Lost In Portugal

 

Although our hosts here in Portugal left us a lovely 'welcome pack' of fruit, wine, bread and other useful items, we wanted to pick up some groceries to be ready for supper and breakfast, so we went for as walk to find a grocery store and wine bodega. Sue and Colin, the owners of the apartment have written a wonderful guide to Olhao and have everything you might need located on a handy tourist map.

Portuguese Street Sign

A map is useful however only if you can find where you are and are able to follow the map to where you want to go. The apartment was easy to locate on the map, and the shopping centre with a nice modern grocery store looked easy to find. Off we went hiking up the road, but quickly found a problem. The map lists all the street names . . . . . the actual streets however do not actually seem to have names. I'm sure someone named them, but no one put street signs up. The older area of town has lovely ceramic tile street name plates on the buildings, but there was no such thing here. We kept going hoping to find a sign to find our way, but nothing appeared. We weren’t actually lost, because we knew how to retrace our steps back home, but the shopping centre was certainly lost.

Finally we asked a 'local' sitting in one of the sidewalk 'snack' bars.

“Sorry”, she said “I'm not from here.” She however did ask her friend who although he could not locate where we were on the map (He probably did not know his street actually had a name . . .), but he was able to point us in the direction of the shopping centre and his directions got us there.

Wonder Where Linda & Pete are?

Linda and Pete (Sister & Brother in law), had much the same experience. They flew into Lisbon, stayed overnight and took the train down to Olhao the next day to arrive the same day as Regis and I. When they arrived at the train station in Olhao, they discovered that the one paper that they could not find was the one containing the actual address of the apartment. They had seen pictures of the apartment but did not know if they could actually recognize it. They knew it was called “Number 24” but had no idea what street it was “number 24” on. After wandering a bit they gave up and Linda left Pete back at the Train station while she went to find an internet cafe to try to find the apartment through the website or her e-mail where Regis had sent her the information earlier.

No luck. . . . . no address, no idea what to do . . . . not quite to the point of panic, Linda decided she would have to get a hotel room, and perhaps contact us via e-mail to find out where we were.

Look Pete made it to Portugal

They luck and good fortune took over and a friendly Russian/latvian couple recognizing Linda's “Lost in Portugal” looks asked if they could help. Using broken English and inadequate Portuguese the situation was investigated slowly. As Linda tried to explain her brother here already and not knowing where the apartment was, they mentioned Colin and Suzanne. Somehow, Linda the Canadian had found someone from Russia who knew our English hosts living in Portugal. How's that for international intrigue? After a couple of phone calls they found Colin & Suzanne's phone number, made contact and were finally, tired and hungry from travelling, able to find us.

Oh, BTW, the apartment is two blocks from the train station, and had Regis and I been relaxing with a glass of wine on the front balcony rather than enjoying the sunset on the back balcony we probably would have noticed Pete sitting forlornly guarding a pile of suitcases outside the train station; we can see it from the balcony.

Off the Grid

We spent a couple of days this summer completely off the “grid”. No power, no running water, no sewer, and no cell service. Our lives are so tied into and around having these “essential” services, that it takes a while to acclimatize to not having power at the flick of a switch or hot water at the turn of a tap.

My sister and her husband built a beautiful “cottage” on a lot overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and invited us to use it. It isn’t really isolated, but when planning turned up protected wetlands, and situating sewage and water proved a problem, they decided to build anyway but go completely “off the grid”.

Water isn’t a real problem, since you can carry it in with you, but carrying out the resulting waste is not a pleasant option, so they quickly found the solution in a composting toilet - better that the traditional outhouse, but still requiring no power or water.

Once you settle into the cottage, life without all the ’essentials’ is actually pretty good. The toilet works great; no smell, and really easy to use and manage. Oil lamps chase away the shadows, and rechargeable lights and battery power work just fine - but there is always the option of just going to bed earlier as the sun goes down, and getting up when it gets light. Once you have no real option, this seems pretty logical. Water for drinking can be carried in, and two big rain barrels provide water for washing and cooking. Probably the biggest issue is with hot water; dishes come cleaner in hot water, and I really don’t enjoy washing in cold water.

