It has started!!
Today is Friday, 3/24/2023. I left Boston Sunday night 2/19/23 and arrived in Lisboa Monday at 5am. It will take another day for me to get pictures going here. What I will do now and until I get going a little more is just write anything on this page. Then I will divide it out just like the Cancun 2023 where I have different pages for rides, people, money etc.
I never ride with anyone but did today with a 72-year old who lives in this Lagos Central Hostel with me. He has been here for months and is just moving out next week to spend a week in each of the great Spanish towns and then in April he will start walking the Camino Real. I am not very tuned into all the different walks that are part of the pilgrimage but he has done more than one of them before. Today we went out to Burgau. It is always entering an unknown to ride with someone new. Fergal has a mountain bike with fat tires and has ridden around here for months. I said that if he is too fast, I will just drop back and we will meet up. If I am too fast, I am happy to stay at his pace. He is faster than me and likes to ride behind, as do I. He does some sidewalk riding to be safer and his bike allows him to ride on the cobbles in town that I do not like to ride.
I think he would agree that we did very well. We agreed to start at 10am. I was very slow trying to get a Go Pro type camera working, having it sitting on my handlebars. He was able to get clips to help me secure it. It didn’t really “work” with it but did press the start a couple times and I may be able to see later tonight what I got. Almost impossible to see the camera display to know if it is on and what it is recording. Once we got to Burgau, he had a favorite coffee shop where we stopped and he had a coffee and a piece of cake? I had no idea if he would join me in the same town for lunch but he said yes. We checked out the normal beach side restaurants and my favorite was not open for the season yet. We walked around, looked at a couple others and then chose one with like 4 customers. In the next 10 minutes, 10 other groups arrived. I like to think they saw us and realized the quality but I think, just like us, they decided that it was the best choice from few.
It is now Saturday morning: My one reader, my youngest daughter, has asked some questions. She asked if Fergal is traveling alone. Yes. He was born in Ireland. Spent a lot of time working construction in San Francisco and now seems to be a traveling man, a walking man. He has a lot of his life’s possessions, as they are, stored in people’s garages, attics in Lagos as he has been here several times before. I spent the morning doing laundry in the sink. It is supposed to drizzle but I have it out on the balcony drying or actually NOT drying and I will either leave it out or bring it in when I leave. I also spent the morning fighting with the technology. I even have a video clip of Fergal and me riding but I have to wait to post it this afternoon as I am late leaving for my lunch ride.
Thursday Feb 23, my second ride, I went to Restaurante Solar Do Farelo. This is the one were last year my wife Kim drove out from Lagos and met me for lunch.
I bought a cheap Go Pro “act alike” by AKASO, model EK7000. This is my first posted footage. I have been using it every day since Friday but I really do not have the time to review the results. On the road, with the sun, and having the camera in a waterproof case, it is all but impossible to see the screen. I have to just hope that it is recording. I have a wrist-mounted button to start and stop the recording.
Yesterday, Sunday 2/26/23, I finally managed to get out the phone at my 5pm cocktail appointment.
Karly works Monday to Friday and should be in today, Monday. I will try to get her to fight with the TV and turn on closed caption so I can access the play by play of any bike racing. It is 9:30 AM Monday 2/27. I had to go out to breakfast as I did not have the chance to replenish my normal stock of strawberries or grapes or bananas. I got out about 7:30 and it took a little looking to find an open bakery. I had some ideas. First I walked down to the main tourist square, nothing. A couple of the homeless had started drinking at a tobacco door that services them. I did get another 200 Euro at the ATM. I thought last year I could get 300 at a pop but now, at least from my normal trusty machine, 200 is the limit. I headed inland. There is a lot of construction and I was pretty sure some places open to service that crowd. I finally found one after a little poking. Thr construction workers sitting on the stoop across the street drinking coffee etc should have been a tip off.
Sorry to jump around so much. I should be ready very soon to move to multiple pages. I am a little discouraged to see the end of the trip in site already. I have 6 more riding days. So far I have been to Hippy land wednesday, Solar thursday, Burgau with Fergal on Friday, back to Hippy land Saturday, Solar Sunday and today Monday back to that same area. So that makes 6. Leaving Tuesday through Sunday. Somehow I had the count at 13 but it is only 12.