Santana’s Windstar Tandem Cruise 2011

 

November 2

                I was up early at 3:30am.  I managed to load up the Tribeca with the bike boxes by myself which wasn’t easy since they weighed 90lbs each.  They took up almost all the space in the back, but we managed to get the other 2 bags plus our backpacks in the car.  Ellen actually woke up in a good mood while Phoebe was a bit grumpy when I woke them at 4am.  After a quick breakfast of oatmeal, we were out the door and on the way to PDX by 4:30am.  It was chilly and rainy outside.  The temperature was only 35 degrees as we found a place to park in the Blue economy lot right near a bus shelter.  As an added bonus, the bus was almost there when we pulled our bags up to the curb.  The driver offered to help with our bags, and for some reason, he wanted them on the top shelf instead of just under on the floor.  I figured he knew best, so I hoisted them up to where he wanted them.  Good thing I’d been getting to the gym lately. 

                When we got into the terminal, we kept walking right past the Continental counter because they are now merged with United.  They had a tiny Continental sign on the wall under the huge United one.  Everyone kept asking if we had a bike in the boxes.  I fudged a bit without lying completely by saying it’s mostly steel tubing for a project I have to put together when we reach Spain.  They hit me with an oversize fee, which they are definitely not, and an extra overweight fee for being greater than 70 pounds, which they definitely were.  In all, they hit me with $1200 in fees for the 2 boxes combined.  If I had admitted a bike was in there, they would have added another $250 per box.  So I’m glad I kept my mouth shut.  Our smaller bags were free since they do allow 1 checked bag per passenger.  I guess I could have argued that since Ellen and Phoebe weren’t checking bags, they should deduct that from my others too, but I wasn’t going to cause a fight and potentially delay us.  We just smiled and paid the money.   We were then directed to the end of the row to have TSA inspect the big boxes.  I then watched in horror as he opened them up and started removing things to swab the insides of the boxes.  I had spent so much time packing them that Ellen was freaking out about him touching them.  I just tried to be as helpful as possible to make sure everything got put back in the right place.  Fortunately, he was very careful and nice taking care to put things back as delicately as he could.

                Once through that ordeal, we had plenty of time before we needed to go through the checkpoint so we grabbed second breakfasts at El Salvador’s in the terminal for breakfast burritos.  Jada used the time to put the girls’ hair in braids while I went to the currency exchange to get some Euro.  The exchange rate was 0.63 + the $9.95 service fee so I cashed $250 US into 155€.  (I probably would have been ahead to just bring my debit card to get cash, but we had decided not to bring extra cards.  I also found out that USBank will be hitting us with a 3% fee for using our card overseas, but I had taken care of letting them know we would be over there so our card would be pre-approved to use.  I also got Jada and I set up with international calling plans for our phones.)   We got through the security checkpoint without issue and boarded our first flight bound for Newark, New Jersey at 7:40am.  Ellen lost a tooth while eating a snack on the plane.  She had never even mentioned that one was close to coming out, so we were unprepared.  I found a plastic baggy to put it in for safe keeping, but we weren’t sure how the Tooth Fairy was going to find her with all the moving around.  I guess she’ll fall under the jurisdiction of the European Fairy Ministry to dispatch a Tooth Fairy for the job.  Jada had the foresight to make sandwiches for lunch since the flight was 5hrs with only the possibility of purchasing food on the plane.  Our seats were 2 and 2 one set behind the other.  I sat with Ellen on this leg, and Jada sat with Phoebe.  On the descent into Newark, we got to catch a glimpse of both the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty out our window. 

