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July 3rd - July 10th in the Algarve, Portugal
The Trip There:
Its 2am, and its time to go to Portugal!
Hop in the car for a nice 3-4 hour drive early in the morning, it doesnt really get much better, until about 10 minutes into the drive when dad, the driver, gets angry and becomes a maniac driver. Just 10 minutes into the journey on the North Devon link road, there has been a huge crash involving 3 - 4 cars, and the police have just got to the scene where they are clearing up the mess. What got my dad angry was his impatientness, turning around (Since we couldnt afford to wait really!) and driving down millions of small roads in darkness. I dont know how my dad knows every road in North Devon, but he does!
One hour into the drive, and we're making good time - That is until a sudden clanking starts at the front of the car. WTF is that?! Better pull over at the next service station.
Get out the car, have a little peek, not much can be found wrong, so why is the engine making these noises? But whatever the case, getting back on the road just made the noises worse when about 3 hours into the drive, the noises were just plain silly (And i dont mean it was making chicken noises or anything!)... and as a result, the engine goes, and no noises are being made, bringing the car to a rolling stop as we roll into a Bus Lane about an hour from GatWick airport! Nuts!
Just aswell we're covered for breakdown recovery on the insurance, better ring up our insurer (Who will not be named here!). After finally getting through going via. directory enquiries (118 118 - They've got their number) as we dont have any of the insurance documents on us, we chat to the rep, who tells us we dont have breakdown recovery cover. 10 minutes later after just listening to "Yes we do.... Yes we do.... YES WE DO!" they put us through to a local recovery service who we'll have to fork out for to get us to the airport - About £250.
What else can we do? We'll have to pay up for the moment, asking the recoverer to get his speed on as we've gotta get to GatWick asap! He arrives in a crappy tow truck about 30 minutes later after going flat out, which he then does down various roads while thinking he was going to breakdown. You've got to be kidding me!
Luckily though, he doesn't, and we arrive with our car on a tow truck at GatWick airport minutes before the plane was being boarded. The car gets taken to the car park, while we board the plane and away we go ^_^
Sunday - Arrivals
Just around midday, we arrive at Faro Airport in the sunny Algarve of Portugal, stupid sun!
On this day we mainly just spent the time walking about Portugal, getting lost a few times, walking on the even hotter beach, and driving on the wrong side of the road in a newly rented car, a black VW of all cars. Why do they even sell black cars in such constantly hot places?
However the apartment we had was pretty cool, we even had whats known as a 'Bday' if thats how its spelt - Or as i just like to call it, the foot washer! Its like a sink for your feet!
Monday - Sun Day!
Lets get out in the sun, and spend it... well all in the sun. All i did for the day was pretty much just that, laying down outside, listening to my mp3 player, and then when the time was right, dipping into the pool of ice. I tell you, just because its hot outside, doesnt mean the outside pool will be hot! Seriously, after giving it much thought, the only way the pool isnt made of ice is because of the sun. That has to be it!
Tuesday - Just another day
I... can't remember much at all about this day. What the hell happened on this day? Well from the pictures i can took i can only say there was really just more sunning. In the evening meanwhile we went back down to the beach for a walk of sorts. I decided it would probabily be better if i put on a black t-shirt to use to walk in the sun to cover up my immense sun-burn. All you could see on my chest was pure red, just red - It wasnt normal! Saying i should wear a black t-shirt mind, the only black one i had was my Nintendo DS 'Touch Me!' T-shirt i found... Cool! Ill wear that then! While walking around, it definately attracted a fair few glances, and even listening to a couple of people behind me at one time, even though they were speaking portuguese, i definately heard a few of them talking about it!
After going to the beach, we went to the supermarket to spend a few Euros. Yay! Euros!
Portuguese markets are not your ordinary Sainsburys/Tescos mind, they're really squashed together, a lot smaller, and only have a few angry ports working at the sametime. What i did notice though taking pictures of them were these really small bottles of champagne they sold, i mean they were really quite small, as if you'd buy them to celebrate on your own (Which is kinda sad come to think of it!), as well as this really fat cuddely toy bear used to sell sweets. "Hey kids, buy sweets, and be as fat as me!" I also laughed at the fact that they have bread over there sold under the brand name of 'Bimbo', i mean come on, bimbo bread? Haha!
Wednesday - Ring the bell!
A lot of the day today we spent travelling, and was very eventful indeed! In the morning we went to Quinta market, a HUGE market, selling lots of various items. For example, some were legal, and some weren't - And today was the day the GNR (Portuguese police) decided to take action!
We saw stools of pirate DVDs, cheap rip-off clothing (You know the kinda stuff), and when we got to a stool of big name perfumes and deodorants, all of a sudden this crazy portuguese lady ran around screaming, and before we knew it the people in charge of the stool were shouting at one another very aggressively and borrowing bags from the opposite stool and piling all their goods into them and running off down this huge open area to their van. It was a mad house, really really mad. They were running around in circles, barging and pushing their way through us crowds, and legging it with their, obviously illegal, goods. Well whatever i think we maybe better move on, only to turn around and find more portuguese people behind us at this stool selling shoes shouting at one another VERY aggressively. If i could translate it, i'd probabily have to use the * key a lot, but i'm surprised no punches were pulled, with them trashing one anothers tables, throwing the shoes about like it was some sort of ECW shoes match! Some people were crying, some were throwing, i thought someone was gonna start handing out popcorn and ask me for my ticket. It defo got the crowds attention.
