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Published: November 17th 2006
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Good Days and Bad News in Lagos
The Grottoes of Lagos are Beautiful Today started as usual. We got up, figured out how to use the shower (this sounds easy to you stateside people, but every place we’ve been the shower is different), showered, got some quick food and set out about the town.
We started out by walking down by the water and checking out the seaside part of the town. Shortly after starting, these salty fisherman types asked us if we wanted to take a 45 minute boat ride up to the cliffs and grottoes just up the coast between Sagres and Lagos. Kel, being extremely excited about the idea, convinced me to go.
The guy driving the boat (a small fisherman boat with an outboard motor) looks exactly like what you’d expect out of a guy who’s been driving his own boat in the sun for his whole life. He could have been a side character in a pirate movie, with the exception of the jeans and collared shirt.
We headed up the coast and saw a ton of cool rock formations and grottoes. The “pirate pilot” was absolutely
amazing with his boat. He could head into small caves with some serious waves and spin us around and back out without any difficulty. I took a ton of pictures; sorry I can’t post them all because they are really something.
Cliff Climbing and Rain Hiking After the boat ride we decided to hike up to the cliffs we had just seen in order to see if we could walk down to any of the beaches that we had seen. There had been a good number of beaches and many of them had people hanging out on them despite the cool weather.
It was about a half a mile up to the cliffs where we found a dirt path that lead back near the water. There were paths all through the cliffs that allowed a view of the grottoes from above. Kel and I both hiked/climbed back to see as many of them as we could without being dangerous. It was a ton of fun climbing around and going out towards the water. We spent a good hour and a half walking around but we decided it was time to leave when it looked like
it was going to rain.
As we returned to town we got sprinkled on a little bit, but nothing too bad. Since we feared rain we headed over to a local bar that had free wi-fi for customers called Lazy Jack’s. We ate some food and did some research for Spain…which leads to the disappointment.
No Bus to Sevilla You Say… On the way to the bar we decided to stop and buy our ticket to Sevilla. Oooppss…it turns out the bus to Sevilla doesn’t run on the weekends. We decided to explore our options. We could rent a car…its only 3 hours (175 miles) to Sevilla. We checked into the rental car…one way trip, 600 Euros (800 Dollars) to cross the boarder and leave the car there. That’s a little over the budget. The Avis guy suggested we check into a train.
At the train station we figured out that there was a pretty low cost solution but…it involved a train from Lagos to Faro, then a new train from Faro to the border, then a ferry across the boarder, the a bus to the nearest train station and another train to Sevilla.
Whew!! That makes the train route a completely complicated plan that is not worth it.
The solution…we’re staying in Lago another two days. I’m not sure what we’re gonna do with the extra time, but I’m sure it will involve rest and relaxation.
Some Questions People Have Asked
How do we find Internet Cafes? In some cases the places we stay have internet services for free and thus we use them. Portugal in particular has widespread wi-fi which is run by a major internet company. The cost is about 5 euros an hour which is reasonable as long as you are only going to be on for a short time. Otherwise, places seem to do a great job of advertising, so we just walk around and look to see what we can find.
How are we treated as Americans? Thus far no one cares what nationality we are. It seems that the most important thing is that we are polite and that we try to do our best speaking the language. We have found that almost every time we try to babble our way through Portuguese that someone
stops us and speaks English to us. I’m sure this won’t happen everywhere, but it does here at least.
Keep the questions coming; I would be glad to take the time to answer them when I can!
Long Distance Dedication tonight on American Top 40: "Happy Birthday to You" by the Beatles
We wanted to take a quick minute to thank someone who helped make this happen, because without him, half of Team Turner wouldn't be here. With heartfelt feeling, we wish John Turner (Mike's Dad) a Happy Birthday today! This one's for you, John . . . We love you, Mike and Kel
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Marge Mack
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Very interesting
Am enjoying your diary. I'm not able to receive the messages on my email (probably don't have newest technology), but I just go to the original blog address and get your most recent report there. God bless you and keep you well and happy. Having Dawn's birthday dinner on Sunday here (just 6 of us) and then Thanksgiving on Thurs. at Dawn's. Remember last Thanksgiving? That was a strange one! Good thing we planned on eating out or we would not have had a Thanksgiving dinner. Ha. It would have helped the waistline. What happens to "you guys" on Thanksgiving? Probably a bowl of soup. Love ya.