                We arrived in Newark about 30 minutes earlier than scheduled and found a place to eat dinner called the Green Leaf or something like that.  It’s essentially a place that serves deli sandwiches and soups passing itself off as a healthier choice to, say, the Dunkin’ Donuts that curiously served pizza along with their usual fare and Ben & Jerry’s.  The girls both had clam chowder, and I had a baked chicken and avocado Panini.  Jada cashed some money at the currency exchange as well, and then we waited at our gate while the girls ran around and around the moving sidewalk. Meanwhile, Jada and I tried to guess which couples also waiting to board the flight to Barcelona were on our cycling adventure.  (It turned out that though they were mostly going on cruises also, none of them were actually on our boat).  We boarded at 6:30pm for a 7:05 departure time.  However, with all the other traffic we were lined up behind, we didn’t actually lift off the runway until closer to 7:45pm.  However, the captain still predicted an ontime arrival in Spain.  For this leg of the trip, Phoebe sat with me, and Ellen sat with Jada since we again had 2 seats each.  However, this time we weren’t right behind, but behind and over on the other side of the aisle.  I’m sure I annoyed the guy sitting next to me whenever Jada and I tried to contact each other.

November 3

                By the way, what happened to the jumbo jets?  This is a 757 with a 3 seats on each side of the aisle configuration.  Last time I went overseas, I was on a 777 with 3, 3, and 3 seats each separated by aisles.  Maybe we’ll get one of those on the way back.  The nice thing is on the international flight, we get free headphones, blankets, pillows, and access to all movies, TV, and music on the little personal entertainment consoles on the backs of the seats in front of us.  We let the girls watch Disney’s Frog Princess before trying to get them to sleep.  None of us slept all that well on the crossing.  In the morning, or as we were getting close to Barcelona, we let the girls play on the console a bit.  Phoebe and I learned some Spanish, and she listened to some Elvis.  Jada and I had to fill out customs forms before we landed.  As we flew into the airport, we went over 4 huge cruise ships docked in the harbor.  I guess that’s where everyone is heading.  We also touched down 30 minutes early, but it also took us an hour and 15 minutes for our bags to come off the plane.  Ours were some of the last to come to the conveyor belt, but our bike boxes came off at roughly the same time on the oversize luggage rack.  Everything was there, and customs was a breeze.  They didn’t even glance at the forms we had filled out on the plane, and Ellen and Phoebe got their first stamps for their passport from Barcelona. 

                Jan from Santana was waiting for us right outside the exit area as promised holding her Santana sign.  She had already taken care of getting a taxi to take us to the hotel.  He managed to fit all of our bags into his mini-mini-van.  Like almost all European cars, it was skinny and smallish to maximize gas mileage and maneuverability along the small streets.  I saw that gas stations were not all that visible, but the ones I did see were charging around 1.45€ / liter.  (For conversion purposes, a liter is .26 gallons).  That’s about $8/ gallon because the European Union doesn’t subsidize gas like we do in the US.  The cab driver gave us a bit of a tour of Barcelona by way of a running commentary once I got him talking.  He was pretty quiet to start with.  Our hotel was a 2 year old, 11 story cylindrical, ultra-modern hotel called Barcelo Raval.  Imagine if you took all of the most uncomfortable and boxy of the Ikea furniture and fixtures in white, red, and black, and made that the theme.  That’s what this hotel was like.  The front entry way was dark and dominated by what we came to refer to as the horse lamp.  It was a life-size black fiberglass horse with a lamp sticking out of the top of its head.   A lamp-icorn, if you will.  Next to the elevators was a similar pig, but with a platter sticking to its head.

