What a day

Last night, just 700 meters from a bed, my front tyre went flat.  No idea why (at the time).  Pushed my bike up the steep hill, schlop schlop schlop...  Arrived in an unmarked albergue and went to take a shower.  Nope!  Mold everywhere.

Gathered up my stuff and moved into an adjacent hotel for 10€ more.  Clean sheets, secure bicycle parking, no mold.

Shower, change, eat.  Time to fix the tyre.  "OK Google, where is the nearest bicycle shop?" Sport Zone, 1.1km.  I can push the bike that far, especially without 20Kg of luggage on it.

Sportzone doesn't sell anything at all that is in any way related to bicycles.  Super.  1.1km back.

On my way back, 200 meters from the hotel and a man approaches me, gesticulating and I'm able to pick up the Portuguese words for bicycle and wine. I think he wants me to buy him some wine and he'll fix my bicycle. Sounds fair enough. He flips the bike upside down onto the handlebars spins both tires examines them and then points to the front tire and says "nuevo" something.  New.  Yup, I need a new tyre.  I have one right here, and I sling my pack off my shoulders and show him.  Here's the pump, too.

I go inside the bar that he was sitting out in front of Ilana by the time the barman has poured me a tall glass of white wine for my erstwhile mechanic and 33 centiliters of amber beer for myself my new friend has already removed the wheel and is in the process of removing the old inner tube.

He makes short work of the whole process and I'm soon on my way after taking a quick selfie with him.

I go out shopping for dinner and dessert for my companions who have yet to arrive and we all enjoy a good dinner in the hotel. After waking we enjoy the hotel's breakfast I'd like to go down to get my bike. I pushed my bike about two or three hundred meters from the hotel on the rear tire goes flat.

Pilgrims are a little bit Janky

I got a lot of negative feedback from my last post.  Here are my responses.

1) coffee - it isn't that the Portugese have different names for coffee drinks compared to every other country in the world, it's that even from village to village they aren't the same.

2) real estate.  I'm not a member of the 100km club.  In fact, I am a biker escorting two hikers from Lisbon to Santiago 600+km, and the hikers do about 25-30km per day, I do closer to 50km, exploring almost every village and town we go through, and often going on little exploratory side treks.  Needless to say, the Portugal that I see is NOT the Portugal the 100km club sees.

I didn't mean my post in a negative way.  I wasn't complaining, just remarking with a healthy dose of sarcasm. 

Listen up you 100kmers.  You see a little tiny drop of Portugal on your 4 day trip.  We've had three times as much of it and haven't even hit the half way point yet.

Painting Portugal in a purely positive light doesn't do justice to the country or its inhabitants.  Is airbnb having a negative effect on city centers?  Quite possibly.  Are there thousands of derelict properties in the villages and towns that are priced out of the market for locals?  Yes.  Is their coffee ☕ ordering system inconsistent form village to village?  Yes. 

Do all these things make it a bad place?  No, of course not.  It's a beautiful country, and even more beautiful if you see the parts that were not whitewashed just for tourists.

Portugal is a little bit Janky

Portugal is a little bit janky. Don't get me wrong, I love it, and it's a very positive experience. There are just some things that are a bit off. The first thing I noticed was the town centres, the areas where all of the tourism is concentrated. Maybe not so much in Lisbon, but this was very noticeable in the medium-sized towns that we had visited on our way to Porto. It's a typical European city with shops on the first floors and above the shops I would expect to find residences. But instead, abandoned and empty buildings in some level of disrepair. The first floors look bright and brilliant and clean, and directly above them are broken windows, shutters hanging off of one nail.

One of our Airbnb hosts I taken this as an opportunity and changed four levels of one building into rental apartments. We took the one on the fourth floor and found ourselves looking into abandoned empty rooms just across the alleyways.

But this isn't the only janky thing. Then there's the real estate market as a whole. Given that I'm planning on moving to Europe at some point in the near future, or at least somewhat near future, I keep an eye on the cost of real estate in all the countries we visit. Portugal's pricing doesn't make any sense. Now, I realize that Portugal is nowhere near as poor as Bulgaria, and I would expect prices to be a little bit higher here. We traveled through a lot of tiny villages, many of which were mostly abandoned, and full of ramshackle piles of rocks that just barely resemble walls. This isn't too different than Bulgaria.

But here is where things really get strange. You'll have brand new houses, houses that would have cost a hundred grand or more to build in the United States, right next to these ruined out holes. We've seen Villages that were 50% ruins, 50% new construction, all mingled together in one giant heap.

