6/6: day 11 - going home

Today we head home to the states. Stu and I fly directly to Boston; Mike and Walter fly to Dulles first, then Syracuse. I will hop in the car and visit Honora on the way home.

I think we agreed that the breakfast at the Lisbon hotel was one of the best. I liked it because there were lots of options for vegans. I was one of the first ones at the restaurant this morning because Stu and I had to be ready for an 8:25 transfer and I hit the grilled vegetables first. I am sorry I didn't think of taking a picture before I messed up the platter. There used to be perfect piles of five grilled vegetables. Good looking and tasty too.

Mike and Walter squeezed into our 8:25 car although they had a reservation for an hour later. It was a tight squeeze but I am glad it was them and not someone else. Even though they had an extra hour to wait at the airport, it was nice to have them around to watch the luggage while I went to the bathroom or just to wait in the many lines.

Lisbon's airport is huge! There were multiple concourses, of course, but even with the hundreds of gates, we still had to take a bus to the plane. This was true both for our arrival and our departure.

One interesting marketing ploy: once you cleared security, you had to walk through a ginormous duty-free store to get to the gates. It was the size of a small department store. And it was not a straight line - you followed a curvy path through the store to get maximum exposure to all the items. It reminded me of the ASA convention in Las Vegas a number of years ago. If you wanted to get from one part of the hotel to another, you not only had to go through the casino, but there was no straight line and it was deliberately set up to be confusing.

We finally cleared all the checkpoints but there was one more store to pass: the sardine store. Those displays you see are all cans of sardines.

It was lit up like a circus. Walter is clearly mesmerized by the bright lights.

Some final thoughts.

This was a good bike trip but not the best. Stu gave it a mediocre rating; I would probably give it a B. VBT sends out an assessment survey and there are probably a few things all of us felt could have been improved that we will mention in our responses. It is possible that some of these things were a function of the fact that this is the first year for this trip. Consumer Reports says never to buy a car in its first year or the first year of a major redesign. Let someone else help them figure out the bugs. That might have been the case here.

Some of the things that were less than stellar were out of their control: the weather never really warmed up and the scenery was pretty but not spectacular. Some of the roads were not in great shape and the cobbles...

I think most of us would say that last year's trip to Croatia was the best one so far. The trip to see the Tour de France may not have been the best-run trip, but seeing the TdF was a bucket-list item.

Some more personal thoughts.

It's nice to be "on vacation". I have multiple email accounts and I put up an away message on my work email and I feel justified in not checking it for days at a time. Usually when I get to it, there's nothing that requires my immediate attention. For people who pretty much works from the time they get up until when they go to bed, it was a nice change.

My away message says something about sporadic access to email that is only partly true. Wifi is pretty ubiquitous although it was better in some hotels than others. Almost all restaurants and cafes has wifi. Most airports now have free (although sometimes time-limited) wifi. A new development with my cellular carrier (consumer cellular) made it possible for me to get online in Europe at additional cost (a la carte for voice, text and data). With only a few hours left before leaving Europe, I have racked up a whopping $.49 worth of international roaming. But it is nice to have that as an option. It was really helpful when I was trying to find my way when I was lost (dropped) during the warm-up ride.

So the "sporadic access" is really more like "sporadic attention".

It is also especially luxurious to be on vacation from the shitshow that is our country's daily news. I just looked at a few things that have happened the past two weeks and I don't think I've missed a thing!

The composition of this year's group was a little different. Usually, the four of us constitute the biggest group. This year, one of the women in the group organized a group of 16 who knew each other one way or another. Most of them were from Seattle. A few were blood relatives or affinals. All but two were couples. As a result, they tended to hang out together. There were a few with whom I had some pleasant conversations and I am sure Walter, Stu and Mike made more connections. But when it came time to create plans or seating at meals, it was usually them and then us. I am not sure they were aware or cared about these dynamics. I did not like it because it made it harder to meet people. It is understandable and unavoidable that you couldn't get to know one person in a couple very well, but the same dynamic extended to the entire rest of the group.

Thanks to all of you who have been reading these posts. Blogger is telling me that I have over 350 page views.

Obrigado and Adeus.

6/5: day 10 (seventh and last day of the VBT tour)

Today was a travel day. Our routine on travel days has typically been breakfast starting @7:30, luggage outside our hotel doors by 8:00, meet for orientation and/or leave around 8:30. Today we had a more relaxed morning in part because we were not riding. We didn't leave until 10:00 so that meant we had about 2.5 hours without luggage and nothing really to do. By this point in the trip, I am usually ready to go home.

