On the Edge of The Old World

This will probably be the shortest part as it only covers rest of the workcamp story and our time in Porto. I’d like to keep an entry about Lisbon separate to make it feel more integral.

I would also like to thank all the people who organized the event: Daniela, Ines, Joao, Gil, Amrei, Ivana, Sofia, Cristina and Mariana. Everything was very smooth, the food was amazing and all of the activities you picked were great and entertaining (except the modern art thing, heh). I know for sure that from organizer’s perspective that meant a LOT of effort and commitment. You’re the best!

Sadly, for some reason I wansn’t able to find a decent photo of Mariana, Gil, Daniela and Sofia :( If you can send me some in good resolution, I’ll definitely add them here.

Day 5

In the morning I rode a bicycle around the Parque de Devesa while everybody else was enjoying yoga lessons. It’s not a huge park, but it’s definitely beautiful and worth visiting. If it wasn’t for the drinking fountains placed around the green area, I would’ve died of dehydration :D

Free daytime was more or less all spent near the swimming pool, here I wrote part of this. Rivers, seas and oceans are better for swimming IMO.

After a long day of work at Dar as Maos we went to a local music festival, which turned out to be more awesome than I anticipated. The Laurus Music Festival is held annually in v.n. Famalicao; we missed first two days where rock and metal bands performed, and they probably were more popular than this final day, which was folk-themed (lucky me).

We were just in time to hear few songs from Luar na Lubre which totally blew me away, and we with Gleb decided to amplify the atmosphere by drinking some alcohol.

The most unusual sensation on the festival, second to Luar na Lubre’s performance, was drinking a shot of a sweet Portuguese beverage which was poured into a chocolate shot glass. Oh, that moment when you’re about to drink it but suddenly realize the proper way of doing it is simply eating the glass! It produces BSOD in your brain for half a second.

After the Spanish guys there was a famous Fado (Portuguese folk) singer, but I figured out one can’t listen to this for too long. Too dramatic and heavy to the ears in its own way, although very beautiful indeed. Finally tried Mexican food there it’s probably more popular in Europe than in Russia, and must say, quite enjoyed it. Tacos and nachos are great if they’re not spicy. Also I managed to win a McDonalds ice cream pot 0_O

Day 6

Today I finally managed to paint my T-shirt! Yeah! You dig.

That’s what I managed to write using the letters I cut out of the stencil:

It turned out we paid for the tickets in advance and the price was our labor we helped the workers to deconstruct the scene and the surrounding constructions. This turned out to be trickier than I thought initially and there was a wide choice of stuff to do. For example, removing a really long fence that covered side of the field, deconstructing iron walls surrounding the festival area, tear poles and sticks from the ground (that was an enjoyable activity). There were some surprises around as always like the cold stream and a small bamboo forest nearby (I got to the other side, broke down a small bamboo tree in hopes of getting back, but it didn’t work like in a house of flying daggers’). I discovered a couple of small bushes with beautiful violet flowers near the stream.

The sun was merciless and I had to apply some sunscreen in order not to be burned to a crisp. Milos was too confident in his skin’s abilities and now is 75% native American.

Afterwards there was a satisfying feeling like after a proper workout and I managed to convince one of the organizers to gift us T-Shirts (2015 though, but they had better design than 2016’s). We must’ve done well as the guys wanted to show us the special places around the city afterwards.

He drove us through an authentic village with rough roads going whatever direction; later it transformed into some sort of light hiking following the ancient roman road, a secret path full of various dangers (bloody plants had their thorny branches sticking out everywhere, ouch!). We discovered a couple of peculiar giant strobiles on our way.

The nature around was constantly changing colors and shapes. Thorns and ferns, then fluffy green shrubs and cork trees, then long yellow dried grass and stones of the old Roman keep.

Suddenly we found ourselves at a top of the cliff with a fantastic view. Forests and crop fields around, water dispensers glittering in the sunlight, a stream of water and old stone farmhouses down below; there were birds constantly flying around adding to this atmosphere.

During the road downhill, we passed near the big corn field… and arrived to a green place with secluded houses around the stream. We took our time and walked around the area, and Elisa even peeked into one of the old buildings.

Each day is filled with lots of interesting stuff and is totally unique. And then guess what happenned? Totally right. We went out to drink.

