to ourselves!
We took a lot of pictures and read all the historical plaques.
Apparently this was a castle that was only used as a holiday/country home.
We finished up taking all the pictures we could, no one called the police on us, and we skedaddled.
To explore a nearby canal/creek with a rope swing and a walking path. I tried out the rope swing and very nearly wiped out in the mud trying to get off (it was the kind where you put your foot in the loop and swing that way so the dismount was difficult). The we walked up and down this little path by the creek until it was time to get Marissa.
I got a bit lost trying to pick her up so we took a quick detour on some fun back roads before I got us turned around and headed in the right direction. The plan for the afternoon was to do a hike to a waterfall and then to a pub for lunch. We were in Dartmoor park and on the way there I finally got my first glimpse of the "moors" (which in my head, are always the "moops" thanks Seinfeld! And that wasn't even the same type of moors!). The moors are breathtaking. I made Valerie take some pics while I was driving
Then we parked at the entrance to the waterfall hike and started down. You can almost see the moors in the background of this picture if you squint really hard.
And we found a wooden centipede!
And a waterfall! (larger than it appears).
Sadly, we also found that the entrance to the trail was locked and closed. It would have been possible for Valerie and Ellen to wade across and Marissa and I to hop over the closed bridge door, but there were concerns about the state of the trail if it was closed so we decided to hike back up and try to take the high route. We hiked back up and found that all the trails were closed. Val was brave enough to wade through the stream to prove it could be done but Ellen was having some asthma issues and we had already killed most of an hour so we decided to just drive to the pub for lunch, where we ate off of slate placemats.
We finished our Devon trip by touring the Lydford castle, located literally next door to the pub.
The castle was also located right next to this picturesque little church. I'm going to be honest here, they stick the word "castle" on just about any pile of rock whose walls were thick enough.
We piled back in the car and started away. I hated leaving Dartmoor. The moors really drew me in and made me want to go riding or running or playing on them. They captivated me.
It is also not an understatement to say that the wind comes howling in off the moors. Because when we stopped for diesel the wind was so strong I had trouble opening the door. I also had trouble operating the pump. First, you don't pay until after you pump! !!!!! Ahahaha! Second, I stood there for like five minutes and had pumped less than 5 litres. I ended up having to ask a couple strangers and some of the people working there to figure it out for me. I guess the angle of the pump and the angle of the chute weren't working well together. I was eventually helped by a boy with a brilliantly mixed accent from Devon and Fort Bragg, VA.
The drive back was somewhat similar to the driver there. Valerie and I serenaded and Marissa and Ellen napped.
I chose to take the scenic route back and MAN was it scenic. Not just driving winding roads through the ever-present countryside. But also, STONEHENGE. We drove past Stonehenge and miraculously we made it right at sunset.
It was incredible! As you are about to see from the many, many, many pictures I took there.
The rest of the drive back was pretty quick and I would say painless except... I ran the left wheel into a kerb hard enough to leave a bump in the tire. I came back in a route I hadn't driven before and it required me to go into the middle of the street, the far right lane here, and then get onto a ramp to drive me over a roundabout. The ramp was hugged by two medians that showed up all of a sudden and the space between was just wide enough for our car and I misjudged. It was a little bit scary but the tire survived intact and we were able to get home in one piece.
And with that I've concluded yet another week.
Like any animal on a treadmill I've once again almost caught up with my blogging. I'm finishing up the last week of classes and I pick up my friend Juliana from the airport tomorrow for a short visit. As always I hope to get the rest of the pictures and stories up here soon.
