Blissful Beaches

The Californian ideal of a picture-perfect beach is one laden with fabulous tan people working really hard to induce early-onset skin cancer. The Australian ideal of a picture-perfect beach is one laden with no forms of life other than you and your friends (who also seem to be working really hard to induce early-onset skin cancer). I’m gonna have to lean towards the Australians on this one.


DBM came for a weeklong visit! We hopped in our Spaceship (check out the picture!) and headed north along the coast. What did we find? Empty campgrounds and 7-mile beaches absent of any and all forms of life. It was utterly divine.


We shopped for groceries in a town called Buladelah, we stopped at the World’s largest fake Uluru, and we free camped, cooked, and bathed in our brilliant Spaceship Campervan. It came complete with pop-out bed, fridge, DVD player, cooker, and iPod adapter. Basically, I was in heaven. I could have lived in it. In fact, I’m considering it.





In the meantime, there’s heaps more pictures of the coast on my flickr site.

--
Kyle Taylor

Road Trip! Central Portugal Edition

After ten days of mediocre weather (and sweatshirts every day) we embraced the blazing sunshine and hit the road. Our mission: Find a deserted beached that we could have all to ourselves for the entire day. We chose to accept.



Armed with our Lisbon map, our central Portugal map our Smart car and flashback hits (along with Katy Perry every other song) on Radio Commercial, we made our way across the mini Golden Gate bridge past touristy Setubal, inland around the marshy bay, south again toward the Algarve then back west to the coast via Alcacer del Sol along the N253 and N261. We passed no more than twenty cars on the N roads and arrived at a beach with two other people on it, who were just leaving. Al made camp on the walkway while I trekked a bit further, staking my claim in the sand at the base of a dune. Two hours later I woke up from my perfect sunshine slumber, sauntered over to a dozing Alyson and asked if she wanted to “hop” to the next beach. “Yes.” And off we went, to another totally deserted beach.



Of course, this complemented our previous day’s post-Sintras trek to Lisbon’s northern coast, where we dined on fish fillets overlooking the waves crashing into the cliffs below, gazed at the windsurfers and para-surfers and took in a beautiful sunset perched in a cave just at the base of yet another seaside cliff. “The perfect end to a great trip,” Alyson quipped.



To top it all off, we drove across Europe’s longest bridge back into Lisbon and while we did get lost attempting to return the Smart car, our “lost” actually took us straight to the place we wanted to go. Naturally, we capped off the entire journey with dinner at our favorite place in town (and possibly the world), Tona La Da Ca. Portugal is the best ever. Ever.








--

Kyle Taylor

Coastal Adventure Part Two: Surfers, Dunes and Sunset

We last left off with me going on about the majesty of the Portuguese coast. Alas, Sagres was just the beginning. Because of the coast’s national park status, the main highway follows along about four miles inland, dotted with tiny beach towns that mark the entrance to access roads which lead to each of the nearly thirty unique beaches just in Algarve (Portugal’s southern-most region). Once you’re “in,” there are often smaller roads that run right up against the edge of cliffs, making for some spectacular driving.









Our first official “stop” was at the surf beach, where we stumbled upon an apparent “surf camp.” Now, I’ve never really known of a “camp” in this sense but not only do people take lessons from professionals (Portugal is home to some of the World’s greatest surfers), they also camp out on the beach, with evenings turning into giant barbecue masquerades. We just stopped for lunch (which we had packed with fresh bread, pastrami, fresh mozzarella, nutella, fruit, chocolate milk and chips) and to take in the perfection that was this beach. Endless sand, a light breeze, people just sort-of hanging out and a feeling that the rest of the World just did not exist.






The felling stayed with us as we followed the tiny paved access road up along the water, cruising right at the edge of the massive cliffs. It was perfect. We then wound back down a switchback road, where we stumbled upon miles and miles of sand dunes protected by cliffs on threes sides that peered over the dunes like overprotective parents. After parking, Zeynep and I followed the wooden path out over the inland waterway before jumping down into the softest sand I have ever trekked through. Besides the two folks who were heading out, we had the entire stretch of magnificent desolation to ourselves. Naturally, fun ensured.



From there it was back to the main road and through the teeny tiny town of Aljuler, where we stopped off for information on the perfect place to watch sunset, as well as a juice from the town square, which was the quaintest, most adorable little town square I have ever seen. “This beach here is the most beautiful beach for the sunset,” a local woman told us, pointing on our map. “It is 50 kilometers north, so you should go now.”






Go we went, and I mean go! I love cars. LOVE. CARS. I used to subscribe to about five different car magazines and like most boys, if there is a winding open road, a European-tuned car, good music and no posted speed limit, I begin to think I am a race car driver and act accordingly. For the next 45 minutes I was Mario Andretti and the Opel Corsa 1.2 complete with tip-tronic shifter was my Ferrari.






We zoomed into our sunset beach a good hour before sundown, which left time for a wander through the town and exploration of the beach, It turns out the beach itself is right at the outlet of a river, which made for some gorgeous beach-scape. As it always does, the sun clipped below the horizon and I took a million pictures. We finished our evening with dinner literally ON the water, dining on fish they caught ten minutes before that was grilled up over an outdoor barbecue. It was DIVINE. Then it was time for the ultimate adventure. To save money we decided to sleep in the car on a beach - not this beach - another one (trying to see as much as humanly possible). Alas, that hilarious moment will have to wait for the next episode.

--

Kyle Taylor

LAGOS = PERFECT

Sadly, my words won’t nearly capture the beauty of this place, so I’m going to post lots of pictures instead! We had oddly been warned that this place was “overwrought” with tourists, though those folks must have grown up on a farm in a town of twenty because to a southern California boy and a big-city Turkish girl, this place feels deserted. We followed the “map” to a 6-inch wide DIRT PATH which is apparently the main route to the beaches. A good hour-long HIKE later with several confirmations [“yes, this is where you go, follow the path behind the sign that says “Warning: Unstable Edges & Faling Rocks.” The one that’s behind the big fence.” Um, ok?] we stumbled upon this incredible lighthouse that led down into hidden grottos where - for $12 - we took an hour-long boat ride along the coast before being dropped at paradise; I mean the beach. We’ve just taken our post-sun shower and we’re off to introduce Lagos to the new, improved, tanned Kyle and Zeynep.














--


Kyle Taylor