One Month In

Writing this, I(Graham) am in the seaside Portuguese village of Zambujeira do Mar. The town is an offbeat tourist hotspot for travelers attempting to complete the Fisherman’s Trail, a two week walk along the coast from Lagos to Porto Covo. We are doing four portions (three now) of the walk. Turns out carrying all of our stuff on our backs through sand dunes takes a toll on the body, so today is a rest day. We’re letting the bus do the walking for us.

This adventure has already shaped us both in ways that we both understand and fail to realize. There have been many little squabbles between the us so far. Learning a whole new normal with your partner is hard. At home we had defined roles and responsibilities. It took some time and frustration to figure out a new dynamic. We think we have it figured out now, but only time will tell.

I think there are two major lessons that we lave learned as partners so far in this first month. The first that we are overly ambitious in what we think we can accomplish in a day. Take London as an example. In three sleeps in London, we accomplished a food festival, a cooking class, four museums, the changing of the guard, parliament, London eye, Westminster abbey, a walk through Hyde park, a stroll through Kensington, china-town, tower bridge, the tower of London, a Thames walk, four circus/squares, with three performances in them, a food market, many restaurants, and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting. That was in 72 hours. We went to sleep around 7PM each day.

Now we have no desire to do that again. It was fun, it was fast, but its not how we like to do things anymore. We haven’t yet stayed more than three nights in one place. We need to slow down, for our own sakes. Properly take in the towns and sights we are visiting.

Our second lesson is in patience and forgiveness. We are both perfectionists. We like our plans to be planned, and we like them to work. When things started going sideways (booking the train on the wrong day + an unknown cancellation), or we just mis-planned something (getting ourselves stranded in a museum of plastic chairs trying to wait out the rain), blame gets thrown around. Our perfect partner isn’t perfect???? Who knew. We don’t know everything that is occurring in a city we’ve never been to before???? Preposterous.

Its humbled us for sure. There’s a lot to learn, and a lot more mistakes to make. We’re still making the same ones, but we’re being smarter about it. A rest day was not something we had considered at all before, but we’re taking one today. Our soles and souls need a break.

It was only recently that this trip started feeling like the right thing to do. There have been doubts. Climate change is becoming a theme. We have already experienced two European heatwaves, and many of the travelers we meet have their careers set up to try and save a portion of the environment. Should we be doing something now? What can we do? These are questions we have already asked ourselves. But I think to do something, we need to know what it is we are trying to do. What are we trying to protect? What are we trying to save? Why? What effects of climate change are being felt right now across the world? These are questions that we will hopefully answer.

This trip is for us too. Last night, we were sitting on top of the guard wall, overlooking the Zambujeira beach. Fearless waves crashing into the cliffs and rocks created a constant reminder of the fury of the world. Along the beach were numerous paddle games, a couple football keep-upsies, and some bodysurfers haplessly trying to catch a wave. And it all slowly made more sense. This is what we are here for. To watch the sunset and the world. To learn. To love. To laugh. And to enjoy it all.

Here are some other things we have learned along the way:

• You need a “I don’t know what’s going on budget”. We paid and continue to pay 3 euros for water at a restaurant. We accidently budget too hard and get gross food and end up spending more money on what we wanted in the first place. We ended up in the most expensive city in Portugal. We bought the most expensive sunscreen because there were no prices on anything. We some how managed to buy 3 beers at a table for 4 people and two people don’t drink beer. We spent too much money on busses. Now we know we need to accept that we will spend more money than anticipated because we don’t know what is going on.
• Local food isn’t always good. More times than I can count we ordered local dishes to try new things and are disappointed because we didn’t look up what the food was before hand. I am sure we will continue to do this but is baffles us every time.
• European spice heat is a sad excuse for spice heat
• We now know what our standards for living conditions are. Bed, Laundry, reception, showerhead that doesn’t spray everywhere.

Let us continue to learn and explore!