                We weren’t able to check in since our rooms weren’t ready yet since it was only 9am I think.  I forgot to write that part down.  We went looking for Bill from Santana to get our packet, but we couldn’t find him.  So we sat in the hotel and had their buffet breakfast.  Since we didn’t have our room yet, we had to pay for it ourselves, but it was a descent spread.  Nothing was too odd for the girls to try.  The only strange thing was what they called smoothies, but they were really more like a drink mix.  For example, I had what was labeled a strawberry smoothie, but it tasted more like Strawberry Quik drink mix. We finally found Bill while we were eating, and we got our packet of stuff for the trip which included a memory book with bio’s on everyone who was on the trip, bike lights, itinerary, and 3 of those nylon sacks with the long drawstrings that can be worn like a backpack.  1 each for the girls, and 1 for Jada and me to share.  The buffet was 45€ for us, and they only charged for 1 kid, which was nice.  We found our way up to the first floor (the lobby was floor 0) where we heard the bike builds were taking place.  We were exhausted after being up most of the night on the plane, but all the experts agree not to take a nap when you get in, or jet lag will just be worse.  So, putting the bike together seemed like the perfect antidote to sleep.  The bike build room was a conference room, and there were lots of people already putting their bikes together or already done putting them together.  The first people we met were the other couple who brought their child on this trip to ride their triple Bike Friday.  We chatted with them as they finished putting their bike together.  The girls went off exploring with their son who was 9 years old.  Once they finished with their bike, we took their space on the floor around 11am.  We made pretty good progress on the bike (I was missing scissors to cut away my bubble wrap from the frame) until we hit a problem with one of my cable quick connectors which seemed to have been crushed just enough that I couldn’t screen the cable segments together.  Fortunately, the mechanic for the trip had a new connector that I was able to get along with a new cable section.  The owner of Portland’s new West End Bikes shop happened to be on the trip and in the room when this happened, so he very kindly stepped in to help get that part squared away while I continued on the rest of the bike.  I had brought a good selection of tools and a big tube of grease that I happily loaned to folks in need as well.  By 3pm, we had a functional bike that we stashed in a supply closet off the conference room along with the triple since neither of us was going on the pre-ride the next day into the hills around Barcelona.

                We were pretty hungry by then so we asked for a recommendation of somewhere to eat at the hotel’s front desk.  They suggested a place just around the corner called Restaurante La Fragua.   Ellen chose a dish called the Raval (fried egg, chicken, salad, fries), Phoebe chose the ham croquettes, Jada chose the quarto queso pizza, and I had a burger.  It was quite good and filling.  Spanish beef is just as tasty as I had heard.  Hopefully, I don’t fail a drug test before the tour with Clenbuterol in my system.  (There’s a little joke for you cyclists out there)   Sated, we went back to the hotel to get ready for bed now that our rooms were ready.  The rooms had white floors and ceilings with dark red curtains and walls along with a bizarre square sink basin with a flat bottom that splashed out water whenever you turned up the faucet too high.  We couldn’t figure out how to open the curtains in our room, but were able to open the ones in Ellen and Phoebe’s room.  They had given us a corner room that had a separate door outside our 2 doors effectively making a suite except that the doors were way too heavy to prop open, but at least they closed quietly.   Before we got ready for bed, we went up to the top of the hotel that offered an open air 360 degree view of Barcelona.  It was a great view that allowed us to see several of the features of the city including some of the sites from the 1992 Olympics.  There we met a couple from Tualatin, OR sitting on a bench.  While we chatted with them, a couple from Beaverton came up as well.  We had a nice chat while the girls ran laps around the building’s walkway, and we watched a thunder storm roll across the city in the northern hills and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. 

                We put the girls to bed at 6:30pm, and they crashed hard.  Jada and I attempted to stay up a little longer reading and catching up on the journal, but we kept nodding off so we gave up and were asleep by 7:30pm.

November 4: Free day in Barcelona

                Jada and I were up around 6:30am.  The girls were still dead asleep, but by 7:30am, we were really hungry, so we woke them up for breakfast.  It was rainy out this morning.  I’m glad we hadn’t signed up for the pre-tour.  They got soaked.  We had decided to walk to the Picasso museum.  I tried to figure out a way that we could utilize the subway system to get places, but the system involved a lot of transfers.  Plus the museum wasn’t really all that far from our hotel.  Our new friends from Virginia on the triple called our room to find out what we were up to today, so we all went to the museum together.  We strolled along the rainy, narrow streets.  The city is setup for walking and biking with separate pedestrian signs pointing the way to different sites.  Even in the rain the streets were full of people walking this way and that.  We took some wrong turns, but nothing that we couldn’t recover from.  It still took us less than 30 minutes to walk there, and the line wasn’t terribly long when we arrived.  Plus they had just started letting people in, so it was moving.  We paid 10€/adult, but the kids were free.  The exhibit spanned Picasso’s time in this region as a young man through his rise to importance roughly 1890 to 1957.  Most of his really famous works are in Madrid or Paris, but this collection was taken from items he had given family and friends and his personal secretary Jaume Sabartes.  Phoebe found that she shared her initials with the great artist, Pablo Ruiz Picasso.  She thought that was pretty cool.  It was interesting to see all the different periods of his work all the way up to our favorite, his “Pigeon Period” (seriously).  It also included a foray into pottery that he had experimented with, and his interpretations of famous paintings by a friend and contemporary.  The kids all did pretty well with the museum. 

