Livin' is easy

The nice beaches in Faro aren't really in Faro, they're around Faro. For five euros round trip you can take a boat to an island with nice beaches. Perfect. (Actually I don't really like boats that much (I get seasick sometimes), but never mind, I'm taking a boat to an island to lay on the beach. Perfect.) I just had to get to the boat.

Walking is one of my favorite forms of transportation. It's reliable, easy, and good for you. I really didn't care that it was a long walk from Mehmet's place to the boat. But he insisted on taking me to the boat, and on biking there. He said it was a short walk to the gas station to fill the flat tire, and that we'd be riding on trails, not in traffic. Both blatant lies. It was a really long walk, mostly uphill, to the gas station. I didn't realize until it was too late that the bike was too big for me. The seat didn't go down quite far enough. Really, really painful. And then once we filled the tire and started riding, it was all on city streets, with cars and stoplights, pedestrians, traffic circles. And then we hit the cobbled sidewalks.

Poor Mehmet. His intentions were good; he was really trying to help. That didn't make me want to strangle him any less when I finally got off the bike. BUt then I got to go to a remote island and I calmed down. The island was a lot more remote than I'd expected; the boat ride took an hour. But once I finally go there it was really, really nice. It wasn't deserted, but it wasn't really that crowded either. The sand was white and soft. The water isn't the brilliant blue/green/teal/turquoise and everything in between of Croatia, but it's a very pretty shade of blue and it shines like glass and is the perfect temperature. A few times this trip I've had these nearly overwhelming feelings of contentment, these realizations that I'm exactly where I should be, doing what I should be doing. It happened when I was hiking in the Pyrenees and when I was driving with my friend around Castilla-La Mancha, and again today at the beach. It's a very, very good feeling; if I could get it chemically I'd be hooked. Anyway, it was a great day to be at the beach because it's really friggin' hot here. It's less dry than Spain was and the sun is intense. I haven't seen a Portuguese cloud yet.

Ferol is the name of the island (I think). Aside from a four-wheeler with a trailer that some guys were using to move butano or something, the only vehicles on Ferol were two shopping carts chained together. (I didn't ask.) All signs pointed to everything being screw-you expensive, but I had a decent sandwich and a beer all for 2.50 euros.

And. I had decided to go topless. I was alone, a day away from leaving town, and in no danger of running into anyone I know. No tanlines. I had sunscreen. Maybe it would be freeing and liberating. I was gonna try. Until I noticed that no one else was topless. This is so not Spain.