Beside the Seaside

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In Which I Get Excited By.. A Loo Seat

October 29, 2007 by Mike

Olhão

Route: Lagos - Portimao - Albufeira - Faro - Olhão (on Sunday)

Saturday night in Lagos, one of the bigger towns on the Algarve. (I didn't get to write this yesterday. Don't worry: I'll be brief.)

I pushed out the boat and ate real food in an actual restaurant. The waitress was Irish, the chef pure Essex, the owner a Londoner. Welcome to the Algarve. (In defence of the restaurant, though, and in my own defence, it was an organic-y vegetarian place -- no sausage and chips on the menu.)

Followed by a free concert down by the docks (neither my first nor yet even my second such event, though I hadn't expected such a thing so late in the year. The Delphins -- I think -- were the band.

"Iss pap mooshic," I had been advised. By a Portuguese, not a drunk, if you're trying to mimic that accent.

Indeed it was. It had grannies swaying and kids spinning and everybody in the audience, barring yr correspondent, singing along. Clearly a very popular band in this country. But there's the rub -- in an audience of many more than a thousand happy souls, I could count the foreigners -- the tourists, the likes of me -- on the fingers of one hand, while hiding my thumb. These many, many dancing feet were all Portuguese.

And there was me forgetting I was even in Portugal.

No, I'll clarify. I'm not in Portugal, I'm in the Algarve. It's Little Britain. And yet, huge sound system and live music blasting out, somehow the tourists and the assorted resident Brits found somewhere else to be while the Portuguese came out to play.

And just as soon as the music stopped, the Portuguese melted back into the tiled houses from whence they came, and I found myself on a street of bars peopled by -- staffed by, frequented by -- Britons. How they hadn't realised there was a free concert blasting out on the riverfront I'l never know; whatever or however, they hadn't deigned to join in.. or hadn't bothered.. an oportunity missed.

An honourable exception, where both tribes came together to enjoy some exceptional live music: Stevie Ray's, a little club featuring, tonight, a killer five-piece Afro-Brazilian band. So fresh, so tight, so alive, darting, such humour in the music, so sexy, such joy. I confess, even I was tapping my feet by the end of their set.

Nevertheless.

I fled Lagos on Sunday morning -- specifically, the campsite, which didn't smell too great, and even more specifically the man in the tent next to mine. Who took exception to me receiving a phone call at five o'clock on sleepy Sunday morning from a slightly unsober friend who happened to be in Cuba, where it was still Saturday night, and the joint was still a-jumpin'.

Anyway, my neighbour ranted for a while outside my tent before falling drunkenly, snoringly, asleep again. And when I saw him this morning -- and apologised in my most British way -- he turned out to be a strikingly short bodybuilder. 'Napoleon complex', I told myself. But by this stage I was set fair to leave.

(PS I whispered on the phone rather than spoke or shouted - promise. I know this to be true - my head hurt too much to be speaking loudly.)

Albufeira. The most resort-y, the most package-holiday-y, of the Algarve's towns.

I pause briefly, knowing I'll see so much more of this in Spain.

Long enough to chat to a local -- Mancunian, has lived here for ten years -- about the weather, the football and Maddie McCann. We're Brits -- it's what we all talk about.

And to spot a classic scene. Four women taking it all in, beach, sea, sun, from a vantage point next to the road. The backdrop a score of highrise hotels and tacky tourist-trap boutiques. Shoulders blushing red from too much sun, too quickly. An air of gently befuddled hungover. I asked if I could take their picture.

"Dat's foine," one of them said. "Oi suppose you could tell we wuz English jost boi looking at uz, could ya?"

A moment's silence.

Then the four all burst out in a cacophony of complicit, delighted laughter.

Their accents were purest Oirish but here, in Albufeira, even they realised they were being completely *English*.

I stopped in Faro, the largest city in the Algarve. A working city rather than a holiday destination, but nevertheless.. planes flying in to Faro airport make a hell of a racket as they cross low over the city. There's no escaping the incoming tide of yet more pasty white tourists, they seem to be screaming.

There's a city museum, free after 2.30 on a Sunday afternoon, I learned, as I enjoyed the exhibits on Roman Faro, Moorish Faro, arty Faro.

I was the only visitor.

The museum boosts a small plaque honouring the man who introduced the tourist industry to Faro and the Algarve. More than that, Dr Constantino Cumano brought great fame to the town in the first half of the 19th century. It was visitors from across Europe coming to him for treatment who in turn brought the first hotels to the region.

His speciality? The treatment of syphilis.

A round of applause, please, for Dr Cumano.. yes, you can see this one coming, can't you?.. clap clap clap.

Close by, a fairground. Displays of tractors. Stalls selling candy and CDs and socks. Dodgems and Speak Yr Weight machines and more socks. Lots of socks. For no reason I could fathom.

(I chose not to approach any of the stall-holders to ask "Why do you sell nothing but socks?" I mean, what could their answer possibly be? Precisely. So why ask in the first place?)

Then.. past Faro, just beyond Olhão, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

A campsite with comfortable, soft plots on which to pitch the tent; a supermarket that is open and stocks things I might want to buy, and eat, and drink; a swimming pool that isn't closed and roped off; a bar that stays open; friendly campers - Brits, Norwegians, Germans, one Austrian and one Finnish motorhome.

The Norwegians are all Liverpool fans. Of course. Aren't you, Barbro?

And.. get this.. the loos have *loo seats*. Can you imagine? A loo with a loo seat?

People stay here for months at a time. Sitting on the loo for the first time, I can understand why. It's the Hotel California of campsites.

Last night I walked out of the site and spent the evening in a local bar watching Portuguese football.

Tonight, after a lazy day in the sunshine, I stayed on the site and spent the evening in the bar watching English football.

Two more different atmospheres you cannot imagine.

Tonight, also, I met Jess, Laura, Scott and Leah. You should be in school! Back home! In Holyhead! But I'm glad you aren't because it was a pleasure to meet you.

There's just SO much wrong about this sign. And I don't just mean the lack of an apostrophe.

Beside the Seaside

In Which I Get Excited By.. A Loo Seat

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