                We continued our walk around the central part of the city heading towards a Gothic cathedral we had heard was nearby.  Unfortunately, it had just closed as we were rounding the corner.  Hungry for lunch, we stopped in at a small sandwich shop on the opposite corner from the cathedral.  Jada was able to strut some of her Spanish language stuff.  Even though the official language of Barcelona is Catalonian, Jada was able to utilize her Spanish to good effect.  While we were eating our lunch on a bench in front of the cathedral, I spied a fountain through the buildings that I thought was close to the bay that we passed on the way to our hotel on the first day in town.  We walked along the road to the Column of Columbus pointing out to the Mediterranean Sea.  The significance of the direction he was pointing was lost on us.  We didn’t see any plaques on that, but apparently, you can take an elevator up to his feet.  We didn’t feel like doing that.  From there we went to Barcelona’s World Trade Center where our ship would be departing from the next day.  Jada had heard our cabbie mention that the building was built straight down into the water, and she wanted to try to see that.  Unfortunately, there were too many big cruise ships docked to get a view of anything interesting.  So we headed back up La Rambla which is a many blocks long pedestrian area through the center of the city.  There are lots of tourist shops along the middle, street performers, and restaurants all along the way.  All the streets are cobbled in patterns that make it seem like the ground is rippling.  Even in the pouring rain, it was crowded.  We just sat for a while in the lobby of the hotel.  While we were sitting there, Jada got a call from her mom’s nursing home that she had fallen ill suddenly, and it didn’t look good this time.  We spent the rest of the afternoon in our rooms waiting to get a call back on her current condition.  On recommendation from our friends from VA, we went across the street to a Turkish diner called Anatolia.  The food was good and reasonably priced.  I picked up a big bottle of water at a market up the street to fill our Camelbacks ahead of our cycling adventure tomorrow (8l for 1.50€, but we ended up leaving half of it in the hotel since we couldn’t fit it anywhere the next day).  Then Ellen happened.  The lack of sleep and iffy food choices over the past couple days finally hit home.  It wasn’t a pleasant evening with everything else going on, but finally got them to bed around 8:30pm. 

November 5: Bike tour of Barcelona ending at Wind Spirit.

Dist: 9.5mi

Avg: 4.5mph

Max speed: 18mph

Time 2:07:00

                It was a very rough night as Jada continued to try to get information on her mom.  The nurse on duty let Jada talk to her for a while, and she went in to try to wake the girls so they could say they loved her.  They were then awake for a lot of the night and kept us up as well.  We had to be up at 6am to get ready for our busy day to eat breakfast, get packed, and get our bike downstairs.  Jada and I had to take the bike downstairs in 2 pieces, and I put it back together in the lobby of the hotel.  I took it for a spin around the block, and I found I had not quite gotten one of my cranks lined up on a spline which caused it to slip.  With the help of Larry the mechanic, we were able to get over that little hurdle and make sure that all the cranks were tight before leaving on our bike tour of the city.  Phoebe had gone inside to use the facilities, and Jada went after her, so I started getting a little frazzled when we kept falling out of tour groups when we had wanted to get into the first tour that left.  We did finally get into about the 4th group.   Taking the quad through a city bike tour in these narrow streets and bike lanes is tricky.  We kept catching our cranks on the ramps that went up and down the curbs that were too steep for us.  It knocked Phoebe’s crank loose again, but we were able to get that repaired and back on the road again thanks to some of the other tour members who came back to help us out.  Fortunately, as the ride went on, I got better at avoiding those sorts of obstacles and issues.  I was glad I had opted to bring my thicker tires since even though they roll more slowly, they really help me avoid slipping into pot holes and cracks better than the slimmer tires I use around our area at home. 