Ironically, today the weather was partly sunny and warmer than any other day that we were riding.

A final good-bye present from our resort. I got hit for a bill for yesterday’s lunch that the hotel prepared for us. It was 20 euro each. I ate only about half of it because we had another 20 miles to ride back to the start. Most of us would have been happy with snacks from the VBT van.

At 10:00 we walked down the driveway to the road and had to walk even further down the road to where the bus was able to park safely. It was nice that we didn't have to haul our luggage all that way over cobblestones. Did I say we all hated cobblestones?

The drive back was boring. We took a divided highway all the way back to Lisbon and passed a couple of rest areas along the way. We could have been anywhere except that the road signs were in Portuguese.

I think the food was a little better than what we'd see at our interstate rest stops but I have never seriously considered eating at any of the fast food places on the Thruway and the MassPike except when the kids were little.

We arrived back in Lisbon and it was a shock to be in the city after spending a week in the country. There was a lot of traffic, a lot of stop and go, and I was really glad I didn't have to drive.

We checked into the same hotel that we stayed in the for the pre-trip so getting around was easier. Walter and I actually ended up in the same room. Mike and I went back to the shop where we took the e-fatbike tour and just rented bikes without the tour. We rode to the waterfront where there was a bike path and rode it to the end.

Here's Mike riding away under the bridge that supposedly looks like the Golden Gate bridge.

And here's the bridge. It is pretty impressive. Our bus went over this bridge twice, once leaving the city and today coming back and it is a looooong way down.

The e-fatbikes were actually a lot of fun when you could air them out. When we were on the tour, we only really noticed the electric assist when climbing cobbled streets uphill. They rolled pretty well on flats and downhill. But when Mike and I got onto empty stretches of bike path, we were able to max them out on the highest setting (5) and anything over 25 kph were a function of our own legs. We got them up to 32 kph. Sure, it is possible to ride them pretty effortlessly but if you push them, it is a pretty good workout. Remember that they are probably over 40 pounds and they're not very aero and we're upright. I think by the end of the ride, I had managed to deplete my battery one bar and I had it on the highest setting most of the time.

We stopped for a drink at a shop by the water front but I seem to have missed a picture opportunity.

But here's the link to the ride on Ride with GPS since I forgot to bring a bike computer: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/23950885

27 kilometers doesn't sound quite right although I did forget to turn it off when I walked back to the hotel.

We met up for dinner and went to yet a different restaurant on the same plaza across the street from the hotel. The attraction was that it was close, it was serving food before 7:00pm and it was in the sun. We enjoyed the space for about 20 minutes and then the clouds rolled in.

After dinner and some jackets, we strolled the pedestrian plaza with touristy shops. I got lured into one with a young woman who was creating name plates on paper with a sewing machine. I thought it took some skills so I stopped to look. She offered me one with Lisboa on it. I declined, figuring then she would ask me for money. When I said no thanks, she asked me what my name was. Here's the end result of that conversation.

I still didn't buy anything but since the idea was to get you in the shop, the least I could do was go in and look around.

We strolled on and when we needed a bathroom stop, we went into a nightclub with a live band playing covers of american hits. The boyz liked it.

Here are the lounge lizards.

This seemed like an appropriate way to end the trip since we never actually heard the traditional Portuguese singing, "Fado", the entire time we were there. Instead, we heard Elvis and Stevie Wonder.

6/4: day 9 (sixth day of the VBT tour)

This was day 6 of the VBT tour and the last day of riding.

We started from the hotel today, a welcome change from climbing into the bus. While having the bus made it possible for us to cycle in many different areas of Portugal, we were also getting tired of bus rides. Plus, tomorrow we will be back on the bus one more time, to travel to Lisbon for 3.5 hours and by then we will really be tired of the bus.

Every morning, one of the tour guides, in this case Jorges, goes over the route with us. He will ride sweep while the other tour guide drives the van. They switch every day.

Yesterday, David told us that part of the route would be "sporty". Today, Jorges warned us about a couple of things that we needed to watch out for. One was a railroad track crossing. Another was crossing a busy highway. There were a couple of "tricky turns". Ride with GPS also provided us with all of this information.

