Goodbye Portugal

Goodbye Lisa!

We did a nature tour this morning which was the most popular on the ship. Our guide was a very good English speaker with many American colloquialisms but he is Portuguese. We saw many gorgeous beaches and unbelievable rock formations with some crazy mountain climbers on top of these spires. But all is so gorgeous.

Portugal is noted for its streets with rock designs in them. We did a walk through the old town of Portomao and wandered through some of the shops enjoying the local crafts, many of which are only painted in blue, and the others are very colorful and redolent of bright Mexican colors.

We ran back to catch a a quick lunch and get Lisa off the ship to a waiting taxi to the airport one hour’s drive away. The only option we could identify with the ship’s help as well, was a chancey “find a taxi and be sure they speak English, establish the price in advance, and if they aren’t outside the port gate, take the shuttle into town and pick one up there.” That seemed to be everyone’s option. Then while we were on the first stop of our tour this am, I saw a sign outside a storefront that said: Airport transfers and so I grabbed Ed and we went in. the wonderful lady inside (she left me use the restroom too) called and made the arrangements for Lisa to be picked up at the port gate at 2:30 pm. Ed paid for it and we got the ticket info.

One is still not sure about such arrangements in a foreign country but at 2:30 a nice man with reasonable English, wearing a suit and a name tag, was waiting. After clearing the ship, passport control, and their local version of customs, she was off. And it cost half as much as the first option was quoted. It hope it went off as smoothly as it looked on our end. We’ll wait to hear from Lisa.

We so enjoyed her stay with us. As one of the other passengers said: “She is a good soul.” I was also glad there were some folks near her age on board as well. So many people knew about her visit: passengers and staff. It really felt like a neighborhood.

We picked up a few odds and ends in the port terminal (only one shop; and a duty free on our side of border passage). Ed got some local port wine and Lisa had also gotten him a good bottle with the help of the tour guide while we were wandering around the plaza. We did try the WiFi in the terminal but couldn’t get on. Clearly it has a limited number of portals and we got tired of trying.

Trivia: no luck but if we hadn’t made a mistake in writing an answer down, we could have tied with another team. And we were only four.

Dinner

Back at our usual table. We were laughing until we had tears in our eyes as we began to share jokes and Oscar came by with his contributions. His accent and emphasis make them even funnier.

There was a sax player for the entertainment but we are both tired. Also, there was a lecture about Admiral Horatio Nelson that we had missed and it was on the TV so we watched that. Ed is now catching up on the political news from America.

Atlantic

The ship is now well out into the Atlantic and the wind is whipping around. The captain did warn us that the seas may be rough. So far I think the stabilizers must be very new on this ship, and improved, as the bucking and rolling of the ship are not as bad as on our previous voyages. That is not to say you don’t have to hold onto the rails and feel your way around the furniture on occasion.