Last full week of Portugal

Weekly Update

With the Rota Vicentina behind us this past week was one meant to be a bit more at ease but it ended up being packed full of travels, less than ideal accommodations, luggage overwhelm, and travel understanding. Also some pretty good food choices though!

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Coming to you from a nice little coffee roaster in a cute suburb of Lisbon, I am debating if I should have one more brewed coffee or if I have had too much for the day already. The small European espresso shots have grown on me, I can tell the difference between good shots and bad but I am still so excited when I find a place that offers more traditional coffee brews favored in the USA. This want of more coffee mostly stems from the fact that I have a had a solid three straight hours on my computer without any interruptions and that feels so nice after going three weeks without this luxury. From the two weeks hiking and even last week after completing the trail, my computer use this past week was nonexistent because we were busy and lack of internet access from an accommodation. I feel like I could spent a month behind this keyboard and still be behind on what I wish to achieve. I know from doing travel life before, but somehow this trip feels a little more intense regarding what I wish to do for work. That it has a must succeed or fail feeling, which I also know is part of my scarcity mindset and desire to actually succeed in something. The latter which had been put to the side for way too long from me struggling emotionally/mentally the past few years before settling in Bellingham and healing deeper.

I knowing that continuous travel takes a lot of energy, not only time to do everything, finding accommodation, planning activities, walking to places, getting groceries, food, the toll of mistakes, hurdles, and the unexpected is bound to come up, all requiring mental energy of the day. This little ramble is because that is how I have been feeling the past week. Objectively part of me knows a couple days won't make or break any work goals and that to enjoy the moment I am living in, because there will be time in the future to work harder, but these thoughts conflict with the fleeting need to do the things.

Emily and I both felt burnt out when arriving to Lisbon, so we actually finalized more Greece plans, with us slowing down in Greece. We planned to take Sri Lanka slow and knew Bali would be good for me to be stationary and work, while she does her 5 week training, but with the past week our mindset has shifted that for Greece less will be more. Less places to visit, so we don't overextend ourselves and can dive deeper into the cities we do visit. We initially had ambition that I rent a car and us explore deep into the country and/or we visit some islands but in experiencing how Portugal has gone slow will be nice. Also with it being winter season, something we learned in Portugal, that means bus and train routes completely stop, making public transportation a bit more difficult. This would be the same for Greece with routes running minimally or not at all, which is a tradeoff for visiting during the offseason. Sri Lanka though will be a bit of fast paced travel but that will be more cost effective for us and it is going to be heaps of fun exploring the island! Also after a few slow weeks in Greece hopefully I will feel more at ease.

Lagos + Faro

Lagos was a dream little city! The one downside of our time there was that our accommodation lacked internet. I was quite surprised that we had a complete apartment to ourselves when arriving, I had thought we were in a shared dorm room so that was nice to discover! Since where we stayed was an older resort complex and the spaces seemed to be for more longer term stays, like timeshares, there was no internet except at the reception office across the complex in a mall type building. Adding to the lack of ability to be online my cell service was very spotty inside the apartment, since it was surrounded by massive brick resort. But we took that with stride knowing we only had three nights and we mostly wanted to rest from the hike anyway. Rest didn't really happen because those three nights went fast. Immediately when we arrived to town from finishing the trail, we found a coffee roster while we waited for our check-in time to arrive. I saw a sign that said they were hosting a coffee cupping, which is a way that roasters test and taste new styles of coffee, plus a meet and greet of Portugal's first place winner of the Aeropress brewing championship. Aeropress is a little portable coffee brew machine, made out of plastic parts that can be used anywhere. It allows you to make espresso shots, like the ones here in Europe or brew cups of coffee similar to a drip coffee pot, but without as much acidity due to the quick brewing process.

I was super excited to stumble upon this and looked deeper online, then signed up two tickets for Emily and I. From our little coffee chill we walked through the old town section of Lagos towards the beach front where our hotel was located for check-in. The hotel space was very dated but still quite nice, it even had a massive pool area that we could have swam in, if it was warmer out. The hotel reception said we were more than welcome to swim but to note that the ocean temp was currently warmer so he recommend doing that instead, which was just a short walk down the hill to the nearest beach.

We made it a night of pizza, purple sunsets and resting. The relief of completing the hike fell over us and we were excited for our newfound days of zero planned requirements. We spent the second day grocery shopping, making breakfast, sitting on the beach for a few hours of easy sun, I wrote last week's newsletter, and then an evening of downloaded tv. The third day was a little wander around the small old streets, Lagos is quite compact (and between that and Faro my favorite of the two), while making our way to the coffee cupping event. More people than I assumed showed up, it was a full on event, one that was presented informal but very well done. The presenters loved all things coffee and wanted to share their unique experiences in the industry with those curious. Portugal is a little behind the times for having craft coffee roasters, so a lot of the individuals were pioneers in this field or transplants from Australia, which has had a coffee scene almost longer than anywhere. Emily and I had a blast during the cupping, it was nice to share something new with her and it left me feeling invigorated to deeper pursue my personal coffee journey.

Our final day in Lagos went in a blink, we awoke for a sunrise photo mission, which on top of the coffee day, added to my invigoration. Catching the sunrise over the ocean had such a powerful energy behind it, we were both full of smiles to experience that even if I wasn't trying to get nice photos. We set off a little too late to get to the spot I wanted to before sunrise, but the second option was on our list as well to check out, another beach near to town, one that was supposedly the best around. To our misfortune, it was closed due to collapsed stairs, and we could not actually access the beach but from the vantage point that was open I found a decent spot to try and capture some long exposure images. Ones where the water is buttery soft. From that we had breakfast and packed before setting out to stop in the cafe for a coffee before finishing the walk to the train station. Just like that our time in Lagos was done and we were walking ourselves across the river to catch a train to Faro.

