Lagos - Portugal

After a brief stopover in Seville we made our way to Lagos where we dropped our bags and went straight to the beach. Was great to see the ocean again. We quickly went for a swim only to find the water wasn’t quite as warm on this coast as on the Mediterranean coast! The cold Atlantic currents push past here making it not too warm, but still nice enough for a quick dip. 

Lagos is a small town near the southern end of Portugal. Our accommodation here hasn’t been too flash, but we have been able to save a bit of cash and enjoy making our own meals from the local produce and meat. We do splash out occasionally though, and went out for a basic meal at a family restaurant down the road, where I had a really nice Tuna steak.

Our 3 days here have consisted of just heading to the beach, reading our books, and exploring the caves and grottoes that surround the beaches. The cliffs and grottoes are pretty beautiful and create a neat backdrop to where we go to the beach. We had seen plenty of people kayaking and stand up paddleboarding so decided the next day we would head out kayaking. Unfortunately though when we woke the next day we were fogged in (just our luck after wanting to be at the beach for so long!), so after a big of haggling to get on the boat for the next day, we teed it up for 11am the next day.

The net day arrived much brighter so we boarded our larger boat to take us out to where we would do a kayak tour of the grottoes. There were about 20 others of different nationalities, and it was pretty terrible to be honest. People were crashing into each other as the ‘guide’ said we all needed to keep close and didn’t give a hell of a lot of instruction, nor much safety instruction. When one of the guys fell out of his boat, there wasn’t much urgency to help the poor guy. We would’ve helped as we were by far the most competent of paddlers, but we were penned in the grotto by all the other paddlers. There were also others on little outboard bowered runabouts that would pass just feet from us, or cut through the group without a care or worry, so we weren’t really impressed to be honest. I suppose it was cool to see the grottos as they were beautiful, and we enjoyed being on the boat and jumping off the flybridge, but probably wouldn’t give it too high of a rating. 

We are currently making our way to Lisbon where we have kindly been offered a place to stay through a old running mate of mine from Rice – Gianmarco. He’s a really great Italian guy who I had been in touch with, and he mentioned his girlfriend is Portuguese and said we could stay at her parents place for a few days which will be great, so we are looking forward to that. Although they do speak 3 different languages, apparently their English isn’t the best, so should make for a few interesting exchanges over the next few days I am sure!