Waiting in line at the "bread truck"
Paula, our Bom Dia rep with an incredibly happy demeanor
Our "sailing" vessel
The boys "going overboard"
The grottos
More grotto exploration
Today was started off with a great breakfast, highlighted by sweets from the local bread truck in town. The past two mornings, my parents have walked down into the main part of town to get bread and sweets from the “bread lady” (who apparently isn’t very fond of tourists), but her bread is really good! After breakfast, we hung out for a little bit in our apartment with our usual forms of entertainment, a deck of cards, a backgammon set, and the only English channel we receive here in Salema, CNN.
We then left to go into Lagos, a nearby city, which is one of the largest in the Algarve. When we arrived into town, we parked our car and walked along the marina. We were planning to do a boat trip via the company “Bom Dia”, translated to “good day” in English. As we were walking, we came across a hawker for the company (someone looking to recruit people to come on their tours) who was the nicest lady. She had a real positive attitude, was really funny, and she even let my mom take a picture of her! After purchasing our tickets for the trip, Katie discovered that she hadn’t packed her swimsuit, which was critical because we would be able to swim on the trip. So, we went on a wild goose chase around town looking for a swimsuit, and once we found a place to get one, Trevor and I spent at least 30 minutes waiting for her to pick one, it was a lot of fun.
After filling ourselves with lunch, we got back to the meeting place, and got onto the boat. We were going to be doing a grotto tour of the area. The boat was a sailboat, although we didn’t do much sailing because of the lack of wind, so for our purposes, it was more of a motorboat. Once we got out by the grottos, we started to swim and jump of the boat, which was very entertaining. We had a little motor boat tagging along the big sailboat that they used to do the grotto tours, and since there wasn’t enough room for everyone, they took three different trips. We went on the last trip, and it was amazing!
Our guide, even though he didn’t speak English very well, showed and explained to us some really cool grottos, such as the monster, the corridor, the toilet bowl and much more! Once the tour was over, we headed back into Salema to continue our beach day. We went to the beach for all of 30 minutes, then went back to our apartment for “happy hour” as my mom calls it, or let’s let the kids pig out on cheese and crackers, as I call it. Later in the night, we headed to dinner at a restaurant called Atlantico, which is right on the beach and has great views, although we had to eat inside because we apparently weren’t swank enough to sit outside. After dinner, we picked up some ice cream and ate it on the beach. Then, my dad, Trevor, and I continued our three night tradition by going to the bar at the next group of condos over, and hanging out. My dad goes on the internet, and my brother and I play a soccer video game (something both of us have been lacking), all for a price of course. That was a great end to a day.
Ryan
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