When planning our post hike trip in southern Portugal we really wanted to do this one specific trail that crosses seven beaches and unique coastal rock features. Somehow though we completely dropped the ball on that. Turns out the trailhead was not located close to either Lagos or Faro, which we thought we would do it as a day hike from Faro. On top of the missed logistics we found out that minimal busses were running due to the winter season and since our time in Faro was over the weekend, I guess zero busses run that route on the weekends. Even if we could have done a bus it would have actually been two buses, with a transfer, taking almost three hours of travel time if everything went smoothly. So even in a perfect world we could have not hiked eight miles, enjoyed the sights and caught the bus for a day. This missed luck just means that visiting this part of Portugal again is needed, but maybe in the warmer season.

For the town of Faro my highlights were visiting Decathlon, an outdoor department store chain, finding an all you can eat sushi place and discovering multiple big box grocery stores where I found flavored rice cakes. My lowlights were blindly going to see the movie Poor Things, our accommodation, and missing out on that hike. Speaking of our accommodation, this was our second ball drop of two cities, the hostel itself was quite compact and very loud. The building echoed and every door was a burst of noise. That wasn't what bothered me, it was the fact that the people who kept the hostel treated us guest as if we were an inconvenience to them. I could tell they had lived in the hostel for a long time and were quite settled. Emily and I felt like we were imposing and it was so uncomfortable. Faro as a town didn't really excite me either, aside from the massive shopping it seemed more like a standard city with some history attached to it but nothing of note and with the accommodation being awkward I was ready to head to Lisbon.

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Start of Lisbon

One of the most magical train rides in Europe, as recorded by various magazine outlets, the train ride from Faro to Lisbon was actually quite that. We passed through a variety of terrain, from fields of orange trees dotting as far as the eye could see to even a little bit of a cloud forest through the hills. This short four hour train wound lethargically from the southern coast through the interior of Portugal with a picaresque ending across the 25 de Abril Bridge. Lisbon's Golden Gate-esque bridge. It was the perfect relaxing travel experience, well in theory. We ended up having a train-car full of young children and mothers heading to Lisbon for holiday, which was fine but they took the seats with tables in-front of ours, which were not their assigned seats. With each progressing stop along the route chaos ensued about them being in other people's seats, which in-turn other people took different seats, and so on. This all resorted in a few raised tempers, shaken heads, and terse tones throughout the whole ride. Plus some very active and loud kids running around the train. Good thing we had headphones and Emily actually missed quite a bit by napping.

The City of Seven Hills, aka Lisbon Portugal. This picaresque gem of a town is a low-key cafe hopping, digital nomad hotspot and after now exploring a new area and watering around for two days I can see why. Over the past decade Portugal has been talked about more and more throughout the traveler web with Lisbon being at the forefront. When we landed here I spent my first week on the northern edge of the historic section, and if you remember did not leave my hostel at all except for groceries. I hunkered down and worked. This time around we are on the more westerly side of town, about 20-40 minutes by public transit away from the main tourist and historical areas. This suburb is known for a quiet vibe and cafes. I really like the location, which somehow was miss communication as well. I had a place saved in my maps that was in the heart of the historic center, and based our train tickets off of us staying there. Turns out just as we crossed the lovely old red bridge Emily informed me no that is not where we were staying - so we had a quick panic and pivoted to get off the train at the next station, instead of riding it three more, plus a transfer train to get downtown. We hopped off early, ordered an Uber taxi and placed ourselves at one of the aforementioned digital nomad, quaint cafes. This one a chic vegan eatery that offered soft bean purees.

To my digital nomad defense, I did not work at this cafe, we were only there because our accommodation host had refused to give us any information about our stay until 2pm abruptly. So we dawdled and soaked in the sounds of the new city. The theme of ball dropping continues with our snarky host and final Portugal accommodation. Me misunderstanding the location was my bad but the place we are staying at was a miss directed posting. What looked like a private accommodation with kitchen and bathroom is actually an eight room place with shared facilities that don't even work.

Upon deeper inspection the listing host really misleads every guest with these facts and the amount of shock is actually quite laughable. Especially when a couple arrived last night awkwardly saying hi and then talking under their breath to each other that "oh I guess it's not a private accommodation". The irking fact is that the stove does not work and there is no kettle so let alone not being able to cook, after we bought groceries, we can't even boil water to make coffee. There is definitely an electrical issue happening as well, half the lights work, the breaker boxes are all open, the water heater was on the fritz not working until I reset it and our "private bathroom" is basically useless since the shower does not drain.

Emily has been a champ though trying to push these issues with the host, mostly to silence from them, but with some good answers from Booking.com so we will see what comes of it but not being able to cook is slightly frustrating, when one is trying to save some Euros from eating out (in one of the most expensive cities for food in Europe).

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Final Thoughts

Since our time in the city has just started, yesterday (our first full day) spent mostly running a luggage errand and today is a computer day. I am quite looking forward to tomorrow's wanderings and photo taking day! Then it's actually only one more day before we fly off to Greece. Hopefully next week's newsletter I will be raving about my Lisbon wanders and my first impression of the ancient city of Athens!

See you on the next adventure - Sheridan

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Sheridan C. Chasing horizons and capturing untamed beauty. Let's embark on rugged journeys together!

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