One thing we were not prepared for was a water crossing. Ride with GPS told us to cross a river bed. She didn't say there would be water in it. This is what it looked like.

It was maybe six inches deep and the water ran across a concrete surface so it was ultimately not very difficult. But when I saw it, I stopped right about where you can see the road coming in from the right. Mike and Stu were behind and they stopped too. Walter came in pretty fast, he locked his rear wheel and skidded into the shoulder.

Here's the damage.

Turns out he had a couple of scrapes on his shoulder under the jersey. We'll see if it bothers him at night.

Fortunately, the VBT van was not far behind. David was planning to set up on the right of this picture anyway so he maneuvered the van into position and we cleaned up Walter's abrasions, patched him up and we were on our way.

The half-way point was Cacela a Velha. It is a seaside town on the Atlantic and it was low tide so there was a long expanse of sand and boats stranded on dunes. It was a long walk down to the beach and that meant walking back up so we skipped it.

But here's proof we were there.

Did you know that Portugal has no coastline on the Mediterranean? Gibralter is at the mouth of the Mediterranean and it is part of Spain.

The town has a church, a couple of restaurants and walls.

I am not sure the significance of this but I thought it was pretty funny.

As you can see, cobbles are everywhere. The grounds of the hotel, including the driveway where we started our ride were covered with cobblestone. There were stretches of the routes everyday that were cobbled. Why anyone would voluntarily ride on cobbles is beyond comprehension. But the races in the spring season, called "classics", are one day races on cobbles. Paris-Roubaix is the most well-known. Plus, since they are in the spring, they are usually cold and wet. And to add to the fun, they are usually covered with animal waste. Yum.

Here is a creative application of cobbles. Why paint lines for parking spots when colored cobbles last longer? And no, the parking spaces are not super-wide - this guy just didn't stay between the lines. Maybe colored cobbles don't work that well?

On the way back, Walter needed to get to an ATM to get some euros. The guides gave us directions and a google map to Tavira, a town about halfway back to the finish. It was only a slight detour off the route. As we were reviewing the directions, I noticed a bike shop and David said they probably didn't have what we were looking for.

As we rode slowly through the town (cobbles, remember?), we passed the bike shop, expecting that it would be a disappointment. I stopped and told Mike and Stu that I was just going to take a quick look around. It turns out that they had a full supply of bikes for sale, for rent, parts and accessories, and most importantly, jerseys. They even had a bargain box for 5 euro. I would have grabbed more shimano cleats if I had more pockets. Even so, I looked like a domestique.

Mike and Stu bought bright orange jerseys with Portugal across the front. Stu also bought bibs so he has the full kit. I went with the shop jersey, black with green trim to go with the other high-vis gear I have at home.

We continued into town and found a nice little cafe where we could watch the town pass by. Mike has always said that this is the quintessential activity for a bike trip to europe.

Here we are "pounding cokes".

When we crossed the river to the coffee shop, I saw this guy digging in the mud. I'm not sure what he was looking for but he was the only guy out there. I'm not sure what that means.

The route went through some very productive farmland. Previously we had seen groves of olive trees and at least one almond tree farm. In this area, citrus was everywhere. We passed one farm growing lemons and you can't really get a sense of how big these are without a hand next to them but they were the size of grapefruit.

In fact, on the grounds of our hotel, there were orange trees right outside our door. They were indeed "low-hanging fruit".

Walter described the taste as: "imagine the best orange you have ever tasted and it's 10% better." The orange juice at breakfast was pretty good - I wonder if they grow enough of them for consumption in the restaurant or are these just for guests?

Another amazing thing about this hotel: there are staff everywhere. I peeled the orange outside, dropped the peel pieces at my feet and spit the seeds into the garden. When I was done, I picked up the peels and started to head back into my room to throw them in the trash. Before I could get to the door, a woman who works for housekeeping approached me with a plastic bag. Walter described this as attentive. Another incident occurred yesterday when Walter and I switched rooms. I was in the original room, trying not to mess it up because then housekeeping would have to re-clean the room. One of the housekeeping ladies came in to let me know that the new room was ready. I got my stuff back in my suitcases and she started moving Walter's stuff across the courtyard. I tried to tell her that this was not necessary - we could do this, but she moved most of our stuff before I could get one piece re-packed and moved. To me, this says more about their guests than it does the customer service. As a high-end luxury hotel (200+ euros per night), I think their guests expect to be waited on hand-and-foot so they gear their customer service accordingly.