There are some advantages too. It is really dark without electricity, and looking to the heavens shows a sky full of stars hidden from our urban neighborhoods, and having to wait to wash the supper dishes until the wash water is hot allows one to relax with another glass of wine while your meal digests. You just have to slow down a bit, and that really isn’t such a bad thing. I will certainly be willing to go back for another visit.

Beach Marbles

Lots of Beach Rocks

Why is it almost impossible to find a perfectly round rock? There are lots of ’rounded’ rocks, and you can find rocks that are perfectly round but flat, but try to find just one that is a perfect sphere; almost impossible.

I call it the search for the perfect beach marble. It is very hard to find a round rock, even harder to find ones  the size of a marble. Why is that?

Someone once told me that the odds of finding a rock on a beach that had actually been worn into a perfect sphere was virtually impossible. He claimed that it would have had to start out close to a perfect cube so that as it was washed and rolled about by the waves and water the corners would slowly get worn down until it was round.

Whenever I visit a rocky beach, I search for my perfect beach marble. I haven’t found one yet. I have a few almost round beach rocks, but not one actually round, and nothing marble sized.

My theory? There are actually lots of round rocks. The continual motion of the waves works to round all rocks to perfect spheres. It is just that as soon as a rock becomes an exact round shape, the ’roundness’ exerts itself, and one of the guiding principles of a sphere takes over and it begins to roll. As we know, anything that rolls, naturally rolls down hill.

Almost round . . .

So . . . once the perfect beach marble achieves roundness, the motion of the waves rolls it not back and forth, but just ’forth’; always down hill. Yup, somewhere in the deepest of ocean trenches, unexplored by mankind, lie thousands of perfectly round rocks. Scattered among them are my elusive ’beach marbles’.

But, the search continues. One day I will come across a rock just as it loses that bit that kept it from being truly round but before it begins it’s journey down. 

Doing the "Buffet"

The Excalibur Casino

The food in Las Vegas is fabulous! It is expensive, but very good. We have yet to find meal that we did not enjoy. However, when you are here for 14 days, meals add up, so we were happy to take advice from my niece who visited Las Vegas in the summer, and was on an even tighter budget than we are. One of her recommendations was the buffet at the Luxor, and we discovered they had a special “all day - two hotel” deal; breakfast, lunch and supper for less than you would normally spend on just supper.

We just got back from breakfast, and I certainly got a lesson in how to maximize your “buffet experience”.

Sitting across from us was a table of six “middle-aging” ladies. Do you know the expression “dressed to the nines” . . . Well they were working on ten? I always thought leopards and zebras were natural enemies. These ladies made them work together; leopard jacket and zebra handbag. They all had enough “bling” on to short out any metal detector, their hair was tossed & flossed to perfection, and their eye shadow looked installed by roller. And . . . They all had huge “designer” handbags. No husbands in sight, so this was either a “ladies holiday”, or the men were busy losing some money already this morning.

Or all you can carry away.

I noticed one of them return to the table with a full sized dinner plate piled with sweets, then another sat down with the same sized helping. Ok, I admit it, I’m nosy, this peeked my interest. I could feel a blog coming on . . .

I found out what the “designer” bags were for. The bags opened, zip lock plastic bags were extracted, and the plates of sweets disappeared. They didn’t eat one; the entire plateful went into the purse. Another of the party then returned with four bananas. Yup, into the purse wrapped in napkins. Then, back to the buffet for more. Into the handbag. All six women loaded their bags with food. One then picked up the bowl of little cream packets, and half of that disappeared. They were not even being secretive about it; it looked like they thought this was perfectly acceptable.

When they were finally ready to leave, I saw one slip the waiter they had all been flirting with two dollars; it must have been her turn to tip. . . .

So that was my lesson in buffet dining.

Back To PEI

Restored Tractor

P.E.I. and I do not have the best of relationships. I know the "Island" is a popular tourist destination, but every time I try to play tourist there, I get rain, fog or man-eating mosquitoes. One year we planned a week long family "Island" vacation in a rental cottage. It rained for the first three days, and when the sun finally came out on the forth , we sent the children out to play only to have them forced back in by giant mosquitoes. Then it rained for three more days. PEI retained the "Worst Vacation Ever" honor for years.

