A True Inspiration

A True Inspiration

Van Life In Portugal.

We stayed in our spot for a few nights at Barragem de Santa Clara to have a good break from the many miles of driving. A beautiful place, so very peaceful. It was just the break that we needed. We even did some cycling to the picturesque village of Santa Clara.

Santa Clara

We met up with our friend Mandy, who had found us from our blog.

On our travels, we met some realy lovely people all living in their vans too.

Camp Fire

In the evenings, we sat around camp fires chatting to our new friends and drinking wine. People from Denmark, Portugal, Holland and… Scotland!

Santa Clara Lake

In the daytime, we soaked up the sun, and I went swimming in the Lake. We washed our clothes and bed linnen in the lake too. They were dry within a couple of hours!

We tried new foods – figs stuffed with almonds and cinnamon and we ate the fruit from the tree next to us! Lovely!

Back to the Algarve

Mandy had a friend in the Algarve who’d like to meet us!

Santa Clara

We bid farewell to our new friends, and made our way back towards the Algarve. Looking down the other side of the barragem (dam) was like looking out of an aeroplane!

Portugal

We passed some stunning scenery. Portugal is beautiful and my photography skills just don’t do it any justice at all.

Beach

We’d heard of a beach, Porto de Mos, that is surrounded by huge cliffs and is supposed to be stunning. We headed straight there.

Porto de Mos

Now, this is a hard life. Hot sun (though not according to the locals!), gorgeous sand, beautiful sea and…

Porto de Mos

Yeah, sunburn. The lobster on the right didn’t wear sun cream.

Porto de Mos

The beach was stunning. I can see why people flock to the Algarve! The massive bonus being that this beach was free from people at this time of year!

Porto de Mos

We headed out of town in search of a good overnight spot.

Lagos

On the road out of Lagos, towards Vale de Lama, quite by chance we found a perfect lay-by. It was on a quiet road, level and we were  pointing the right way for satellite internet.

Kirsty

Now we’d found our perfect beach, we spent most of the weekend soaking up some sun and swimming in the sea.

Richard

And me, well, I just went from one shade of red to another!

Kirsty

I had a good long swim. Mainly because the tide came in and cut off the beach I’d walked to. So I swam back and found Kirsty still sunning herself. As you do.

Local Lunatic

Kirsty did get her feet wet at one point though. Local lunatic, take three.

Luton Van

A True Inspiration

After the exchange of a few emails, we met up with Mandy’s friend, Michaela.

Michaela

We spent a couple of afternoons with Michaela on the beach learning all sorts of spiritual things – really interesting.  Spending time with her was brilliant. We learned all about how she took off in a camper by herself into the Australian Outback to get her health back. Amazing, a true inspiration.

Cannot forget to mention the new fruit Michaela brought for us to try – Annona. Better known as custard apples! As delicious as they were, I wasn’t sad enough to take a photo of one. We did however go and buy a load of them afterwards!

Lagos

Time to move on…

We’ve stayed in and around Lagos for three days now and loved it. Each night we’ve returned to our lay-by, undisturbed.

The driving over here has gone well so far, with only one instance of driving up a road on the left hand side followed by going the wrong way around a roundabout. You also can’t turn left off a road with double white lines along it, apparently! Other drivers have been very patient so far, and none have died as yet.

It’s now time to move on and see some more of Portugal.

Where next? Who knows, but there’ll be a blog post coming up very soon! Stay tuned.

Obrigado pelo amor 🙂

Rich & Kirsty

#BeyondTheVan

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

11 Comments on “A True Inspiration

  1. What seems like a very positive meeting for you Rich, if Michaela can do it so can you!!!
    Great to see photos of the beaches and landscape around you. Also found it difficult to make you out against a reddish sunset. Keep piling on the cream mate. Take care both of you and remember, do it cause you want to, not because you have too. Enjoy!!!

  2. Looks beautiful and relaxing. Hopefully the friends you meet along the way can help if they have suffered too sounds positive. Stay safe.

  3. Oh what a beautiful area, your photos are stunning, you are both looking extremely well too. Your meeting with Michaela sounds inspirational and positive regarding EMF. Fingers crossed it can work for you too. Look forward to your next instalment. I’m off to work shortly:-(:-(. Take care.

    • Hi Kenneth,
      Michaela’s “cure” for her EHS was a lengthy process of trying many different things. Even after spending two afternoos with her, I still don’t know exactly what she did, it’s a minefield. However, I am hopeful because I’m keeping in close communication with her and she’s going to do her best to help me. At this stage all I can say is I’m hopeful. It may come to nothing, it may not. But as you know, all we can do is keep trying. I’ll keep the blog updates as I (hopefully!) progress, but it won’t be a quick fix by any means.

  4. It looks absolutely fantastic. You look as if you are both having a great time. Glad that the EHS is easier for you over there, Take care and carry on having a GREAT time, x

  5. Following with great interest as we hope to come to Portugal this winter. Stunning pics. Keep them coming. 🙂

  6. Hi to you both!! The photos are great and the blog really heart warming. So glad your adventure is such a success . Best wishes to you and good luck for the future! Keep blogging!

  7. Great! Michela may have the answer to EHS. But whether she does or not, you and K have found the REAL answer – getting off the merry-go-round, dropping out of the rat race and no longer slaving to pay off a mortgage. Be careful, dude, you may never go back. More than once, I turned for home/work and then almost turned away again. Finally, at 56, I turned away and stayed away. Best decision ever. Btw, there are magnetic sand baths in China somewhere where people go to get their chi re-aligned by being buried in the sands. Some weird kind of magnetism thingy. Maybe your inner magnet is screwed? Hmmmm….on second thought, I am NOT the best person to get advice from. Carry on!