A note concerning tangents (redux) III

Current Location: Lagos, Portugal (~pop. 19,000)

(37°06′N 8°40′W)

Day 3

Expedition Outlook: Wanderlusty

A view  you could used to, yeah?

Greetings again from the past of the future! On day 3 Pops found his man pants and decided to resume his duties as Expedition Leader. On the day’s roster: a road trip to parts unknown, but soon to be made known, or at least passing familiar. 

We headed west onboard Justinian (as I have discovered our steed is called). Our first stop, the village of Luz. But I get ahead of myself. This story truly starts the night previous, when Pops and Lady, drunk on power from their spec ops success against the prostitutes, decided to undertake an info gathering session at the hotel reception desk. I was not privy to the goings on of this summit. They returned to the room with a marked map and talk of a ‘route’ that we would ‘sight see,’ and that was pretty much all we had in the morning. Whatever details the receptionist had told them previously had been polymorphed by advancing age and dreamland into: “Well, we’ll go to this place and drink some coffee in a café. Then we’ll go to this place and….I don’t know maybe that was the one with the coffee? I think we’re supposed to be stop at a café everywhere.  Also there is a beach with dark sands. And I think maybe we go to this one for fish? And this one over here has meat. I think there may have been more, but nothing else is circled on the map.”

So as I describe each location, I would like you to imagine a scene wherein before each disembarkation there is a brief discussion about cafes, a seeking of confirmation to the presence of fish and/or meat, as well as an exchange along the lines of :

“Did they tell us to stop here?”

“Well it’s circled on the map.”

“What were we supposed to see?”

“Well I don’t know, weren’t you paying attention?”

“No, it’s your job to pay attention. I think we’re supposed to get a coffee.”

Progress defined: Roman baths and satellite television.

At any rate, our first stop was Luz, a pleasant little seaside village. There were some ruins of an ancient roman bath. (Keyword there being ‘ruins.” There were not majestic remnants of history, there were some holes in the ground). There was also a church that had been rebuilt many times on account of it being destroyed by an earthquake, fire (twice) and a cyclone. One would think that the residents might have interpreted this as a sign from God saying he wanted that church elsewhere, but we Portuguese are a stubborn lot. I would expect some locusts or maybe a tidal wave in the next 10 or so years.

Pew pew!

After Luz was Sagres. The Expedition indulged your fine narrator and set its sights on an old fort and navigation school associated with Henry the Navigator. As near as we were able to tell the place is called Sagres Point and it is a pretty large defensive fortification built on a narrow strip of cliff overlooking two bays, picked, presumably, for the convenience of being able to aim cannons at both bays so they could shoot the crap out of the Moors or the Spaniards or whomever was trying to invade Portugal at the time. I found it to be quite enjoyable.

A very quaint deathtrap. 

After Sagres was Aljezur. Which, we discovered once arriving there, was not actually the place we were supposed to go, but rather a landmark to get us to where we needed to be. Kat took advantage of the opportunity to try and kill us first by maneuvering us into narrow, difficult to navigate streets and when that failed by trying to get us to drive on an “unpaved road” which is gps talk for “not a road at all, have fun driving your vehicle through some small trees.” Pop's skills and Justinian’s agility foiled Kat’s plans and got us safely to Monte Clérigo, a tiny village where we had a phenomenal lunch of locally caught fish. This satisfied the fish requirement and afterwards we headed into the only mountainous region of the Algarve to satisfy our meat requirement.

When I say freshly caught fish I mean it.

This exists on roughly five terraced levels. 

Our destination was the village of Monchique. As far as I could observe, all of the villages in this region were about the same size as the ones on flatter terrain, they just happened to occupy that space on the vertical plane as opposed to the horizontal. A lot of terraces and switchbacks and tiny roads with no guard rails and perilous drops. If this doesn’t sound hazardous enough, I’d like to mention that your average Portuguese driver seems to enjoy going at least 30% faster than the posted speed limit and is not familiar with concepts like “deceleration” or “yield.” Monchique was pretty, though, and the meat quite tasty. They had a lot of sculptures of young ladies with their blouses open reading books, playing tag, and for some reason, performing carpentry. 

Crass commercialism tends to be very photogenic.

Our final destination was Vilamoura, which frankly was not super impressive. It is everything you’d expect from a purpose built tourist resort town. The only culture there was commercialism and we’ve got plenty of that in the States. It was well executed and pleasant enough in its own right, but it won’t be making any highlight reels.

Moving on to the social commentary portion of our broadcast, I’d like to mention that it is incredibly disheartening to see so many pretty girls smoking, a habit I find to be absolutely repulsive.  In a somewhat related vein, (the vein being “Hey she’s cute. Ah man, she smokes. Gross”) I’d also like to share with you something I’ve observed about ladies from the UK. First off, they apparently always travel in packs. I’ve yet to find one operating solo or only in the company of men. That’s not the point though. The point is this: You’re walking down the street. You see a lovely girl. And then she opens her mouth and out comes a trashy British accent so thick you can actually see it emanating from her mouth like a speech bubble. I’m talking Eliza Doolittle (Pre Higgins polish of course) after getting hit in the mouth with a sock full of rocks. It’s so shockingly disappointing. And I associate with people from Boston, Long Island, North Jersey, and NYC, which covers just about all of the low points in American dialect save for some of the gems you’ll find in the deep south. All of them inevitably are smokers too. So sad!

I’m beginning to lose sight of the relevance of anything I want to comment on, so I’m gonna call this one a wrap. Remember, kids, progress is the hallmark of civilization, and progress takes time! So think of my delay in updates as an investment in the future of modernity and advancement. Thank you and good night, this is the Nickness, signing off. 

Boa Noite!