                The tour took us through the city park, by the zoo, and through the grounds of the first World’s Fair which included a reproduction of Paris’ Arc de Triumph.  The story goes that they had the opportunity to have the Eiffel Tower for their fair before Paris got it, but they turned it down as too expensive.  Of course, it did end up in France for the next World’s Fair.  The central piece of the tour was a trip to Gaudi’s unfinished cathedral, La Sagrada Familia.  It’s quite a piece of work.  The exterior depicts the rise and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  One entry shows his birth, and the other entry shows his crucifixion.  One of the sides was also to depict his return to earth, but that entrance was never completed, and if it were to be done as Gaudi had planned it now, they’d have to take out the block of buildings opposite the cathedral which would be really expensive, so there are doubts that the cathedral will ever be truly finished, though they are saying maybe by 2014.  There are also 4 towers that when completed will be the highest point in the city, but they are still being worked on.  We were directed to the audio tour start and then one of our group was designated the leader to punch in the numbers for different parts of the cathedral.  We had Pamela be our leader, and she was all for going quickly from number to number since we only had an hour to get through it anyway.  The inside is beautiful.  The columns all are meant to evoke trees and branch out as they rise to the ceiling.  The different sets of windows depict the earth, wind, water, and fire in different vivid stained glass windows.  There’s a choir balcony that encircles the entire cathedral around the sides that could hold around 1000 singers, and the acoustics are said to be set up to magnify the voices.  It was all very ornate and detailed.  We definitely could have spent more time there, but as it was, we just didn’t have the time to even visit the gift shop.  The funniest part of the tour was how many people were taking pictures of us riding around. 

                Lunch was at Olympic Bay.  All the waterfront area prior to the 1992 Olympics was industrial, but as a stipulation for landing the games, they cleared the property to make room for a beach and boat terminals.  The beach is 3km long and completely man-made.  The sand was laid down like sod.  We got to ride along it on the way to board our boat, the Wind Spirit.  We got through security checks and came around the bend to see our boat waiting at the dock.  The crew was carrying the tandems up the gangway, and as we rolled around the corner, they all stopped to look at the challenge that we were presenting them with.  They ended up having 5 guys get it up and around the corner.  It couldn’t go all the way up to the foredeck with the rest of the bikes, so they stowed it in an area they called the tinder just beyond the stairs to the upper deck.   We found our cabin on the lowest level.  They were adjoining with one room having individual beds, and the other having the beds pushed together.  Our VA friends were right across the hall.  Since they had their son in the same room with them, we found that the extra bed pulled down from the long wall of mirrors on one side of the room to make a sort of loft bunk.  There were all sorts of secret things like that with tables and storage cleverly stowed.  Our bags were already in our rooms when we boarded with our bike boxes stowed deep inside the ship not to be seen again until the last day.  There was a compulsory safety check where we mustered at the life boats with our life vests.

