Across Europe in a car with a guitar
June 26th- The Algarve
Taming the big blue wet thing. On failing that, just feeling it. Thus getting beat-up by it — but loving it. Oh and beer. Sweet, sweet alcohol… and drugs. The idea then, of course, was to push on to infamous Lagos where we would check out the local busking scene and, eventually, try to attain some gigs…
Today we decided to go surfing, I mean we felt pretty obliged since we were now on the south coast of Portugal. It was absolutely out of the question that that’s what we’d do on our first day there. So we got ourselves some breakfast (we usually tried to eat the fruit in the morning to try and balance out the inevitable shift towards more a-nutritional activities as the day progressed) and headed to Albufeira.
At one beach, at the snack bar perched atop the cliffs, we ate omelettes and waited for Georgina. Looking out to the rolling sets of waves below, Jack explained the situation: “She’s here, we’re here, it’s all good, no?” They did look pretty inviting, even to an unashamed rookie such as myself. I had absolutely no idea that Georgina would be in Portugal (she’d been there a month or so already, living in a converted V-dub she’d borrowed for the summer from her mate) and it was a surreal yet pleasant surprise to see her.
We rented boards from a guy down on the beach who Jack and Jee’ knew from three years ago when they were there together. Miraculously, he remembered them and a string of reminiscences ensued. I took an eight-foot soft board as I could count on two hands how many times I’d surfed in the last ten years. Then we got the wetsuits on which had traveled with us from Switzerland (Leonard had given them to us as sort of part of our paycheque).
So we played around, mainly in the white water for the first hour; I wanted to take it easy on my shoulder which was somewhat gammy from a previous ski injury. It had a habit of popping out sometimes. Things were made slightly more tricky with the water being densely populated, mainly by other beginners.
I did catch a couple of breaks, which I was happy about considering how rusty I was. I sat out on the beach for a while when the shoulder started biting (surfing is really not the ideal sport with such an injury). Groups of ten or more enthused rookies on either side of me were repeatedly jumping up from their boards, scattered static in the sand.
There was a strong rip-tide and we all started to tire fairly quickly. After another hour or two, the sea got messy and harder to fight, which is when we decided to call it a day. I was feeling battered — yet satisfied.
The dudes in the rental place gave us a good deal (ten euros each for basically the whole day) and let us wash our wetsuits. The sea at this part of the coast is indeed a wild beast — even wilder still in the west, which I’d soon discover. I think we all felt a bit done in by it, the sting of salt an ever-present reminder of its merciless clout.
After chatting lackadaisically for a while in the surf rental, we drove to find a satisfactory spot to stop and relax along the coastline. From the supermarket on the way, we got some food to cook and parked up side-by-side, trying to create shelter from the lashing winds. The road here offered an endless view of the infinite ocean; some smooth tarmac and gentle slopes. I cruised it a couple of times on the skateboard, carving down to Georgina who started cooking something up in the portable kitchen at the back of the van. Jack made wise-craic.
As the sun was setting we drank a beer and tried to smoke a doobie in the relentless wind which eventually caused us to drive on a little further to a cluster of trees. We ate in the back of Georgina’s van (which had a table and seats) before sleeping in a manner similar to that of deadwood.
