Scribbles Abroad

Our mates from New Zealand, Kyle and Nat were driving around Europe and happened to be in Portugal at the same time as us.  They invited us to go on a road trip down south with them and we happily obliged.

Meeting up with them was easy, we told them a place, they plugged it into the Garmin and they told us to look for the huge red van.  When we pulled up to the surf spot we saw their van sticking out like a sore thumb.  It was an old Royal Mail van from England, the vehicle was hideous but beautiful at the same time.  Quite the contradiction.  The drivers seat was on the opposite side so Kyle had to adjust to driving on the curb side everywhere we went.

Rui invited them to stay at his house for  few days with us so that we could prepare for the journey and score some local surf in the area.
A few days later after scoring fun waves at the local breaks we took off.  The weather was really shitty and the surf was forecasted to be huge and windy.  This made the outlook for potential waves be very dismal for the beginning of the trip.  Our best option would be to book it all the way down to the South.  But we decided to check some stuff out on the way, plus I had to get my passport renewed at the embassy in Lisbon.

While Nat and Kyle drove, we slept in the back.  There weren’t any windows in the back so it was like riding like a horse with blinders.

Lisbon is a beautiful city but every park we went into had dog and human shit everywhere.  There are very few public toilets so people just shit in the bushes and their toilet paper is flowing in the wind like freshly fallen leafs. The embassy allowed everyone in but we had to leave all electronics at the front.  The security is pretty darn tight with guys with guns that don’t say hello.  Once inside the process was simple.  I should have taken my pics prior to going in because I got gouged at the machine in the embassy.  My new passport was ready for pickup 5 days later and I hate my picture, it makes me look so fat.

Breakfast wine.  All the locals were doing it so I figured I’d give it a try.

Kyle walks funny, but we try not to tease him.
After Lisbon we headed inland to the church of bones.  Something like 3000 skeletons make up this church.  I’ll let the pictures do the talking

The saying above says something to the extent of “our bones await yours.”

We were supposed to be on a surf trip but the surf was so unruly, the wind was howling, and none of us wanted a piece of it.  We searched all of Ericera to no avail.  But we did find a spot in Arifana.

On the map it looks like a nubbin sticking off the coastline.  Its a right point break that is sheltered from the strong Northerly winds and the Northwest swell was refracting nicely into the bay.  When Louise and I paddled out it was about 6-8  foot Hawaiian (triple overhead).  There was only one guy out but a few others were paddling out with us.  The peak was slightly shifty but once you got a wave it was a non-stop adrenaline rush.  First you got to do one turn and set up for the barrel.  Then you needed to watch out for the giant rock that is a constant impediment.  It is easy to hit and if you don’t keep your eye out for the rock, your day (maybe life) will be ruined.  The rest of the pack decided to surf past the rock.  I came just short of nailing it twice and after the tide sucked out too far and the rock grew to building size I figured it was time to call it a day.  On the entire western coast of Portugal I think that was the only wave working.  I couldn’t believe that there was only one other guy I was sharing the peak with.  But after speaking with other locals, they said that rock scares the shit out of them.  Me too.

In the middle of the pic is the rock.

This is a pic of Arifana at high tide, wave doesn’t work, but creates a cool splash on the harbor wall.

That night at the campsite in Sagres, a guy walked by me while I was washing the dishes with a Telluride jacket.  I stopped him and asked him if he had ever been there.  I spent a season in Telluride snowboarding my brains out, working at a fancy restaurant and teaching snowboarding.  The guy happened to have been there for a few seasons but just after me.  Coincidentally, Kyle was in Telluride with me and stayed a few additional seasons.  Then I asked him what he did at Telluride and he said he worked snowboard park.  Thats what Kyle did.  I then asked him if he knew Kyle and he said yes, I then said, “well this is your lucky day, go over to that big red van over there and pop your head in.”  The following reunion was a huge “WHAT THE HELL!”  The guy  (I forget his name) and Kyle were good mates while in Telluride and it was good for them to catch up.  How awesome was that, the guy was from Bulgaria, Kyle from New Zealand, meet up in Portugal.  They met in Telluride Colorado and it all worked out because (me) from Hawaii, who also used to work in Telluride happened to see his sweatshirt while washing dishes.  How Cosmic. The guy was on a surf trip with about 6 other Bulgarians doing an article for an outdoor magazine back in Bulgaria.

Our campsite in Sagres

Here’s Kyle getting a skate on.

This is the light we invented, just a candle in a water bottle. But it works great keeping the wind from blowing out the candle.

The rest of our road trip was spent in Algarve (the South).  This part of Portugal is my favourite part.  Its dry, warm, and the surf is pretty epic.  It is also the place where the locals are pretty much dicks.  I guess I am generalizing, its pretty funny how a few bad incidents can cause such generalizations and although you can try to consciously be aware of your incongruent observation, the final result remains.  We surfed all over jumping from the West Coast to the South Coast, because the Algarve is both with the Southwestern tip being Sagres.  The roads are narrow and seem to be one laned but the roads go both ways, as I am sure some of the bodyboarders in the area do too.

Kicking it at fly beach with all the hippies.  The hippies were running around naked, it was pretty cool, but everyone was just shitting everywhere and there was a major fly problem.