Here's the entrance.

It was the longest ride of the week (about 20 miles out and 20 miles back) but not particularly hilly. Even so, we had about 2000' of climbing. But yesterday's ride was much more challenging.

Here's the afternoon ride on Ride with GPS: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/23913282

Here's the link to the ride on strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1616746804

We spent most of the afternoon taking our gear off the bikes and packing it away. We also had to begin to pack for the trip home.

Here is the trailer with all the bikes repacked.

We have a "farewell dinner" on the last night and everyone gets a little dressed up. Here are our guides with some final comments to the whole group.

I haven't posted many pictures of food but tonight's dinner involved a seafood stew that came in a cast iron pot.

And it looked like this. This was a pot for two so we served it family-style.

It was delicious but it did have cilantro in it.

Cilantro seems to be the national herb of Portugal. I hate cilantro. I am one of those people for whom cilantro tastes like soap. When I found out there was a bio-chemical reason for this, I was relieved to know I was not insane. That made eating in Portugal a challenge. Cilantro was everywhere. And that's on top of trying to be vegan. Or vegetarian. Or eat whatever was around.

I wrote a bit about the dinner we had a few days ago at the Brazilian grill. It was largely thanks to the fact that we had our guides with us that we were able to get the kitchen to make me something without cilantro. I am sure they thought I was either crazy or a difficult american tourist (true, I suppose). They substituted pennyroyal for the cilantro. I thought I remember reading once that pennyroyal was poisonous? I'm not dead yet.

Sometime during the evening, we slip them envelopes. It is customary to tip the guides, and the VBT materials suggest $10-20 per day per person per guide. There are usually 20 people on each tour. You do the math. It is not bad for a week's work plus salary. They also work their asses off.

6/3: day 8 (fifth day of the VBT tour)

Today was day 5, the next-to-last day of riding.

We got on the bus and drove about 30 minutes to the start, Corte Tabelao.

Here's the bus that couldn't navigate the small roads yesterday and our driver. Unlike other trips that arrange transports as needed, on this tour, we had enough long hauls that the bus stayed with us all the way from Lisbon. The driver, Carlos, was a bit of a character. At our first stop, he pointed to a Maserati and told us it was his car.

The guides know the roads and develop the routes and they have ridden on them before. They pick the routes to maximize the time spent on quiet and usually well-paved roads. They also plan for restaurants and bathrooms at appropriate spots. Today our start was in the middle of nowhere. This wasn’t a problem for men – we just found trees. I guess the women just didn’t pee.

It was once again gray and overcast and cool enough so that we all had cool weather gear.  I had a base layer and arm warmers (that's been the gear choice every day so far) and I was cold. Since the rides are supported, we are not limited finishing at the same spot as the start so today’s route was typical: more elevation loss than gain. Today was +638 meters and -816 meters. So we started with a nice downhill run. This would have been fine except that we were already cold. The first uphill was a welcome opportunity to warm up. The rest of the ride to the lunch stop was a pleasant mix of rollers and downhill runs.

This was the third day I used Ride with GPS. It took a few days to figure it out but I finally had a set up that worked well. I could load Ride with GPS and start the route. Even without using cellular data, the app would pull the GPS signal and tell me what to do. If I had one ear bud in my right ear, I would still hear traffic and conversation. And with the Ride with GPS in my ear, it felt like I had a Directeur Sportif. Ha.

Here we are at the top of the first climb.

We rode down to the Guadiana river and rode south, parallel to the river to our lunch spot, Foz do Odeleite. Spain was across the river to our left. At the lunch stop, we had the option to get off the bikes or to continue on for a loop, before returning back to the lunch stop.

The ride away from the lunch stop began with a hill and continued on with a series of long climbs and long sweeping descents. Our guide, David, described it as “sporty”.  This segment has 430 meters (1400') of elevation gain. It really was a lot of fun.

I have some nice video of the descents. It will be a while before I get that done.

Here's the link to the ride on strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/1614636771
Here's the link to the ride on Ride with GPS: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/23874088

Lunch was a picnic prepared by the guides. Today, Jorges was with the van so he put on an apron and served a nice assortment of cold cuts, salad and small bite-sized things that looked a little like empanadas.

Since we were waiting for the bus to move us to the next hotel, I took Mary Claire's e-bike out for a spin.

