Monday, February 13, 2023

My plan today was to head south, which is where I am now. I am in Sagres, which is a town right at the most southern part of Portugal, even Europe. Actually it is the most western side of the Algarve as well. This is a surfers’ haven; everything is about surfing because the winds are really high, and the waves at times, get really really enormous. Today they look huge. I’m not sure – I don’t have a long lens on my camera to show you. It took me a couple of hours to drive down, hairpin bends and all I am so glad that I remembered the driving instructions of my two older brothers – Fred who taught me how to hold a car on an extreme grade and still survive without rolling back. John, taught me how to accelerate confidently through a hairpin bend. That came in handy today with some of the aggressive drivers behind me wanting to pass. It’s not like you can pull over and let them go! The roads are narrow. Drivers were passing me on blind corners – I couldn’t believe it!
It’s just after one now in the afternoon, I think it’s time for a cup of tea. Oh, amazing… I don’t see any tea shops around. All right, I guess I’m just going to have to go and get a beer – that I see everywhere. By the way, the weather down here is extremely windy, but it is sunny and bright and it was sunny all the way down. The temperature where I’m staying up in Zambujeira, is supposed to be 17 today. I think it’s about that now here, but with the sun it feels warmer. 
I think this is the life I was born into, just wandering around in a car, stopping and drinking beer.

That beer was good in the warm sun, however there’s more to see and I’m driving. The lighthouse calls and the end of the world. I headed back through town and took the third exit on the circle south to the southern tip of the Sagres peninsula. At the tip of the peninsula is the lighthouse within the Fort. The Fort is not really impressive in my mind, considering other “forts” that I have seen, however, it is a large wall dividing the mainland from the headland and enormous cliffs on the other three sides. I can’t think that anyone would want to scale those 200+ foot cliffs! There’s not a lot to see for the amount of walking but I did not want to not miss anything. Those cliffs are impressive. While walking in to the fort I was behind two young fisherman. I figured that’s what they were, with their baskets and fishing poles in two parts. I had heard that fishermen came here to fish from the cliffs. I lost sight of these two fellows as I began my walk inside the fort. The wind was unbelievable, the peninsula being battered from both coasts of Southern Europe. You could honestly see looking out how early people thought the world was flat. If I was one of them looking out I would think that there was nothing else out there but the sea.

It was from this area that Prince Henry the Navigator put together a School of Navigation and brought Portugal into an Age of Discovery. There is some interesting history attached to his story and some beginnings to colonial expansion in the 15th century.

My walk around the peninsula continued and from afar I saw movement on the cliffs ahead. It was one of the fishermen at work. I continued around, and there he was at the edge of the cliff, casting his line to the sea below. A large stone, part of and the edge of the cliff, is all that separated him from certain death. Tension on the line and he began to reel in his catch. That was worth the trip down here!

I read that several of these fishermen die every year from this dangerous work and I can believe it. The cliffs, though they appear stable, are not. A visitor went beyond the fence to see closer what it looked like at the edge and along followed his young son who was possibly six years old!. I felt like screaming at him, such carelessness. The fisherman was also not pleased.

My walk back to the car was long and I was glad to drop my body into the driver’s seat. The wind and sea air made me feel exhausted. The 90 minute return trip back to Zambujeira passed quickly.

I stopped in town at the Estela Do Mar Restauraunte and had a typical Portuguese dish for my daily meal- a stew with octopus with white beans in a sauce. A pinch or two of hot sauce and Wow! Half of the dish came home with me for tomorrow.

I shut down early after today’s adventure and sleep came easily.