He Said:

Yesterday afternoon in Salema, Portugal we went to a Frenchman's bar to watch the Italy-Czech Republic soccer game on German television while swapping stories with a few guys from Ireland, and tomorrow we leave for Spain . You could say the whole experience was quite EPCOTian.

There really isn't much to do here in Salema, which is a tiny fishing village turned somewhat undiscovered vacation spot enjoyed by Europeans looking to escape the hordes of tourists in neighboring Lagos and Americans carrying around copies of Rick Steves' Portugal, but having nothing to do has been kind of enjoyable for a few days. It's really the first few days of do-no-thing rest we've had in a while, so yesterday I pulled out my paints and went to work. We also walked around the tiny town taking photographs of ocean-vista alleyways, fishing boats, clay pots that the locals use to trap octopi, and typical European parking lots filled with small, gas-efficient cars that don't help pad the pockets of the suits at Exxon, Texaco, etc. - and believe it or not, most of them are made by American car companies. We sat on our terrace at Casa Duarte and wondered if the Senhor had distant relatives in Cuba or Plantation, Florida. We talked to another couple that turned out to be from Colorado, and then after my first two glasses of real absinthe (though it was not very good absinthe), I realized that the abbreviation for Colorado, CO, is also the chemical symbol for Carbon Monoxide.

The highlight of the last few days, though, has to be the boat ride we went on this morning. Sebastao, a local naturalist disguised as a tour guide, took us out in his boat along the western reaches of the Algarve to explore the caves and hidden beaches . This stretch of coastline is very beautiful, barely touched, and extremely valuable to land developers. Though it sits inside a natural park of sorts and is protected by the Portuguese government, the fight still rages on between the developers and the conservationists. Of course our guide falls into the protection camp, and now after seeing how pristine it really is, so do we.

Boa noite Portugal!!!

She Said:

Our journey from Lisbon to Salema felt a bit like that movie Fools Rush In when Matthew Perry has to take planes, trains, camels, etc. to get to the girl. Although not too different from my old Queens commute, the 2 trains and a bus that we had to take to get here were far from the #7 train and the Q44 bus! We started out on an A/C train for about 3 hours with comfortable seats. When we hit the town of Tunes, we were told we had to continue on to the Lagos-bound train on the opposing track . This was a non-A/C commuter train of sorts with mostly local stops. When we arrived in Lagos we were swarmed with offers for a place to stay, however, we still had to take the bus to Salema (which no one seemed to know anything about except Rick Steves).

We walked over the bridge to the bus depot and boarded the bus to Sagres (which we were told stopped in Salema). When we arrived, we consulted our handy guidebook to figure out how to find somewhere to stay. The options were scarce and the directions said to go to Boia Bar or the supermercado to ask about available rooms otherwise. Clearly, when a little elderly man approached us speaking Portuguese asking if we needed a place to say, I politely said no thank you and wanted to proceed to the two places we were intending to go. However, Chad entertained this man for a few minutes, so I used my Spanish skills to translate (Spanish has turned out to be slightly helpful since it's so close to Portuguese). We communicated that we would be in Salema for 3 nights and were looking for Casa Duarte . Well, as it turned out, we were talking to Senhor Duarte himself (he even showed the untrusting New Yorkers his ID card). He slowly walked us up the hill, through some narrow alleys, and off the main road to a path leading to his place.

On the walk up, we passed two American girls who were also staying there and somewhat vouched for the place, "it overlooks the ocean". We looked at the room he offered us, and decided to stay as we got caught up talking to the couple from Colorado. Senhor Duarte seemed to have disappeared happy to have filled the place (3 rooms total). However, I will now offer you a more detailed description of this not-so-clean, bathroom down the hall, NO hot water, bug infested, "but it has a terrace facing the ocean" place so you can appreciate it as much as me ;)

The first night we were assigned to the only room left, one with two twin beds and a window with an obscure ocean view (without getting into details, we decided to share one of the twin beds so as not to put our stuff on the floor, and put our things on the other bed-- the next day when one couple vacated, we quickly switched to the double bed room)! There were two bathrooms, one around the corner with a toilet and sink, and one down the hall with a shower . These were meant to be shared by all and definitely looked like they had been pretty well used already! There was a common area of sorts, the terrace overlooking the ocean (the only great quality). There were flies, ants, spiders, and some weird bug Chad keeps calling "rolly-pollys". Chad has found my intermittent reactions to the cleanliness and to each bug incident hilarious. All I can say is thanks grandma for the sleep sac, thanks dad and sherry for the travel pillow, thanks Susan R. for helping me find more patience and compromise, thanks Purell (enough said), thanks mom for the Charmin-to-go, and thanks Vinho Verdhe for helping me fall asleep fast!!!

Aside from all that, Salema is one beautiful little town. Chad and I decided to take some alone time on our first full day here (before we actually needed it). While he painted, I enjoyed the sandy beach. Not a cloud in the sky, the sun was strong and the water was chilly. There were many families here on holiday and many locals enjoying the beach as well . We reconvened at the bar and proceeded to stay long past our limit (it seems we are taking sort of a bar crawl of Europe, but I will agree with Chad, we are just trying to culture ourselves to the drinks specific to the places we are in). Since we were the only ones at the bar, we ended up having a great conversation with the French bartender about politics and the "states of the union" in the US and throughout Europe. We then met a guy from Germany who totally knew the name Stamm and told us all about his homeland. Next, a few guys from Ireland crawled in apologizing to the bartender for their behavior the previous night. He laughed and poured them another...we decided it was time for food and made our way to a place on the water for tapas. There we met a couple from the Netherlands who basically told us there wouldn't be much to do in Amsterdam when we arrived due to the colder weather except go to the van Gogh museum and sit in coffee shops...ok.

The boat trip with Sebastio was amazing . It was only us and another couple from America, also on their honeymoon. We saw parts of the Algarve on his little motor boat that we wouldn't have otherwise seen. The water was beautiful and the caves were amazing. Tonight we will find an internet café to send this posting and pack up for the seven hour bus ride to Seville tomorrow morning. Hopefully they will have a laundry mat there!

They Said:

We want to thank all of you who have been emailing us and posting responses on the blog. We are trying to respond to a few people at a time, so please be patient. You will get a personal response. We love hearing from you all, so please keep writing us and telling us all about the real world since we are so far removed!

Tracy- happy birthday again...hope you had a great day!
Susan H.- loving the Chacos, good call
Jamie- had my first fall in Europe with a total black/blue knee...enjoy the laugh (yes mom, I'm ok)
Glenn & Pam- email us when you are off the trail and back home
Kristin- did you book your flight yet?
Beth and Andre- any relatives in Salema?
Ali and Erin (and whomever else this applies)- HAPPY PRIDE WEEKEND!
Ellen- Happy Birthday!
Mom-mom- happy, happy birthday. we love you and will try to call (if we can figure out the phones!)