That's Mary Clair in the blue and David in the red. I told David I would just take it up to the top of the hill and be back in about 15 minutes. I told Mary Claire I would turn it on "turbo" and drain the battery.

It was a whee moment, when it worked. But unlike the test ride on last year's e-bike, this one was a little unpredictable. Mary Claire warned me that sometimes the power would cut out. She seemed to think there were particular times when that happened. I found it happened a lot.

When it worked, it was a lot of fun. I passed a guy on a road bike who was struggling up the hill and I felt bad passing him with little to no effort.

My time going up the hill on the road bike was 6.42 minutes, an average speed of 7.5 mph. On the e-bike it was 3.42 minutes, an average speed of 13.6 mph. I need to erase that from my strava post.

We took the bus to our next hotel. It is called the Vila Monte Farm House. I would call it a resort and it is a little over the top. First, the grounds are covered with grass. It was the first grass we had seen since arriving in Portugal. Everything is carefully manicured. Here is the pathway where our rooms are located.

And here is what it looks like in the evening after dinner.

Here's some of the signage.

Here is the pool.

Here is the "second pool"

More pathways.

6/2: day 7 (fourth day of the VBT tour)

Today's ride required a short (20-minute) transfer to the start. Because we were on small roads, we could not use our bus. Instead, the hotel arranged for three vans to take us there.

We rode up the road that I rode down yesterday as my extension and along the way, we passed many nests of these large birds that looked and flew like herons. Our driver didn't appear to speak any English but Mary Clare had learned enough Portuguese to ask him a couple of questions. Very cool.

He slowed down to point out these nests that were built on top of power line posts but I got a much better picture of a nest in a tree that was closer.

If you look closely, you can see some specks below the nest. The area is fall of swallows and they built their own nests in the bottom of these monstrous nests. 

Our ride began in Minas, a town built on open-pit copper mining. Our guide from yesterday, Fernando, met us there and took us on a walk to the mine. What is interesting about these pictures is that the mine has been around since Roman times. I don't remember the details because I had started a conversation with Alan who is an orthopedic surgeon and very approachable guy. He basically gave me a free consult about knee replacements and that was much more interesting to me than freezing my butt off looking at a hole in the ground. (Bottom line: I don't think I need a knee replacement anytime soon.)

Here's the open pit with contaminated water.

We finally got started with a climb. It was chilly and overcast again.

The ride ended with a long and steep descent in Pomarao, a town on the border of Portugal and Spain. Since we were there ahead of when the restaurant was expecting us for lunch, we continued across the river and into Spain.

We climbed about three kilometers until the road looked like it would start going downhill. Since Mike got to the top first, he took this picture of me huffing and puffing up the hill.

The descent into Portugal was a little anti-climatic because we had a pretty stiff headwind.

Here's the link to the morning ride using Walter's strava post: https://www.strava.com/activities/1612316940

Here's the link to the ride using my Ride with GPS post: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/23821025

Lunch was at another small family restaurant and they had us at a long table under some greenery and overlooking the river. Here's the table to my right.

Here's the table to my left.

Today's lunch was family style which meant we could take as much or as little as we wanted. The food was more traditionally Portuguese than the day before and much more digestible. That said, those of us who were riding after lunch took it easy on the food.

Most of the group chose to take a boat ride back to the hotel. While the water was calm, I still thought it would be better idea to ride back instead of taking the boat ride and five of us chose that option. While the ride to the lunch stop finished with a one kilometer descent, that meant that our start included a one kilometer climb on a full stomach and cold and stiff legs.

Our group included another Jeff who rode 13,000 miles last year. He is retired and as he said, riding a bike is now his job. He is a very strong rider. We were also joined by Alan, my new orthopedic surgeon. We didn't really know what kind of rider he was since his wife was with him on the trip but he kept up just fine. A few times Jeff dropped back to pull him up. That says more about Jeff than it does about Alan. Mike, Walter and I rounded out the group.

I didn't feel nearly as uncomfortable as the day before in part because the food was lighter but also because I made a point to eat less. Anyone who knows me knows how difficult that was.

The ride back was fabulous but hard. We finished the descent into Mertola on the same road I rode the day before as a group of four. I have video of the descent but it will take a while before it is ready.

Mike and Jeff went out to ride some more.