Now we did give The Island chances to redeem itself. after all it’s always sunny on any of the "Anne Of Green Gables" TV shows, but even on three subsequent trips over we were assaulted with wet weather and mosquitoes. As a result, I wrote Prince Edward Island off as a place to avoid unless absolutely necessary.

Amongst the stack of mail waiting us upon our return from the RV trip was a letter from a delightful lady we had met in Japan. She was our daughter’s Japanese teacher in Japan, and after meeting her there, we maintained contact through letter writing - remember those; envelopes, stamps, and words on thin crinkly “air mail” paper? She said she was coming to Canada on a “study tour” of P.E.I.and she would love to see Alisha and us if we were available.

Alisha was unable to come down from Ottawa, but we decided to make a trip of it, find a nice place to stay, and perhaps look for some interesting things to do on the Island. Our Japanese friend had only a short window when she could meet us, so that left us plenty of time to explore.

Saturday did not bode well, with rain and so much fog that we drove across the bridge without even being able to see the water under us, but at least the fog lifted a bit, and we managed to meet up with Alisha’s teacher, and spent a pleasant afternoon with her, her husband and three other Japanese tourists here “studying” Anne of Green Gables and Prince Edward Island.

Sunday we were on our own to enjoy Prince Edward Island, and it actually dawned with blue sky and sunshine - we thought we were back in Nova Scotia.

The Dawson House

We were staying in a wonderful B & B within walking distance of downtown Charlottetown called The Dawson House. Wonderful old house, very friendly hosts, comfortable room, and delicious breakfast. We will definitely stay here again when in P.E.I.

It was “Farm Day” in Charlottetown, and the main street was turned into a pedestrian only street for Sunday, and filled with farm market booths. At one end there was a really interesting display of restored stationary engines and farm machinery. The men who had restored these old engines showed so much pride in their work as they fired up the old workhorses and demonstrated them for us.

Another nice local beer

I was pleased to find that I could continue my quest for sampling good local beer in P.E.I. We discovered a really great local brew pub called Gahan Brewery, right off the main street in Charlottetown. They not only served their own beer; brewed on site - I had one called “Island Red”, that was great - but the food was also excellent. I had a delicious pulled pork sandwich served with barbecue sauce made with their own beer, and some of the best French fries I’ve had.

On the way home we decided to take the ferry to Pictou, because there was a 70 mile yard sale throughout the area, and a P.E.I. Winery we could visit.

We had a good time in our neighboring province, and it managed to go a long way in restoring it’s damaged reputation as a “vacation location”. We look forward to crossing the famous bridge again.

Travel Planner

When Regis & I retired our primary goal was to "Not Work", but following closely behind was a desire to travel. We had a taste of travel while working, and found we both really enjoyed it, but when working, we were limited it where and when we could travel.

Planning the trip - With wine!

Some people like to just leave home, and see where they end up, but although that can give some interesting adventures, it is as likely to end in disappointment or disaster. The secret to consistently positive travel experiences is planning. Some people use travel services such as bus tours where everything is preplanned and organized for you, or get a good travel agent who can use their experience to help plan a positive travel experience.

Although we have a great travel agent, who helps us get the best value for our travel budget, I have discovered the best travel planner in the world - Regis.

She even plans work for me.

Those who know her, probably already know her phenomenal ability to plan events. Just suggest going somewhere, and she will jump in with ideas and suggestions. If the suggestions become an actual vacation, she immediately goes into "Planner" mode, and the Internet slows up for the rest of you as she researches options.

We really have never had a bad travel experience - no wait a minute the RV horror across the country was a bit negative, but that can be blamed on me, as it was all mechanical problems with the our motorhome, and I'm in charge of those sort of issues.

No, if Regis is in charge of the planning, you can almost guarantee things will go well.

Good Planning - Happy Campers

An example of this is the RV parks we must stop in every afternoon. On this trip, we have had amazing experience in every RV park. Regis has criteria she looks for, including price, convenience, and clean washrooms. I think the only bad washroom was the one in St. Louis and it was me that researched that park. She looks in the Woodal's Campground Directory for possible parks, cross references it with our Passport America book, and then if we have an Internet connection, she researches it there, reading reviews (they must be above 7 out of 10) and visiting their websites.