                Walking on board takes a bit of adjustment because of the way the sea rolls the boat.  We found our way aft as we were pulling away from the dock.  The air was chilly, but the sun finally started breaking through just as it was setting.  The captain gave the command to unfurl the sails after the pilot had left the boat, and the music swelled on cue.  A note on the pilot: since the boat captains aren’t familiar with every port they enter, a pilot is dispatched to each ship to guide it to or from the dock, and they leave by way of a small side door and jump to a waiting boat once they clear the shallow waters.  I didn’t get to see it this night, but someone told us about it.  The air was cold out after a while, so we went inside and explored the ship a bit.  We found tapas being served in the lounge, which turned out to be nightly at 6:30pm.  While we were walking by, the chef called us by name, and stopped us to talk about Ellen’s food needs on the boat.  He was relieved that he wouldn’t have to try to prepare meals for a McDonald’s only kid.  We told him that the menus sounds like they’d be just fine, and we’d supplement with an extra entrée if necessary for protein.  Then Bill wanted to let us know he was willing to give the kids the run of the ship as long as they were ok with taking direction from other adults and crew if they were doing something they shouldn’t be or getting on people’s nerves.  But he was pretty confident they’d be fine since they were even younger on a previous trip.  We assured him that we’d make sure they knew they were to enjoy themselves but not at the expense of everyone else on the ship.  Bill from Santana gave opening remarks about what we’ll be doing this week and Captain Tony introduced his crew.  Everyone has been really friendly so far, both crew and guests.  We didn’t have dinner until 8pm which is not normal for us.  We’re just lucky they had a good tapa selection with plenty of meats for Ellen and Phoebe to make it.  Dinner was really good.  The way they worked the menu was with a few special entrees each night, and then a selection of items that they would make any night of the week.  And you could order as many entrees as you wanted!  Desserts too!  The nice thing was that the portions were not big, and we only doubled up on an entrée once for Ellen to get more protein with her pasta.  The boat’s rocking was starting to affect Ellen a bit.  We were lucky Jan had children’s sea sickness medication in addition to all the prescription strength pills she was handing out since the weather was expected to make the seas choppy on our first night.  Both of the girls took 2 of the children’s sea sickness pills.  Neither Jada nor I did.  I was fine all week.  We put the girls to bed around 9pm, and they fell directly to sleep thanks to the rocking of the boat and the sea sickness meds.  I went up to the veranda dining room to learn how to use my Garmin to follow our routes.  Bill had hired a trainer from REI to handle the route mapping and distribution of the maps as well as trouble-shooting during the trip.  They had sent the maps ahead of time, so I had already downloaded everything I needed.  I hadn’t ever used the Garmin for following a route before, so the talk was useful.  Plus he gave some tips on extending the battery life a bit.  I got to bed around 10pm.  The itinerary for the following day was in our room every night after they turned down our beds so we could review that.

November 6: Castellon de la Plana to Valencia

Dist: 52miles

Avg: 12.3mph

Max: 26.7mph

Time: 4:03:02

 

                The alarm went off at 5:40am.  I had a rough night.  I just couldn’t sleep.  I’d say it was because of the boat, but it’s pretty much like that on dry land too.  The girls didn’t have any trouble sleeping, but I had hard time getting them out of bed and to breakfast by 6:15am.  We had an early start this morning for our ride to Valencia, and the weather looked iffy at best.   The boat was docked while we ate breakfast.  The breakfast is more of a buffet setup with the same types of things every day plus a menu that you can order off of if you wanted something different.  If I had a complaint at all, it was the scrambled eggs were runny.  Bill gave the day’s key points and time we had to get to Valencia to board the boat since the boat won’t wait for anyone.  The crew had all of our bikes down by the time we were done with breakfast.  There were light sprinkles, but nothing horrible and a bit windy and cool.  The customs officers were there, and there seemed to be some sort of news agency taking pictures with a local celebrity maybe.  So we might have our picture in some Spanish newspaper.  We struck out with our VA friends on their triple.  We would ride together all day.  A massive tumbleweed was blowing down the road on the way out of the port.  Jada also noticed that our rear brake was dragging a little way out of port which was slowing us way down.  I got that fixed, and we were on the way again.  Rain continued off and on all day long.  We got the hang of the traffic circles pretty quickly.  We found that the key to riding in Europe was to understand that cyclists aren’t looked down on the same way they are in the states, but don’t expect wide berths around you either since 90% of drivers also ride a bike, they’ll give you the space you require.  Also, there are a lot of unsigned intersections, and the right of way always goes to the person on the right if you both reach the intersection at the same time.  For traffic circles, you just need to yield to the cars that are already in the circle.  Otherwise, the trick is once in the circle, don’t try to stay over to the side, or people will assume you’re exiting at the very next turn out.  Instead, you take the lane and stay towards the middle until you exit since cars have to slow down anyway for the circle, there’s not much danger in getting run over.  It’s actually fun once you get the hang of it.