Much love,
I managed to catch a few hours of sleep and then had a cab pick me up to take me to the train station. From there it was a relatively short train ride to Stansted and I once again was in the position of RUNNING to reach my flight on time. Of course, it turns out that when I got there the line at the gate hadn't actually moved even though the monitors around the airport were claiming the gate was closing. I caught a few more hours of sleep on the plane and arrived in Faro slightly refreshed. I picked up my bag and walked out to catch yet another cab to the train station. The train station in Faro had a slightly frontier town feel. While I waited I had a cup of coffee and enjoyed the bright sunshine and watched these men trade fresh caught fish from a dry bag
It felt so wonderful to be back in the saddle. We had some wonderful gallops up some hills and it was just wild and exactly what I wanted. Even better, when we got back the other woman on the ride gave me a ride back to town so I didn't have to spend money on a taxi. I got back right before surfers returned. Met everyone and realized that I actually had been on a LSC surf trip with the other girl, Christina. It was us and three other guys (one of whom left early the next morning). Toby arranged for us to all have dinner together at a Brazilian restaurant which we stayed at quite late and then slept pretty much as soon as we got home. The next day Bra (short for ?) picked us up at the surf house. We gathered boards and I took a big yellow fish. I don't particularly like fish and it turns out that we discovered over the next few days that this board suuuuucks. We drove out to Armado in the Land rover (I'm just kind of making up that this was the name). The waves were big, overhead + on the sets.
In the afternoon we returned to the hostel and recovered before going out to devour all you can eat sushi and came home to watch Lesbian Vampire Killers (as great a movie as it sounds! Go! Watch it now!). The next day we had Jez with us, he was the professional surfer that everyone had hired for tuition for the time they were there. I figured I could use the help as well. Same as before I chose another board and then we drove down to Zaveil. It was TINY. Tiny, tiny, tiny.
That evening was much the same as the others. We hunted down a hole in the wall place to have dinner and then went to sleep.
The third day was cloudy and a bit rainy. We took a quiver of boards with us, including an over 9 foot log and a smaller fishy foam board. We drove all the way to Barrencos (*spelling made up). We got there and it looked depressingly flat. We decided to wait and see what would happen. The first thing that happened was that this man got out of his car, stopped on the beach in front of us, disrobed completely, and then ran into the ocean to wash himself off, then ran back in our direction and modestly covered himself to change. When we finished laughing a set rolled in and sealed our decision to stay. I paddled out on the log and sat on the left side of the bay by the peak. It took me a few waves to get used to the board but once it did I was UNSTOPPABLE. It was incredible. I sat there with the peak practically to myself (when it was I hung out and sang to keep myself company) and occasionally sharing with one or two other people. I took occasional short breaks but otherwise stayed out for five or more hours. It really was like being Goldi-locks because today was just right. It was easy enough to paddle out during lulls between the sets. The waves were consistent. I ignored the thunder and lightening that passed by in the distance and let down a little bit of a shower on us. The sun cleared back up and I caught wave after wave after wave after wave after wave. I got an e-mail a few weeks later from Jez (the pro who was coaching us) that they named the break after me (Shinobes - using the nickname one of the English boys working at Surf Experience used instead of being able to pronounce my actual name). I remembered belatedly to take pictures of the break as we drove away in the Landie.
The next morning I, of course, had to wake up extremely early to catch the train to the airport for my flight. I walked through the dark streets to the train station and had plenty of time to catch my flight without any panic. What this meant though, was instead of panic, mind-numbing boredom of sitting in line to wait for the doors to open to the gate area. When the doors did open the queue dissolved into a mad rush to get downstairs to the next one. Then we all waited there until they scanned our tickets. Then we waited inside the gate area to be let onto the plane. I think I'll go back to running for it at the last second.
I got back into London, hoofed it to Sidney Webb, threw my clothing into a different suitcase, hung up my wetsuit and went to go rent a car with Valerie for our trip to Devon. The rental place was about two miles away, in the not-so-nice part of town. It was also run by the most incompetent man I've ever encountered. He was completely incapable of multi-tasking but also incapable of sticking to only doing one thing at once. Instead he would just start a whole bunch of things and then leave them unfinished. When he finally got around to starting to process our rental he got part of the way through then answered the phone. But instead of putting the person on hold, he starts working through that guy's problems and ignoring us. We waited about 10 minutes before insisting that he hang up the phone, or put the guy on hold, or mention to the person that he was busy. He kept refusing and we kept demanding he give us the phone so we could tell the guy to call back. Eventually we got our way (kind of) and finally had the car. I drove. It was confusing and terrifying at first. Driving in London is madness. Like every other city, people leap in front of your car, and lanes become turning lanes without warning. Thank goodness all I had to do was drive straight up the road and only made one minor mistake that someone was nice enough to let me fix by letting me back into their lane.