And then there's the prices. Now in Bulgaria you could easily find these long abandoned houses sitting on 1000 square meters of land, it would sell for $1,000, $2,000. Often even less! This is land that has been abandoned for a decade or more, nobody has any interest in it, and the only benefited can do anyone is for somebody to buy it and start paying property taxes on it.

In Portugal, these same abandoned properties are selling for fifty thousand Euros, a hundred thousand Euros. This doesn't make any sense! It's nothing but a pile of rocks and a tiny scrap of land!

Okay, so aside from Real Estate, there's a whole coffee thing I mentioned earlier. Today we went into a cafe and I ordered an americano and a cappuccino. The americano was two shots of espresso and a little bit of hot water. To make a cappuccino they pulled out a little packet of powder added hot water and stirred it up! Despite having a $5,000 espresso machine right there, ready for use! I then learned that had I asked for a coffee with milk I would have gotten the cappuccino. It's like these people don't understand what coffee is!  The Japanese know what a cappuccino is.  The Germans know.  The Kuwaitis know.  The UAE knows.  Alabamans even know.  What the heck, Portugal?

And then there is sandwiches! Or I should say sandwich. There is only one sandwich in Portugal. It is the ham and cheese sandwich. You will not put lettuce on it, or tomato, or mustard, or anything else. It is ham, cheese, bread.  From Lisbon to Porto and everywhere in between if you ask for a sandwich you will get a bun cut in half a thin slice or two of ham anything slice or two of weak cheese.  燎 索 Even the sandwich emoticon has more ingredients.

Awkward.

The last town was awkward. When we showed up to our Airbnb we found out it was on the 4th floor, which required hauling my bicycle and all of our luggage up four flights of a very narrow staircase. I was pretty good about not getting any tire marks on the wall, but 100% was just outside my grasp and I ended up leaving a few. Then we got into the apartment itself.

The more often I use Airbnb, the more it has begun to bother me. The application started off with the intent that people would rent out their spare bedrooms to budget Travelers who didn't want to pay hotel prices. What it has transformed into is Airbnb is taking over the center of major cities and turning them into giant hotel complexes. It is obvious that most of the owners of most of the airbnb's have never lived in the apartments that they rent out. Heart of this is obvious because of the cheap furniture and horrible Decor within the apartments, and I are one in this city was no different. Another part of it is the cheap and half-hearted attempts to be thoughtful. This time we were left with a can full of ground coffee, a coffee maker, and coffee cups. But no filters. And it's not like you just ran out, I'm pretty sure that we were second maybe third guests whoever stayed in this Airbnb.

Cutting boards seem to be almost universally absent from airbnb's. I find this really strange because I would think that someone who just installed new countertops in an apartment that they plan to rent out for a long. Of time would want to protect those countertops. They usually have a $1 special kitchen knife that they picked up at the Chinese store, which can barely damage fruit oh, much less countertops. So perhaps the oversight of The Cutting Board isn't that serious after all. I guess they weren't expecting me to bring my own knives, which I do.

Our first light In the Airbnb was quite nice. The view from the apartment is amazing, on one side overlooking a square dominated by an old Cathedral on many cafes, I'm on the other side the main tourist dragged through town peppered with bakeries, restaurants, and curio shops.

Our second night was dominated by a concert which was being held right outside our window. The volume was loud enough to Rattle the windows and shake my rib cage, even though we were almost 200 meters away the speakers. Throughout the day they were testing the sound system and our Siesta was constantly interrupted with testing testing one two three, or whatever it's equivalent is in Portuguese. I couldn't really understand what they were saying. Then at about 8 p.m. they started playing and didn't let up until 11:45. I know, I may sound like a grumpy old man wanting to go to bed at around 9 p.m., but remembered that we like to get up as early as possible so that we can beat the daily Heat. We're not normal tourists, we're pilgrims. We're on a mission. That mission requires sleep.

Regarding being a grumpy old man, a thing of which I find myself accused of more and more often by the admittedly younger crowd that I hang out with both on vacation and at work, I'm resolving to try to not be a grumpy old man. I will definitely try to be an easy- going, happy-go-lucky old man.

This ain't home

0530 - alarm goes off

Home 🏡 - get up, make coffee, take dog on short walk, wake up son, get dressed, prep lunches, wake up son again this time with food, get on the road for a slow 45 minute commute.

Camino 🚶 - get up think about coffee at first stop 10km away, wish dog was here, get dressed, get on the road for a brisk 3 hour bike ride.

1000 -

Work 🏢 - finishing third cup of coffee, thinking lunch is almost here but it's two more hours.  Marveling at never ending routine that results in nothing new.

Camino 🚲 - find cafe for quick breakfast and one espresso.  Despite burning 1000 calories already today, don't despite a big meal yet.  Marveling at how much progress I've made since Lisbon.