                We rode a lot of back roads through orange fields.  We stopped off at a Repsol Gas station for snacks and a potty stop about halfway through the ride.  I picked up some Muesli bars which were quite good to eat for a quick snack. They weren’t heavy like a granola bar.  It’s a good thing we did stop since shortly after here, we hit an absolutely brutal stretch.  It started by being attacked by a tumbleweed that just jumped up from a ditch right into my leg and then everyone else’s as we went by.  We then were on a very exposed stretch of road where the wind was gusting really heavily catching us full on and pushing us into the traffic lanes of the road.  It was a fight just to keep us going straight.  Thankfully, the auto traffic was pretty light.  Then the rain picked up as we got closer to Valencia and went through a stretch where a frontage road we were on became a dirt path with massive rain-filled potholes where we then had to go through what the cue sheet referred to as a mouse hole tunnel under the freeway and up a pedestrian bridge over the river on the other side.  But we made it out onto the road finally after some debate as to the best way to proceed since the Garmin was a little confused about where we were too.  As we raced through Valencia to the port, we caught site of the Wind Spirit’s masts (it’s nice to be heading toward such a distinctive ship), and it guided us the rest of the way in.  I bonked badly within the last 2 miles, and we limped in just barely.  Fighting the wind had taken more out of me than I thought, and I wasn’t able to eat while I was fighting it along with the rain coming down. 

                But we still made it on board with plenty of time to spare at 1:30pm.  Lunch was great (I don’t really have to say that every time, but all the meals were terrific).  I was really wiped out after fighting the wind and rain all day, and the shower felt wonderful.  I fell asleep for a little while after my shower until Jada woke me up to take Phoebe up for the Pirate Party in the lounge.  Some people brought elaborate pirate costumes.  There was a woman who gave each of the girls some rings and clip-on earrings that lit up to wear for the occasion.  Phoebe and Ellen won some booty during the games which consisted of a ring toss and walking a straight line across the dance floor neither of which were all that easy on a boat that’s rolling in the ocean.  I won a little baggy of booty (which consisted of a dollar bill and 5 gold (chocolate) coins).  The girls each won $11 US in the games.  Boys were required to wear an eye patch for the walking the line game.  I couldn’t even start without falling over.  When the games wound down, we made a visit to the bridge where we met the first mate, Sylvia. She gave us a lesson in Cartography and how to use the lighthouses to site where we are.  She was happy to answer any and all questions we had up there.  It was dusk, so they kept almost all the lights off in the bridge I assume so they can see more clearly out the windows since they’re constantly dodging fishing boats, cruise ships, tankers, and large cargo haulers out on the Mediterranean.  She’s also the only Spaniard on the crew, and she’s from Malaga, one of the ports we’ll be spending time in a few days.  We must have spent a good half hour on the bridge.  Phoebe now wants to be a captain.

                From there, we went back to the lounge for tapas and evening announcements followed by dinner.  Ellen and I both had the spaghetti, but we ordered a chicken entrée for her as well to get some protein.  Phoebe had the steak, and Jada ordered the vegetable curry.  We have started sitting at a larger table lately to sit with more people.  We had dinner with a couple from Florida this evening.  And we’ve started sitting in a section manned by a waiter named Aga whom the girls love.  He takes really good care of us.  The girls have made lots of friends on the ship.  I got to bed at 10:30pm again because I had to get an updated map download to my Garmin after dinner.

November 7: Cartagena to Garrucha

Dist: 40.3 miles

Avg: 10.4mph

Max: 39.5mph

Time: 3:51:00

 

                We got to sleep until 7am this morning, and when Jada checked her voicemail we found out that her mother had passed away.  We spent some extra time in our room this morning, and we ate breakfast at a small table in the back of the dining room for some quiet time.  I asked Jada if she wanted to skip the ride today, but she wanted continue and thought it would be a good thing to do today.

