The Algarve

As soon as school ended the Morocco group went to Portugal and became the Algarve group. We flew into Faro, spent the night, walked around in the morning and then caught the train to Lagos. It was about a 2.5 hour train ride. In Faro the most interesting thing that I saw were the funny lagoon, lake, river things. The coast is not normal coasty. It has lots of little inlets and things that I dont even know what they are called. you can rent boats to go out and through the rivers to the actual coast or to a fancy restaurant....We also saw people clamming. That was cool.

Once we arrived in Lagos and made our way to the apartment, which was situated on top of a hill, but nice and new and clean we wandered around and checked out the beach. the closest beach to us was the Meia Praia and its 7km of sandy beach with clear blue water. It was amazing. And its pretty flat and some afternoons the tide comes up and in the middle of the beach you get salt water pools that are deep enough for kids to swim in them. Over the three days that we were there we realized that the tide moved a good 10-15 meters each time it went in or out. Day two was spent entirely at the beach and in the evening we geared up to watch the quarter final of the world cup with Spain versus Portugal. Everyone was all dressed up in their Portugal colors, but the best people I saw were two old folks. One was this old woman dressed head to foot in green and maroon. Hat, flags hanging off the hat, flag skirt, jersey, ribbons, mini scarves tucked into her shoes, fanny pack. The whole nine yards. She was amazing. The other one we saw was an old man, pretty much dressed the same. The little downtown of Lagos was packed with people and it was fun to be in such a charged atmosphere for the game. And even better when Spain won.

Day two was spent by going on a grotto tour. We split the girls and boys into boats and started off on the amazingly blue/torquoise waters of the ocean. Our boat man was awesome. He was a little sun browned and wind weathered old man who kept poking me to point to different rock formations. I think all the boat men come up with their own personal names for the rocks. We saw Dracula, an elephant, neptune and some old actress, the titanic to name but a few. The boys boat didnt see nearly as many cool faces in the rocks. We got dropped off a a beach called Paia Camilo which was a little cove. Carlos and I went tide pooling and saw some really cool animals including a strawberry looking sea critter and lots of crabs and neon algae. After exploring and enjoying the beach we walked back into town due to the distinct lack of taxis and ran into the old cathderal and some cute little streets. Dinner was a bbq and cobbler.

Our last day in the sun, carlos and i rented kayaks and went kayaking. Its such fun to do activities outdoors. Much more exciting than the norm. We spent time on the beach and before we knew it it was time to go. We ate dinner in town and in the morning we hopped the train back to Faro to catch our flight. It was so glorious to be at the beach and be able to relax and run on the beach and swim and kayak. A perfect post work vacation. That and we got there before all the tourists did so we had a little bit of peace and quiet. But all of Lagos looks like its built for tourists and they only make money during that time.