After about ten minutes of watching the unknown outcome of this match, we carried on moving, got past a few more stools, when we came to a junction and suddenly GNR officers all kitted out in raid gear - with guns - came charging around the corners putting even more shouting into the competition. It was like a war, and we were being moved, only to walk up into the later parts of this huge market, come to another shoe stool, and see the exact same thing happen all over again! I couldnt believe it - These Portuguese must be very aggressive people indeed. You definately dont want to pick a fight with these people, as the GNR started heading back towards us again, splitting up the shouting and angry shoe sellers and throwers, and add a bit more shouting into the equation. Unbelivable.
As we walked further up to the near end of the market, helpless sellers were in tears and started to pack up early, knowing there wasn't much point in hanging around with no-one able to get this far to buy anything, and you could still hear the shouting, when suddenly this huge cheer went up and i noticed the GNR were walking out of the market in single file. I havent a clue what went on, but the sellers must have won!
Later that afternoon we went to the Marina (Vilamoura) noticing a distinct difference in atmosphere! People were happy, chatty, except for all the people in charge of stores who just made me decide that all big portuguese people just were never happy. Regardless of that there were many boats (It is a marina, but must be the biggest ive ever seen!), many fish, and LOTS of shops, unlike any Marina ive ever seen! You just walk, and walk, and walk, and more shops keep appearing! We never made it to the end!
Before we left Vilamoura Marina, me and my dad (Well, my dad made me really!) went and hired a couple of Jet Ski's! Now i'm not hugely keen on being out at water at the best of times, but as we made it out onto the open water outside of the marina, and started getting the speed up, i was pretty scared its safe to say, leaping from wave to wave on these powered-steering skis (Meaning no brakes and very sensitive steering). I was all over the place, left, right, left, right, before i finally got some control over it about 5 minutes before we were due back in. Amazed i didnt fall in, let me tell you, 30mph on a Jet Ski seems a lot faster on open water then a car does doing 30mph on a road! That was the fastest i went... i think!
Thursday - Sleep Walking
Today we went to... somewhere with lots more shops - A port town of kinds. We spent pratically the whole morning getting lost asking people with no english toungue whatsoever the way until we made it around midday. It really was baking hot today, and we were wandering around many small, pretty boring shops. I think i must have sleep-walked a lot of the way, because there really wasn't anything to do. I didnt see anyone actually buy anything, even though it was a very busy place come to think of it. Oh well, one thing i definately noticed was the unbelivable sand sculpture these people did on the beach, i mean this is really really top class stuff. Don't believe me? Look for yourself:
In the evening when we finally got back, there was a fun quiz going on in the bar area, so we went along to participate! There were various rounds of questions, including a Who Wants to be a Millionaire styled round of questions and a Family Fortunes styled round of questions (Where you had to guess what the top answer was - getting less points for answers that werent the highest in a survey). We lost of course, except for the last round which was a sweetie round! Yay! The objective of this was to match clues to either well known sweets or other kinds of confectionary if you know what i mean. We got them all except one, and someone managed to get them all! Bastards!
Friday - Tom Jones?!
Well there's not much else to do in Portugal, so lets go shopping again! This time to the Algarve shopping centre, a much better place too when we got there. Its basically a big centre full of more well known shops (If you're Portuguese of course!). We went in various kinds of shops, some nice big entertainment centres, an actually rather huge bowling alley (Disceiving from the way it looks on the outside!) and a big water fountain that turns on at random times spurting water from the ground into the air - You'd know the one i'm talking about if you saw it - that we saw some other tourists get soaked in not realising how fast the breaks between water spurts were!
On the way back we passed several roundabouts that are quite honestly, the best roundabouts ive ever seen. Nothing tacky like sticking a few plants that'll eventually just die and make the place look black, these were big water features in the middle of the road, and very cool. Oh and also just for fun i took a picture of this sign that was all over the place - No idea what its advertising, but that bloke just cracks me up. Haha!
In the evening, the bar (Which is quite close to our room) was holding a musical evening with Portugals answer to Tom Jones... AHHHHHH!!!! No matter how many layers were between the balcony door and us, we still couldn't quiet him.
Saturday - Time Out
One day before we go home, dad goes Jet-Skiing again at Vilamoura where i found a store that was selling Pokemon Emerald! Hell Yea! Its not out in Europe yet and cost me 59 Euros, but worth it of course since it doesnt come out for ages yet properly.
When we got back from there again it was a bit of last minute sunning before packing for the early morning jaunt home. A flight at how early?! Bloody parents! What was cool though was that ITV was showing Gone in 60 Seconds, one of my favouritist films! There goes my evening while i let mum get on with the packing ;)
Sunday - Departures
This is early, too early, and even though there were no problems getting from our place to the airport at Faro, we still just made it in time! Something about airports on this holiday just doesnt make sense...
Got on the plane, flew to GatWick, got off the plane, it was all pretty as you'd expect, and as it should be, luckily! The fun bit was getting back to our broken down car left in the parking lot. Hmm, only 250ish miles to travel to get home, should we just walk it?
In the end we left it to the AA. Good ol' AA!
Gave 'em a ring, got a bloke out after about 30mins of waiting who had a look, and 5 minutes later left again leaving us with the message that a tow truck was on the way to take us and the car home. The tow truck took a further 2 hours to get to us, and then we were bloody well on our way home, at last! We battled through hell and high waters, even dam traffic as you'd expect on those great 'M' roads! I never thought i'd be home again but i am, after travelling pretty much ALL day sunday, and doing little else. Jet Lag? Thats nothing compared to car lag if there is such a thing!
Now it's home sweet home! Will i go to Portugal again? Possibly...