The beach here is on a sand bar and you have to catch a ferry (a little motorboat, not the roll-on-roll-off type). By the time we'd got to the boat I was already suffering from "flip-flop feet" and was regretting not bringing my action sandals.
Anyway, after a short boat trip and a walk along a rickety wooden walkway on stilts, we found ourselves a spot on the beach and settled down on our beach towels. The sun was very hot and there wasn't a cloud in the sky but there was a nice sea breeze so we were quite comfortable. We spent a few hours reading and napping until Claire announced she was starving so we caught the little ferry back and had some lunch.
I'm not sure what time it was later, but at some point we discovered that we'd got sunburnt. Claire's is probably the worst sunburn I've ever seen, all down the back of both legs which are now puffed up and bright red. Mine is not really much worse than usual but do have 3 flip flop blisters, one of which Claire has taken great enjoyment in popping. Needless to say I will be either wearing pumps or going barefoot for the rest of the week.
We're cursing ourselves for being so naive. It took me three weeks in Australia to get my feet conditioned to flip flops, so quite why I thought I could do it in one day here is a mystery to me.
And although we did put sunscreen on, I think we both secretly thought "it's only Europe, it won't be that hot".
After cold showers and covering ourselves in moisturiser, we went for the most hard work dinner I have ever had.
We went to a seafood restaurant nearby and decided on the shellfish platter, despite the fact that we weren't really that hungry.
The waiter provided us with some plier things, a hammer and some things that looked like they might be good for removing eyeballs, and then the food came, piled so high we could hardly see each other across the crabs claws, prawn legs and twisty shell things.
The eyeball removers turned out to be for oiking whelks out of their shells. I'm sure the meal must having been verging on calorie neutral after the amount of effort it took to get everything out of it's shell.
We're glad we had it as now we have eaten just about every shell fish going so can concentrate on easier food. I'm also glad to have confirmed my suspicion that I don't like oysters.
The family next to us had a toddler with the called Aaron, who they spent the whole evening doting on. That involved talking in baby talk all night, even to each other, and cooing whenever the child moved. I was sure they were American but Claire informed me they were Irish. Baby talk obviously distorts the accent.
We were quite impressed that Aaron said thank you to the waiter in Portuguese, despite the fact that he'd barely uttered anything in English that made sense all night. His Portuguese is way ahead of ours.
We limped back to our apartment on our blistered and sunburnt feet and legs and decided on a day in the shade tomorrow.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Location:Cabanas, The Algarve
Brill, love it so far xxx
ReplyDelete