A Challenging Weekend in Portugal
As I sat on the early morning flight to Faro, Portugal, travelling alone but seated amongst two stag parties and a group of girls on a birthday trip, it didn't occur to me that, out of everyone on the plane, it would be me who would be returning home without my shoes! I was almost the only person on the flight who wasn't drinking alcohol. Although the man sitting beside me had kindly spilt some of his Stella lager on my jeans, so I smelt the same as everyone else.
I was on my way to Portugal for some fun (but not, I don't think, the same kind of fun as my fellow travellers). Well, I was hoping for some fun, but the Stand-up Paddleboarding event I was travelling to, the Guadiana Challenge, had been cancelled a few days earlier, because of anticipated very bad weather. Since my flights and hotel were already booked and paid for, I decided to make the trip anyway. And, from the moment I arrived in Mertola, I was glad that I had.
I was absolutely blown away by the ancient Portuguese village of Mertola, and I loved the Biera Rio Hotel. The village was hundreds of years old and sat on a hillside above the river. The narrow streets wound their way through the historic buildings. The hotel itself was really quirky, with different corridors and hidden rooms all over the place. The sister hotel next door was part hotel and part museum. My room had a balcony with a wonderful view of the River Guadiana.
After checking in, I headed for the river, hoping to meet up with my friends Allistair and Alison, who were also attending the (now cancelled ) event. Unlike me, driving with my hire car, they had actually paddled all the way from Faro to Mertola, a multiday trip of more than 100 km.
I paddled downstream hoping to meet them on their way up. It was a rough, tough paddle for me as the Guadiana is tidal even this far inland. Not only was I paddling into a strong wind but also against the incoming tide. At one point I was paddling like crazy just to stand still, so it was certainly a relief when I finally reached them and was able to turn around and head back to Mertola.
The following morning, the intended day of the Guadiana Challenge, the weather was actually OK. Just a little windy. But there had been a thunder and lightning storm immediately overhead in the early hours of the morning. It was a wise decision to cancel the event. We went for a paddle on the river anyway, meeting up with Jeff and with Margaret, who were in town for the same reason as us.
A visit to Lancelot Bar for a few late night cocktails rounded off our day nicely.
I was keen for a final paddle before heading home, and I recalled the clerk at the car hire office had recommended I take a trip to Mina de Sao Domingues. It was only half an hour away by car, so I took his advice. There is a man-made reservoir there with an artificial beach. And there was absolutely no one around on that Sunday. When I look back now, I don't know why I did this, but after carrying my board down a gravel embankment, I decided to leave my shoes underneath a tree (rather than climb back up to put them safely in my car. I guess I didn't want to walk on the sharp gravel barefoot. The place was deserted. No one around. My shoes would be perfectly safe there. Or so I thought.
The paddle itself was wonderful. Just what I needed to shake off the last of the cocktail-induced cobwebs inside my head, although time constraints meant I didn't quite make it all the way around the lake before it was time to finish. Imagine my horror when I got back to the tree next to the gravel embankment to find that my shoes had disappeared! I searched high and low. I looked in the dustbins. I asked a lady at the café. I walked round and round but to no avail. Surely no one would want to steal my tatty old trainers! But someone had.
I had no time to do anything about it. I drove to the airport and headed through passport control and security with nothing on my feet but stripy blue socks. If you were in Faro Airport that day, and you saw a strange man wearing no shoes, you might have thought he was returning from a stag event or some other type of party weekend. But he wasn't. It was me. The SUP man with no shoes!