Here's the link to Walter's strava post for the afternoon ride: https://www.strava.com/activities/1612316940

Here's the link to my Ride with GPS post: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/23823799

And here is my strava link for the whole day: https://www.strava.com/activities/1612190996

6/1: day 6 (third day of the VBT trip)

The day started with a long, two-hour transfer after breakfast. We headed south, about two-thirds the way to the coast. Our ride started in Castro Verde and ended up in Mertola.

Once again, Walter started out first and Mike, Stu and I rode out together with the expectation that we would catch Walter.

The roads were rolling but the profile was mostly downhill. It is listed as 45km (about 28 miles) and 292 meters (about 1000') of climbing.

Here's the strava link to the ride although there is something weird going on in the middle of the ride (notice the straight line - I think my computer shut down for a while): https://www.strava.com/activities/1610072644

Here's the Ride with GPS link (with the same problem): https://ridewithgps.com/trips/23790624?privacy_code=9jPdB8tyInBGFvmh

About halfway through the ride, we stopped for lunch at a small restaurant that VBT had arranged. A young woman with minimal English took care of us and we were able to order a variety of grilled sandwiches or pizza along with a vegetable soup and drinks. The vegetable soup was pureed and delicious. The sandwiches were basically paninis but there was way too much food considering we had to get back on our bikes and for me, the choices for me were risky. As Walter put it, our tuna melts were a lot of fat held together by bread and a little tuna. Most of us only ate half of our sandwiches and I told the guides they might save some money and food waste in the future by maybe serving half a sandwich and making the second half optional. Otherwise, I assume they would have to throw them out. That probably reinforces a stereotype that Americans are rich and wasteful.

The rest of the ride was a slog. I might have enjoyed it more if I had waited another hour before getting on the bike to get a little more time to digest. Otherwise, the ride back was pretty uneventful.

We unpacked and checked into our rooms but since it was only 2:00 and we had more than a few hours until our next event, I asked David if I could go out again. We agreed that I would be back by 3:00 or else he would have to go out looking for me. I was planning to ride out of the town on the road we used to enter Mertola but I ended up going out the other side of town. It was a slow but steady climb and at 2:44 I realized I had exceeded 50% of my time. Fortunately, the return was all downhill and except for the occasional car, it was a beautiful descent with sweeping turns, good visibility and just enough speed so that I had to use some skill to keep from crossing the line to being out-of-control.

Mertola is built on the river Guadiana. The Guadiana makes up part of the eastern border of Portugal and Spain and eventually flows into the Atlantic. Here's a picture of the city from across the river. Our hotel is the modern white building above the pathway that goes down to the river.

Before you get too excited, here is the view out of the window of Walter and my room. There's a little construction going on. There is a bannister in the window frame and we hung our laundry on it to dry.

The hotel we were staying at is called Museu. The reason is that it is built on an archaeological site.

This is what it looks like from the lobby looking down.

This is view at the ground level.

After the ride, we walked around the village. There are swallows and they build their nests on the outside of some buildings. If you look closely, there is an adult perched on the outside of one of the nests in the middle of the picture.

These next two pictures require no comment.

Later, we went on a tour of the walled city. Our guide was Fernando and he first took us to a church that had been repurposed, depending on the predominant religion of the time. So while it is a catholic church now, at one point it served muslims and you can see that in the architecture.

Here's our group.

We climbed to the castle and saw site with an active archaeological dig. We were too late to go into the site although Mike had walked around earlier when the four of us were strolling the village. At some point, Walter wandered off and Stu and I sat down on a bench. Mike said he had to keep moving and he was rewarded with a view of the site inside the fence.

This is what it looks like through the fence.

Here's Fernando pointing out the finer points of how they used every possible material in their construction.

Our guides gave us three recommendations for dinner. We walked through town and when we passed one of the recommended restaurants, some folks would peel off. The second restaurant was closed so the rest of us headed up to the Brazilian grill. It was an authentic Portuguese experience, both in terms of the food but also the clientele. We arrived a little before seven and the place was empty. When we left around nine, the place was packed including families with small children.

Since our tour guides had walked us to the restaurant, we invited them to join us. While dinner was fine, to me the highlight of the evening was being able to chat with David and Jorge and get to know a little more about their personal lives.

I was particularly interested in David's career trajectory: undergraduate major in anthropology, master's degree in environmental philosophy, work as a consultant for business and the government, owner of a start-up for environmental projects, soon-to-be father and a small-time farmer. While he is a pretty high-powered guy to be a tour guide, he loves what he is doing. You can't beat that.