WAGS 23.05.2018: Lagos at Leisure

A weakness had been exposed! Both Rod and myself had simultaneously been absent for two whole weeks, no one had stepped into the breach, and the WAGs activities had lapsed for two Wednesdays in a row. Hence the dearth of riveting rhetoric in this blog for the 9th and 16th May.
    I had been in Cornwall on Architectural and Project Management duties, and Rod had trips to UK and the Aracena/Soto Grande area to enjoy. He did manage to forward a Viewranger record of his walk from Aracena to Fuente Heridos on 16th for which I am grateful if not only to pad out this otherwise meagre and hurried blog!

As you can see from the stats this was a model walk, if slightly in excess of WAGS criteria. Almost evenly divided into uphill, flat and downhill and with the correct average speeds.

I can only add a striking picture of a WAG in an NBC Hazmat Suit smearing toxic chemicals on a garage wall, which seemed to occupy rather a lot of our 'holiday'!

Outdoor Sport in Cornwall!

   Anyway to return to the present and a compelling argument for conspiracy theorists. Rod fired up his ViewRanger App to record the walk, only to find that the USB C port had not been fully engaged and his phone battery was completely flat.  Further the Russians had manged to hack both my own ViewRanger app, which turned itself off after only 789 metres had been walked, but also to kill one of the EverReadies in my reliable Garmin GPS, net result being no meaningful stats nor tracks with which to beguile you. The best we could do was present Antje's iPhone Step counter, which came up with 15000 odd steps and my Withings Fitness watch App which weighed in with a similar number of steps and converted them to about 11 km in just over 3 hours. Honour was deemed to have been satisfied.

      We started at Cafe Bairro at 0945, 6 in number, as the Trans-WAGS had deserted en bloc back to the AWW probably as a result of the inertia of the past two weeks - or more likely a secret promise from Ingrid if they attended her walk!  Chris had volunteered to annexe a table at Restaurante Atalaia before the builders got there, and did a walk of his own from Porto de Mos to the Luz Obelisk and back.

Sasha, Rod, Antje, Myriam, Paul Chris and Frank. ( + Shelley under the table)

After a short climb behind Lidl we paused to admire the latest creation by the Mosaic Maker, and carried on to the scenic view to the north of Lagos.

Our intended shortcut through the tunnel was still rather flooded, and only Sasha found that route attractive.  We carried on to the road underpass and turned in at the Portuguese Water Dog breeding centre, where we were greeted and had a short chat with Goncalo, who introduced us to some of his breeding stock and a very cute brown puppy destined for Sweden.

We carried on, past a house where the owner has a penchant for swans (get it? Pen Chant!), geese, fancy ducks and normally noisy peacocks, which were perhaps resting in the shade.

Further we crossed the N125 near BoaVista and walked up through the manicured houses and gardens, wondering aloud what one might have to pay for maintenance in such an opulent development. There is always so much staff activity in the area from gardeners , waterers and maintenance men, to the cleaners who drive round in little petrol driven Noddy cars.

       Having attained the scrubland round Porto de Mos, we took a corporate decision to neglect the Obelisk and cut through to the coast, as lunch was pending and time had passed in an idyllic and leisurely fashion.

      We met Chris, patiently waiting at Porto de Mos, and while Antje, Frank and the dogs took a lift to secure a table, Rod Myriam and myself had the satisfaction of an extra km or so to Atalaia.

      Frank took his leave and we settled down for lunch . Chris and Antje enjoyed a nice fresh Dourada and Robalo, while Myriam appropriately had stewed tongue. Rod and myself contented ourselves with a rather ruddy fish soup, which seemed to be more tomato than fish, and 3 of us hit the non-alcoholic Sagres while Myriam had tea, and Antje treated herself to a massive glass of white wine. Sadly none of us had the presence of mind to record the event.

   That may be it for the WAGS season for Myriam and myself as we are away until mid June, but Rod will 'think of something' if there is a quorum for next week.

......as long as the cafe at the end has a good signal!!