waterfalls, dancing & new friends
olá! a warm welcome to my newest subscribers i recruited from porto ;)
i’m currently sitting in a cafe drinking a great oat latte and looking back on the last few days of my trip. i have to say the last week of my life was one of the best times of my life, what a trip!
10/08:
ello ello ello, there’s an interesting day ahead of me- kayaking, swimming, a lot of Portuguese dishes, waterfalls and laughter. i love the city of Porto, but i gotta say, i love me some nature (except those creepy swimming spiders). the guide smartly waits to tell me until after i get out of the water that there are sometimes watersnakes there.
we rock up for kayaking but as i’m on a roll with my new paddleboarding girl identity, i take a paddleboard with Justin, a guy from Hawaii. while the others go kayaking, we are quickly left behind with wobbly legs and burning arms. totally worth it. as he says, “we are masters of our own destiny”. he quickly leaves me behind and becomes a dot in the distance.
our guide makes fun of me for paddling on my knees, “hey, you know it’s called stand up paddling?” he laughs, shaking his head. i tell him i need to be one with the board first and the process can’t be rushed.
two of the girls, Hemu and Taju, booked the lake and waterfall trip despite not being able to swim. i find their choice very odd. they sit in their life jackets in the shallow water. we become friends.
i paddle back with Justin, this time he doesn’t ditch me (thanks). we talk about our lives in Hawaii and Cyprus and find a lot of similarities. he makes me laugh a lot and it feels like i’ve known them all for much longer than i have.
11/08:
i wake up early and hate myself for making a nail appointment in the morning. when my nails are done, i love myself for it.
crying in the museum
next stop: an immersive exhibition of Monet and Klimet. the artwork is projected onto the walls and moves to the timing of beautiful classical music. i cry because it’s so beautiful and potentially because my period is on its way.
i also almost cry walking to the brunch place, because it’s mostly uphill and my legs are burning.
on my way to my favourite cafe (C’alma coffee room), i pick up my finished painted tiles. despite using stencils, i feel like an artist.
i see my new friends for dinner and they walk me home to minimize the chance of me being murdered.
12/08:
i wake up tired but excited to see my new pals again. we plan to go to zenith for pancakes after they visit the livrario lello. they sit at the wrong cafe and we roll with it- the pancakes at the neighboring cafe are almost as good.
we catch up on the 12 hours of being apart and stroll through some stalls. Justin asks me my favourite colour and we end up in a debate for 10 minutes about what it even means to have a favourite colour and how the question phrasing really influences the answer.
while the girls pop home for a little, Justin and i make our way to my favourite cafe. apparently it doesn’t count as meandering if i use google maps, so i put away my phone. before we left my maps said we were 12 minutes away. after 12 minutes of walking without using google maps, we were still 12 minutes away. but we did get a cute photo!
later on we all go to a wine tasting and learn about the history of port wine and how it’s made.
my main takeaway: vintage port does not just mean old port, it means it’s made from a harvest from a specific year, as opposed to other port wines being mixed blends.
dancing (and clapping) at sunset
after dinner together, we climb up to the jardim do morro and watch the sunset. a huge crowd of people gather to watch the sunset. as the sun sets, everyone starts clapping and cheering(?). then on cue, music starts to play and people start dancing. of course we join. “it’s free happiness,” Taju says. the Portuguese people know how to be happy.
goodbye, for now
the bittersweet time has come for my new friends and i to part ways, as they continue their journey onwards to Nice, France today. luckily for me, Amsterdam is on Taju and Justin’s agenda in two weeks time, so we’ll be reunited. i hope to see Hemu again and see that she achieved her goals of being a surgeon and never riding a bull in a bar ever.
when they leave, i feel the strange feeling of missing people you barely know. it’s strange how much people can mean in a short period of time. :)
until next time,
charlotte marie