I must admit, I am getting a bit spoiled with her amazing planning ability; I simply do not worry about traveling, knowing that my personal travel planner has everything organized. I know the trips will all work out. Thanks Regis!

Driving in Spain

Now in Great Britain they have a clever strategy to keep foreigners off their roads. First, they put all the important automotive controls on the wrong side of the car, so you have to sit on the right side of the vehicle. Then they tell you that you have to drive on the left side of the road. They then point you to a nice “M” series motorway, with three nice wide lanes like our freeways only with no real speed limit, so you start feeling pretty confident – “this is not so difficult”. Then you take an exit onto the “real” british roads; their two lane “A” series are the width of our residential streets, and their country roads are only one lane wide with two way traffic. Now this wouldn't be so bad if you could take your time, but you just get comfortable keeping the car from bouncing off the curbs on either side when suddenly there's a big Jag sedan or a Range Rover on you tail going twice your speed, wondering why you can't maintain 100 kph when you have at least a foot between the 500 year old stone wall on one side and the a few inches more on the other side before that 6 foot thorn hedge starts taking the paint of the rental car.

Now I managed pretty well in England, especially considering it was before I had my cataract surgery and couldn't see all that well, so I didn't hesitate to rent a car and drive in Spain.

First, they drive on the right side of the road and their cars are set up correctly so you sit on the left to drive. The roads are very good, nice and wide and well marked. Signage is in Spanish, but easy to understand, so it is quite easy to find your way around.

My first outing was a very pleasant drive along the Mediterranean coast from El Campello to Valencia along the coastal road, N332. This was a road designed for driving, as it wound around the coast and up and down the local mountains and hills. We made this trip on a Sunday, so there was a lot of traffic, with large groups of bicyclists in full bright multi-colour riding gear, providing moving slalom pylons, many motorcyclists out on everything from Vespas, to Sport bike riders in racing leathers blitzing the corners and high speed, and some very interesting sports cars of every vintage. I would have loved to have done this road on the GPZ 550.

Our second trip was a four hour drive to visit Grenada. This trip was mostly on larger four lane divided highways. These highways are very similar to our major highways, with speeds posted at 100 – 110. The roads are well maintained and well serviced. There are lots of service centres with gas stations and convenient rest areas (no toilets however). The exits are well marked and plenty of warnings are given for them. It was a challenge to figure out some of the regular signs however. There was one sign with two motorcycles with their back wheels in the air following a car. It could have meant “No Stunt Riding”, but as I tried to convince the little Fiat Panda to get up the mountain, I realized it meant that those Blitzing sport bikes had better be aware of overtaking underpowered fiats going very slow up the hills.

The drivers that we shared the roads with were all very courteous. I only heard a horn blow once while in a traffic jam in Valencia, and normally they are patient to pass, and generally calm. There were a lot of large trucks on the highways to Grenada, and they generally stick to the right hand lane, allowing other traffic to pass easily. When they do pass other vehicles, they do it quickly and pull in immediately. Although I saw no signs about lane use, most drivers remain in the right lane unless actually passing, and when they pass they immediately switch back to the right lane. Never once did I find the little old lady with the purple hair in the 1978 Cadillac blissfully cruising at 80 in the left lane.

There did seem to be a distinct class system on the highways. There were loads of trucks, who obviously knew their place was in the right lane. There were the “Ordinary” folk who drove Fiats, Volkswagens, Renaults, or Citroens, who stayed in their right lanes most of the time, but were welcome to switch over occasionally to pass slower drivers. Then there were the large Mercedes, BMW's  and Audis. There seemed to be a different rule for them. They were polite, but it was obvious that they felt that the left lanes were built for big fast German sedans with only one person (What fuel crisis?). Most of these cars cruised the left lane at least 20 – 30 kph faster than everyone else. I never saw one pulled over for speeding, and the speed limit was recently lowered from 120 to 110. When you pulled out to pass you had to watch out, because they were travelling so much faster that without warning you would see a big sedan filling the mirrors feet from your rear bumper. What surprised me was the politeness of everyone. Even these big faster sedans didn't glare at you as they roared by like so ofter happens in North America when you inadvertently get in a faster vehicle's way. These cars just waited for you to pull over and then accelerated rapidly by without a second look – they knew there were folk who couldn't afford cars that could maintain decent speeds but they just accepted them and moved on.

