The amazing people we meet....

Story #1: It was a hot day and we needed more water in our water bottles. Hobos that we are, we fill our bottles from any sink/hose/tap that we see and we were approaching a gas station. As we got closer to the air/water station, we met eyes with a fellow 'tourer'. He had way more stuff on his bikes than we did (and if you've seen some of our pictures, you know that we're carrying a ton of stuff) and we gave the obligatory cyclist nod. After a couple of minutes we decided to break the ice and started chatting with him. Turns out he's spending a year cycling the entire continent of Europe. Alone. We exchanged stories of bridges we had both crossed, strange encounters and some weirder 'hobo' moments (the guy has an extra plastic tub he keeps filled with water for him to shower with if he finds himself wild camping without a shower). And, true to the year we live in, we exchanged email addresses and blog sites. We rode with him for a couple of kilometers, but he was heading in another direction and we parted ways. -- Zeina

Story #2: Cruising through a small town in Portugal, Caldos De Reinas I think it was called, my peripheral vision picked up a large Union Jack emblazoned on a storefront. The store was called 'Union Jacs' and stuck out like a sore thumb. I obviously screeched to a stop and insisted that Zeina do the same. After running into the store I found an Aladdin's 'Cave of wonders', Marmite (obviously), Wagon Wheels, Angel Delight, Rolos, Fingers of Fudge "are just enought to give your kids a treat,they're full of Cadbury goodness and very small and neat....etc." We bought some supplies and chatted to Ginny the store's owner who was lovely. Scoffing our very British candy and slurping down 'Ye Olde British Lemonade' from a can, we left happy and I had a new jar of Marmite to nuzzle on these hot nights..... -- Howard

Story #3: We had a little break in Baleal to try surfing, did I mention that we did it to take a 'break'? Well, for anyone who hasn't tried surfing before, let me tell you that after the first few hours in the water your arms feel like they're going to drop off at the shoulder. So basically, we exchanged cycling for hours and hours with aching legs to paddling for hours and hours with aching shoulders. So, not quite the 'break' that we were hoping for!, though it was bloody good fun all the same and despite being the oldest bloke there by a long shot, I managed to fall of my board loads and get just as mashed by the waves as the youngsters, happy days! Hold on, this is supposed to be about people we meet isn't it? So, we met some lovely people, there was the cool, Swiss Brother and Sister duo of Cindy (stop rubbing your hand Cindy and fill in those postcards!) and Stephen with the most imnpressive abs of the trip so far: "When I was in the Army we'd do 120 push-ups at once" (?!) We also had the pleasure of Sarah, the Teutonic, blonde Amazonian lass. Sarah's lovely friend Bianca arrived as well for a short break and the pair of us were able to empathise with each other as we are both recent victims of the menopause, her at the tender age of 33yrs. On our final night in Baleal the gang invited Zeina and I out for dinner at a little local place, we had a hilarious evening which started when Sarah asked the very young looking waitress (literally, she looked like the Boss had roped his 12yr old neice in to cover a shift) for a bottle of red wine, a few minutes later the waitress returned and started pouring white wine. "No, we asked for red wine" said Sarah. "We don't have any red wine" responded the 10yr old waitress, we all looked at each other in amazement that if the restaurant didn't in fact have red wine, that they would just bring white instead and we wouldn't notice. However, Sarah's eagle eyes had spotted an 'exhibit' of approximately 40 bottles of red wine on an adjacent shelf: "What's that? Isn't that red wine?" she asked. "No" came the obviously misguided reply from our 8yr old waitress. It all got sorted in the end after a litre or so of 'Soup of the Day' was slopped all over the floor by another waitress of Justin Beiber fan club age and after a few stressful mninutes of me wondering whether I'd ordered a large plate of prawns, or more worryingly, one rather immense prawn the size of a large plate. -- Howard

Story #4: After 5 hours of up and down on the bikes, climbs which even in 'granny' gear felt impossible, in 38C heat, cars whizzing on our left, the sun blazing from on top, we were following signs for Lisboa (the white ones, because the blue ones mean 'highway'). We got to a spot where we couldn't go any further without risking our lives and getting in trouble with the law...again. So we went down the side street, hoping against hope that it would get us closer to Lisbon. Again, more climbs (the climbs always feel longer than the downhills) and we were giving up hope, we were about to break our cardinal rule and just get on a bus to Lisbon, when we spotted 3 handsome coppers having a cigarette on the side of the road. We stopped and asked for directions to Lisbon and, intially, got the same reaction that we got from everyone else we stopped...'Oh, Lisbon, it's very very far'. Hmmm, well, that didn't help us very much. So we pushed them and they palavered and waved their arms and yelled at each other and in the end, we got some concise directions, that when followed, led us straight into the center. Thank you, Portuguese police, you've come to our rescue once again. Note: The Senior Officer couldn't pose for the picture without finishing his cigarette and was too cool for skool to look at the camera (the other two hid their fags behind their backs) -- Zeina

Story #5: Rebecca - 12 years later! This incident was one of those rare moments in life which makes you really believe in fate or synchronisity. The first day in Baleal, I went to the Beach Bar to use their wi-fi. As I sat logging on to t'interweb,a bronzed, blonde, surfer-chick strolled in from the verandah. There was defintely something about her that piqued my interest, but I couldn't put my finger on it. A few minutes later I wandered outside to have a look at the waves (the same waves that Zeina and I would soon be getting pumelled by) and I heard a voice: "Howard?" The blonde surfette lady stood up and it finally clicked in my addled brain, it was Rebecca from 15yrs ago who I first met when I was the Manager of a Pub in Reading called the Purple Turtle. This was rather bizarre as it was 12yrs since we'd seen each other and she looked exactly the same, but more tanned. When we had first met, she was a 'regular' in the Turtle on Friday and Saturday nights. After we got chatting one time she admitted that she was actually 15yrs old, but she and her sister were so nice that I let her keep coming in the Bar anyway. By the way, if anyone from Reading Pub Licensing Authority is reading this, I live in Fiji so it's not worth trying to prosecute! After I got to know Rebecca, her Mum used to call up the Pub late on the weekend to check that she was ok, so I acted like a bit of a chaperone and got used to chatting to her Mum to reassure her that she was ok. Anyway, Rebecca is now working as a masseuse at the surfcamp and Zeina and I both availed ourselves of her services, which were excellent thank you Rebecca! Life is so full of pleasant surprises and meeting Becca' again was one of the nicest ones on the trip for me. -- Howard