#10 My Travel Journal - Flying through Portugal

A brief stint in Portugal and a moment to pause

Hello everyone

I hope you’ve been enjoying keeping up to date with our latest travels! I must admit, things have started to slow down for us over the past week or so. We flew down the centre of Portugal with the excitement of arriving into the south of Spain too much to handle. And now we are here we can take a breath and relax.

In the end, we spent around a week in Portugal. We did have a brief moment when we arrived where we questioned our decision to stay at all as we were greeted with torrential rain, storms and a less than adequate forecast. We don’t have much luck with Portugal it seems. We spent four weeks travelling around in the van last October and it was pretty much a wash out. We decided however to not give in too hastily and headed over to the west coast, just south of Lisbon, to enjoy the wide open beaches and the fleeting sunshine. I think it was the only area, aside from the Algarve, where the sun was actually shining. The beaches were a welcome change from the mountains of previous weeks and the baron landscape of central Spain, and it was a joy to watch Jasper frolic in the sand and feel the sea air on my skin.

Arriving at the beaches near Sines on the west coast of Portugal

I'm aware this may be a controversial opinion but we don't get the hype around Portugal. Maybe it's the experiences we’ve had, maybe we all just enjoy different things. I imagine landing in a fancy resort on the Algarve is a very different experience to travelling the back streets via vehicle. But then I watch on as fellow “van lifers” rave about it so I think it's us. What can I say, the vibe just isn’t there. I still however have Lisbon on my list of cities to visit, and perhaps I will venture to Porto in the distant future, but for now, I'm putting it behind me for a while.

Drinking Sagres in Sagres (and eating of course)

Sagres, Portugal

I mentioned on Notes the other day that I did a sky dive whilst in the Algarve and it was quite an experience! Has anyone done one? Would you consider it? I've never done anything like it before (me being more an over thinker and a worrier as opposed to a dare devil thrill seeker) and I think it's definitely one of those bucket list experiences. It’s hard for me to put into words my feelings during that moment but let's give it a go shall we? I felt an overwhelming sense of calm whilst I was waiting, even when I started chatting to the guy I’d be jumping with, even once he’d harnessed me up, even when we walked to the plane and took off high into the sky, strapped together with no way out. The fear came when I was sat at the doorway of the plane at 15,000 feet, legs dangling over the edge, with nothing to see around me but stark white cloud. Three. Two. One. We began free falling at 120mph through the cloud. I can remember watching the plane moving away from us. I can remember not being able to breath. I tried to scream. My mouth full of cloud. My head full of white noise. I willed for the land to appear. And then it did and the parachute was released and all was calm again. We landed within minutes and I couldn’t quite believe it was all over. I would say it was both a terrifying and exhilarating experience. And one I encourage everyone to add to their own bucket lists.

The calm before the dive

The day after, we made the journey from the south of Portugal to the south of Spain where we are due to stay until the end of October. We have much to do whilst we are in Spain, and we’ll be taking time out of the vehicle, as we aim to put plans in place for next year. This will likely result in a brief pause in these travel journals until we reach the shores of Morocco. My Friday newsletters will still be continuing so I do hope to see you over there. Thank you as always for being here and I hope you are enjoying life wherever you are and whatever you are doing 💜

The beach at Los Caños de Meca, Spain - one of my favourite places for a morning dog walk.

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P.S. We are saddened to hear of the news of the earthquake in Morocco and our hearts are with all of those who are impacted. We will be continuing with our plan of touring the country and I’m also wondering if there will be anything we can do whilst we are there to support and help the people of Morocco.