Day 7

Next day we went to the beach to chill out.

The place was very windy if you’re not inside the tent area. The sand is mixed with the seaweed in some places and the beach itself is a little sloppy. We swam into the cold ocean several times, searching for the warm spots on our way. Thanks to Daniela I got a fluffy pink towel to lie on, a must have attribute for Indiana Jones. Closer to the evening we with Milos and Gleb went away to the peculiar stone formation nearby to take a closer look.

The stones were rough to touch and were covered in stone-hard corals and moss. Transparent water flew between the stones in small streams.

Beautiful sight! Afterwards I tried the best mojito in my life in a local bar. At the evening we spent a lot of time chatting and making bracelets.

Day 8

Finally, I finished the compost crate! It took a lot of effort to peel the pallets, nail them together, attach the benders, make the top and then paint it all. But now it looks awesome and stores leaves, branches and other appropriate stuff.

Camp leaders asked us for feedback, and there were a whole lot of funny comments to read.

We paid a visit to the local organization which houses mentally disabled people (many of who are unfortunate enough to be physically disabled at the same time). I don’t think I want to go deeper into the details, but despite their state, they made some really nice dried herbs, carpets and such. Also the facility had a carpentry rooms full of high-quality equipment and a garden.

The Final Day

It was all over before I knew it! Despite the days being extremely filled with lots of different events, especially in the beginning, it’s the last day. The most remarkable thing, is, of course, bye-bye party. More alcohol? Sure, hand it over! I’m glad I took the Swiss knife with me. That was a memorable night and after that… What were we up to? Of course, to go out and continue drinking, chatting and having fun. And someone had a great idea to have other participants write something on the T-sirts we made. Whoever that was, he/she is a pure genious, seriously.

Trip to Porto

The next day we got ourselves kicked out of the school.

Everybody was quickly leaving and that felt unexpectedly uneasy, it turned out I got really attached to the people. We wanted to spend a day in Porto and then head to Lisbon for some time, and Aran, our Catalan comrade joined us in this epic journey. After a fruitless attempt to understand local subway’s zone-system and validate-ur-ticket-everywhere thing, we took our time to locate the Airbnb flat in Porto and witnessing some military orchestra along the way we reunited with Patricia and Martyna and continued to explore the city.

Despite saying ‘NEVER AGAIN’, I trusted the words about size of the francesinha being inversely proportional to its quality and took the risk to explore this meal for the second time. It was a lot better, but still too heavy.

And we had to part ways with Patricia, who had a flight back home this evening. Only several hours, lucky her! That was a sad moment and, on a positive side, lots of hugs also.

The view from the bridge was amazing! There are few of them in Porto, one’s even designed by Eiffel (almost a rip-off from the lower levels of the tower) and out of function. We stood on the Dom Luis bridge, wind blowing in our faces, beautiful flowers.

On the other side there were some rails for the local trams going downhill.

And yeah, our plan was to find a rooftop restaurant following an advice from our host Catarina, and having crossed the bridge we followed the map, only to be confused. The road led down (remember my remark about the three-dimensional city?) and we had to get through a labyrinth narrow streets to our destination which we weren’t sure we knew the location of.

So when we descended to the lower level, the most appropriate tourist activity was seat near the stairs and circle-drink all that alcohol Aran carefully hid in his backpack.

We used the force and found the place. A bottle of local green wine (about the only thing we could afford at this place) was great and helped us to enjoy a cool evening even more.

When it got darker, tents automatically covered most of the rooftop and big gas lanterns marking the corners of the roof lit up, not even mentioning the city’s lights. This was a place I felt in love with.

We met some nice people there…

…and were totally absorbed by the atmosphere of the night Porto. I never wanted to leave the rooftop, at least tonight, but we had to get moving: a trip to Lisbon awaited us the next day.

The way back through the illuminated city was fantastic. The cold breeze from the river, going across the bridge…

Next morning, we got up pretty late: after two weeks of sleeping on the floor in the bags it was a true luxury. The opposite of luxury was our inability to get the washing ignoring machine to work. Fuck you, machine.

I found some of the most delicious chocolate cookies in my life in a glass vase nearby. By this point Aran booked a hostel for us and we went to the train station.

There we met Martyna and said our goodbyes to her she went to the second workcamp shortly afterwards.

Until next time!