Monday 8 July 2013

On our third day in the Algarve, Susie and Ruby slept in again so I decided to explore the cliffs in front of our tiny cottage. It was quite difficult to pick out a path among the dry stone walls and prickly scrub, but I knew there were some goat tracks down to the beach because I had studied the terrain carefully on Google Maps.

When I finally reached the cliff tops, I tracked east towards some ruins that were perched on the top of the cliffs a few kilometres away. The cliffs rose high above the beaches, which were completely inaccessible except by boat. As I walked, I picked wild thyme for tomorrow’s meal. The weather was beautiful and there were seabirds riding the thermals above the cliffs. Some of them were nesting, and they got very noisy when I approached. I was careful not to get too near the edges of the cliffs, as they looked soft and there was nothing to grab hold of if you lost your footing. Below, the waters of the Mediterranean swelled up against interesting rock formations and lapped into dark caves.

In the afternoon, Ruby and I returned to the Praia Dos Caneiros. Susie was feeling too sick to join us, so she stayed in the shack and rested. Ruby noticed a young boy playing in the shallows in a lilo, and she couldn’t help speculating about which rule she might have broken by attempting to enter the surf on her own lilo the day before.

After we had enjoyed our second day on the tiny beach, we drove to Lagoa to replenish our supplies at the Pingo Doce supermarket. The journey there and back consisted of a pleasant drive through the backblocks of the Algarve. Ruby made eggplant stacks for dinner, which were a roaring success.

We dined at dusk on our little terrace, which seemed to us at that moment to be the best restaurant in the world.