Valerie, Marissa, Ellen and I packed up the boot.
Trish and Stephen greeted us and showed us around the cottage. It was beautiful. Downstairs was a modern kitchen with a living room and upstairs two bedrooms. Valerie and I, as usual, shared the master bedroom with the double bed.
Everyone pitched in to cook a dinner of pizza and salad and in the meantime I made Challah.
And classic English countryside (Launceston is apparently known as the "gateway to Cornwall")
But let's talk about the riding. Ellen and Marissa both have extensive experience so the three of us had booked a trail ride through the woods and Valerie had a ride through the farm. The barn had arranged for us to ride to a Devon cream-tea and for Valerie to come and meet us there. We started with a quick warm up in the arena to make sure everyone knew what they were doing and were on the same page.
OMG LOOK AT THESE TINY LITTLE PONIES! They were shorter than the fence and they had these tiny little legs that could not have been more than a foot long and then they cantered at us! SQUEEEEEEEEE
That evening we were exhausted so we just got a pint at the pub near the barn and then drove back to the cottage for a quiet evening in front of the TV.
The next morning we woke up and Valerie made Challah and banana bread french toast for us before we said goodbye to Trish and Stephen and all of the glorious amounts of space in the cottage
I got a bit lost trying to pick her up so we took a quick detour on some fun back roads before I got us turned around and headed in the right direction. The plan for the afternoon was to do a hike to a waterfall and then to a pub for lunch. We were in Dartmoor park and on the way there I finally got my first glimpse of the "moors" (which in my head, are always the "moops" thanks Seinfeld! And that wasn't even the same type of moors!). The moors are breathtaking. I made Valerie take some pics while I was driving
Sadly, we also found that the entrance to the trail was locked and closed. It would have been possible for Valerie and Ellen to wade across and Marissa and I to hop over the closed bridge door, but there were concerns about the state of the trail if it was closed so we decided to hike back up and try to take the high route. We hiked back up and found that all the trails were closed. Val was brave enough to wade through the stream to prove it could be done but Ellen was having some asthma issues and we had already killed most of an hour so we decided to just drive to the pub for lunch, where we ate off of slate placemats.
We finished our Devon trip by touring the Lydford castle, located literally next door to the pub.
We piled back in the car and started away. I hated leaving Dartmoor. The moors really drew me in and made me want to go riding or running or playing on them. They captivated me.
It is also not an understatement to say that the wind comes howling in off the moors. Because when we stopped for diesel the wind was so strong I had trouble opening the door. I also had trouble operating the pump. First, you don't pay until after you pump! !!!!! Ahahaha! Second, I stood there for like five minutes and had pumped less than 5 litres. I ended up having to ask a couple strangers and some of the people working there to figure it out for me. I guess the angle of the pump and the angle of the chute weren't working well together. I was eventually helped by a boy with a brilliantly mixed accent from Devon and Fort Bragg, VA.
The drive back was somewhat similar to the driver there. Valerie and I serenaded and Marissa and Ellen napped.
I chose to take the scenic route back and MAN was it scenic. Not just driving winding roads through the ever-present countryside. But also, STONEHENGE. We drove past Stonehenge and miraculously we made it right at sunset.
It was incredible! As you are about to see from the many, many, many pictures I took there.
And with that I've concluded yet another week.
Like any animal on a treadmill I've once again almost caught up with my blogging. I'm finishing up the last week of classes and I pick up my friend Juliana from the airport tomorrow for a short visit. As always I hope to get the rest of the pictures and stories up here soon.
Much love,
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