This is the bay at Fly bay.  Pretty fun waves.

This is Zavial on a smaller day.  From here it just got bigger and bigger.

The best beer in Portugal comes in some giant bottles, The Super Bock.

The local fisherman fish from the top of the cliffs.

The comedy in the water happened initially at a spot called Zavial.  The night before the Bulgarian guys we met at the camping grounds told us that they scored some fun waves in Zavial but that the bodyboarders threatened to kick their asses for shooting photos.  They seemed to think it was a secret spot.  As you can see from the pics, it definetly is not.  The Bulgarians told us to go.  Shows you, when you are a local and you harass a traveling surfer, you only further your troubles.  If a local comes up to you and welcomes you and then explains that they are trying to keep it on the down low you will respect him and probably keep your mouth shut.  But if you harass a traveling surfer who probably came a far way and you just be an overall ass, that guy is probably gonna go back and tell others about your spot and that you are an asshole.  At that point, your spot is exposed, and people know the locals are dicks and therefore paddle out to your spot already with apprehension and attitude.  Furthering the cycle of bad vibes.  But we didn’t let it bother us.  It all comes down to the saying, “respect begets respect”.  Since we were shown no respect we showed no respect.  At first we tried to be nice and say hello and stuff, but only received stares.

So we went to surf early morning Zavial and it looked really fun and I decided to take out the Alaia.  There was a pack of bodyboarders on the peak and I couldn’t manage to fanagle into the pack and I didn’t want to paddle outside of them.  So I patiently waited but I couldn’t catch anything and was getting a bit frustrated.  Anyways I began hassling a little and one of the bodyboarders got all agro on me and I laughed at him.  He didn’t like that and paddled out to his buddies and told them I laughed at him.  I was pretty much blackballed at that point.  But then the waves changed and I started scoring a bunch of wedges on the Alaia.  After a few I called it a session and went in.  Kyle got some fun ones too but didn’t piss off the locals.  I on the other hand kind of have a knack at doing that.

coming out of a little one.

fun cold waves

Rui (WHO HAPPENS TO BE THE COOLEST BODYBOARDER I HAVE EVER MET, sorry RUI to bag on your fellow boogers at Zavial) had decided to drive down that day to meet up with us for the afternoon session at Zavial.  As we paddled out we saw Rui out in the pack with the dickheads, (not all of them were dickheads).  He knew all the guys at the peak and when Louise and I paddled out Rui came over to say whats up and we caught up on the past week.  When Rui went back to the pack they asked him, “You know that Mexican?”  He just laughed and told them I was one HAWAIIAN.  Actually Haolepino (half haole half filipino).  My mustasche was in full swing and I was looking very banditotoish.  Can’t blame them for their ethnic stereotype.  The rest of the day was great (for us), no fights between us and the bodyboarders, and the waves were going off.  The bodyboarder dickheads picked a fight with a surfer and sent him all the way to the beach and Kyle shot some picks of , Louise and I were trading off on the fish and the 6’3″ while the drama was in full swing scoring perfect waves.

This poor bloke.  Three dickdraggers wanting to yell at him.  It was a spectacle and allowed us out in the water to catch more waves.

Pissed off dick-dragger.  This seemed to be one of the loudest guys out there, really getting in everyones face.  He was trying to rally up his troops on the hill to go kick some ass.  He was a big dickhead and now he is famous!  He made it to eatdrinksurf.com.

The Kailua Layback.  Phildo would like to claim it as his.

For the session in the afternoon we were watching up on the rocks when a dog came running by and accidentilly knocked a few pebbles off the ledge.  Lucky for everyone on the cliff, the locals were down below.  A pebble almost hit one of them and they went absolutely agro.  They came running around the point and up the cliff on a war rampage yelling incoherently in portuguese.  They pointed out three english guys and were cursing at them to leave and then they started speaking english blaming them for throwing rocks at them.  The english guys tried to explain it was a dog but to no avail.  They pushed one of the english guys who had a bum leg and we were standing on a cliff, it was really dangerous.

This is the cliff you check the surf from.

Thats when Kyle and I stepped in.  We told them to fuck off and we kinda just laid into them but they came right back at us.  At one point one of the guys pushed Kyle and Kyle let him fucken have it with a shove back.  At that point I thought it was about to turn to blows but luckily (somewhat, would have been kinda fun to fight) nothing happened.  The leader of the pack took Kyles aggression as a warning and just told us that it was dangerous for us to stand up above them because rocks could come down and hit them.  We said we understood but it wasn’t the english guys nor us who threw rocks down on them.  It was a fucken dog.  The guy extended his hand to shake and peace was made.  I’m glad in the end nothing happened because had a fight gone down, either way it went, we wouldn’t have gotten to surf there again that afternoon and it was starting to pump.
Kyle was fired up but not to surf.  He was in kicking ass mode.  Louise and I paddled out and the surf began getting bigger and bigger.

After that surf it was the end of our road trip.  Nat and Kyle were going to drive all the way back to London in around a week and a half in a car that went only 80km/hour.  They would be doing a lot of driving.  We on the other hand were going back with Rui.  Rui is truly a BRUI (Brother Rui).  Can’t wait to see him in Hawaii.

Ruis epic VW to the right, on our way back to Figuera 7hours to go.