All in all, driving the highways and byways of Spain was a very pleasant experience. The cities are another story, but anyone coming to Spain, I would not hesitate to suggest you rent a car to get around.  . . . . BUT as I said before – The trains are an awfully civilized way to travel.    

Sunset In Santos

One of the real advantages to retirement is that I am able to travel whenever I want to instead of just during the summer, Christmas and Spring Break. My wife is still working and part of her job with Halifax Regional School Board is to travel to distant countries to promote Nova Scotia as an educational destination for international students. In September, she was asked to travel to Brazil, and would be visiting cities all over the country, but was to spend five days in Sao Paulo. This was too good an opportunity to pass up. She had her own Hotel room, and there was no extra cost for another person, so I booked a cheap flight to Sao Paulo to see what I could in five days.

Most of my time was spent exploring Sao Paulo, which is an amazing city, but I did get a chance to follow her off on a short side rip to Santos, a city about 80 km outside Sao Paulo. She was in meetings all day and evening, so I had lots of time to explore this interesting city. Santos is actually an island, that has become permanently attached to the mainland. One side of island is a huge container port – I am told the biggest in Brazil, and there was a steady stream of container ships coming in and out of the port, but the other side of the island is a beautiful resort and retirement area with a beautiful beach and over four kilometres of hotels and apartments.

Although I did manage to tag along on a short tour of the rest of the city, the majority of my time was spent wandering the beach, and the areas around the beach. I arrived at about 10:00 am, and had to entertain myself until about 9:00 p.m., so I got to see a lot of this area. There are four kilometres of beach, and the beach is wide and flat. This was the biggest beach I have ever walked on. The distance from the water to the roads was so wide that a group of local youth, set up a full sized soccer game in the middle of the beach, and walking above or below them didn't even bring you close to the game. The beach is an excellent place to walk, and the and is hard and flat, so you are able to walk comfortably all over the beach. In addition, there were bright floodlights spaced along the length of the beach, illuminating the evening soccer game and making it an attractive walk evening after dark.

Although the temperature was around 28 C when I was there, it was winter in Brazil, so the beach was not crowded. The people I shared the beach with were mostly locals I'd say, and primarily walking, running or exercising. There were very few sunbathers are swimmers, even it the hottest part of the afternoon. This was still Brazil however, and the beachwear was definitely the speedo or bikini. Now remember, Santos is a retirement destination, so I was surprised to find that it mattered not the size, shape or age of the individuals, the style remained bikini or speedo.

Santos is built around a series of seven canals that run completely across the island. The majority of the city is built on muddy sandy land, and the many of the older buildings were not built with the best foundations, and many have developed substantial tilts over the years. The canals now attempt to drain the land making it much more stable and the modern buildings are much more stable. It was interesting to look back at these tall apartment building leaning into each other. I'm not sure I'd want to be living in one of the older buildings.

Between the beach and the street, Santos maintains a beautiful park-like walking and biking area. There is a nice sidewalk along the street, but there is also a meandering network of walkways gardens and kiosks between the beach and the street. These walkways were well maintained and extremely clean. I even watched maintenance people dusting off the palm trees. There were gardens, fountains and monuments spaced along this area, with lots of benches and seats. There were people walking and running all day and evening along the beach and the walkways. There was also a bike path most of the way along the beach. This was a serious hazard. Although the walkways crossed the bike path in many places, and signs warned bike riders to yield to pedestrians, they were universally ignored, and you had to be almost as careful crossing the bike path as you did crossing the road. The bike riders refused to even slow down for you.

The highlight of my visit to Santos came as I returned to the beach following a meal at one of Brazil's wonderful Barbecue restaurants. As I wandered the beach for the third time, the sun started going down over the hills at one end of the beach. My digital camera came out and I took close to twenty shots of the sun setting. By then most people had left the beach, and although I was warned to be careful walking after dark, the wonderful sunset was worth it. By then, having spent close to 12 hours walking around Santos, I was tired, so I bought a couple of the delicious Brazilian oranges, and a can of mystery soda (I have no idea what it was made of, but it was cold and refreshing), and spent my final hour in Santos relaxing on a bench watching the sky darken and the people walking and running by.