Getting lost in Porto

We woke up early in the morning, the sun coming in on us in the car. We'd all survived the night. No attacks, from the devil or locals. Hungry and smelly we decided to head back to the station to freshen up and get some breaky. Once we got there though, we realised the bloody place was closed, not open til 10am. Bugger! Maybe we'd get better luck at the camping grounds where there were toilets etc. Bugger again! Still not open til 10am. Lazy bloody town... So we sat around on the pavement by the park like we had the night before, us girls having a turf war with a determined seagull. It amused us, hurling abuse and chips at the poor thing, it was so confused. Eventually we headed back to the station deciding that's where we would rather be for 10am grand openings.

When we go there we thought we'd drive up to the station and suss out any close parking. Nope, it was just all for taxis. There was a raised strip of pavement before us and we weren't sure if we were sposed to drive over it or reverse out. Nevermind, Ben enjoyed pushing the beast and drove over it anyway. We could all imagine what the station officials or taxi drivers must have thought if you weren't sposed to drive over it. Laughing, we headed back to the steet so Ben could do some fancy parking. Sheepishly, we wandered back to the station and thankfully it was open! We spent awhile getting changed, freshening up, getting coffee etc. Lauro, Alex and Ruby spent about an hour trying to order Maccas, too funny. I wasn't too sure what our plan or destination was today, just knew we were going to fit in a good drive.

Lauro suggested we head to Furadouro, a seaside town near Porto, where we could chill on the beach and enjoy the good weather. Getting there on the other hand was a mission and a half. By the time we got to Porto, we didn't know where we had to turn off to get to Furadouro!! We lapped round-abouts many times, much to the amusement of the portugese drivers, as Ben refused to take an exist until we all stopped shouting at him and one of us gave a clear direction. We tried many exits.. but it was no good so we always came back to this one round-about. In the back I was in hysterics..most of us were. I could just imagine the other drivers watching our beast circle this round-about, making its occupants dizzy and delirious. We were fucked.. pretty lost and had no idea how to get to our destination.

It got desperate.. we decided to flag down someone walking on the side of the road. Lucky for us, we flagged down the most considerate and generous person. This poor bastard, having the misfortune of being chosen, was sign languaged to until he understood what we were after. Not being able to communicate back to us he signaled for us to wait where we were, then ran approximately 100metres up the road and back to his car, drove up beside us and signaled for us to follow him!!! This guy ('he could be taking us to a secluded place to kill us' - said Lori) was going out of his way, to drive us towards our destination. We were amazed, in disbelief. He drove in front of us for about 10 minutes til we were on the right road to where we needed to be. He got our, attempted giving us further instructions and left, followed by our many obrigattos! (thankyous).

Finally we were in Furadouro! We parked up, got out and headed along the promenade to the soft sand of the beach. It was a nice hot day, but the water was a bit choppy and freezing. We were pretty content to just find a little shelter, one of many that dotted the beach, and catch up on some much needed sleep!! Not good for some. Ruby, naturally (gorgeously) dark, went black! You could see her skin darken in front of you, it was crazy. She went there with practically no tan line and came away looking like a chocolate person wearing a caramel coloured bikini - not that we saw her naked. Haha. Using my vivid imagination, sorry Rubz!! On the other hand, dumbass Alex who is white as they come, didn't wear any sunscreen and fell asleep.

I noticed he was asleep and let him go for 5 minutes as we were all tired, but soon woke him up. He still didn't move out of the sun and came away looking, as Lauro put it so beautifully, like crabmeat. Although crabmeat is white so not sure where the simile is in that.. Anyway, it was nice to get some sun, lay around and do nothing after being cramped up in the car. When we left the beach we got icecreams, and checked in at an internet cafe to see what our travel options in the algarve were the following day. We decided to find somewhere in the area to camp the night, so head off.