                Preparation was crazy as we tried to figure out where to be.  There were 3 rides departing this morning.  There was a long option which was from dock to dock and 70 miles over 2 tough climbs.  We weren’t doing this one.  The second option was a slightly shorter option with just 1 tough climb at the beginning and a length of 40 miles.  We would get bussed to a gas station at the base of the climb where we would start.  The 3rd option was a short option of 30 miles which starts just on the other side of the big climb and begins with the long downhill towards the Sea.  We went with the middle option.  It was chilly in the morning, so we all were bundled up. We had to load our bikes into the back of trucks.  The Quad was the last to get loaded in since it’s so much longer than all the other bikes.   However, when we arrived about 45 minutes later at the Repsol station, it was sunny and warm and everyone was trying to strip off their clothes.  The bike repair van offered to carry the clothes back with them.  Everyone used the opportunity to stop at the restroom at the gas station and purchase some snacks for the ride.  Too bad the gas station didn’t sell sunscreen too.   We were almost the last ones out of the parking lot.  We started out briefly with our new friends from Beaverton, but they were much faster than us, so they moved on.  We clawed our way up the steeps.  We rode with Gene from REI who was in charge of making sure everyone had updated maps on their Garmins.  He was riding a single bike and doing some support along the way.  I had a bit of a click going on whenever Ellen kicked in strong pedal strokes at the back, but we couldn’t find it.  It never affected anything, luckily, since when we got back to the ship I found a couple of my S&S couplers a little loose.  The climb had steep ramps of roughly 13%, and then it would level for a bit.  It stair stepped like that all the way up.  We passed our friends Barry and Pam who had a broken bike and were waiting for the emergency truck.  The same for another couple.  As we climbed, the clouds seemed to roll in a bit, and it started getting a little chillier.  Gene was saying that he remembered the climb getting really steep towards the top after a falling rocks sign.  However, we were headed downhill without ever seeing the sign, and thinking to ourselves, was that it? 

                The downhill was awesome.  The corners were wide enough to see all the way through, so I could use the whole road to work my way down.  Then we got on the highway, and we really picked up speed.  I was able to use the entire right-hand lane without fear of being yelled at since the Spanish don’t really care as I mentioned before.  We got plenty of thumbs up as we rocketed down the long straight downhill at 40mph.  It tapered off enough that I didn’t have to lay on the brakes for the traffic circle at the bottom.  We found a gas station to stop at for a snack and potty.   They had some of the Muesli bars that I liked in the vending the machine, so I picked up a few more. 

                We then had a bunch of rollers that were really steep, but short, the rest of the way along the Mediterranean coast.  We passed ruins of forts and other water related industry sites.  I couldn’t shift into my smallest front chain ring, so I finally stopped at the top of one of the climbs to manually shift for the rest of the way because my knees were starting to ache a bit.  The cross wind was also taking a toll on me, and we were all hungry.  We saw a bunch of cyclists stopped at a roadside restaurant, so we pulled in as well for some terrific burgers around 3pm.  The last 3 miles into Garucha were tough, but we made it.  We had been hoping to find a bank to exchange some of the girls’ money that we found packed away, but we arrived in the middle of siesta.  Banks are only open from 9am-2pm, and stores from 8-1pm then again after 4pm.  So we followed the signs to la Puerta, and we happened upon a little pedestrian walk with a playground in the middle right next to the bay where our ship was to pull in.  It wasn’t in yet, and we didn’t expect it for another hour, so we let the girls play for a while.  Around 5:30pm, we went down to where everyone was waiting at a restaurant.  Jada picked up her clothes that she had dropped off, but missed her favorite Smartwool shirt.  She never did get it back.  The boat arrived around 6pm, so we boarded up through a quartz quarry.  We were showered and up to the lounge for Bill’s route talk by 7pm.  We had dinner with Jim and Lynette from Texas.  The girls were well behaved and went to bed on their own while we finished chatting in the dining room.  We were in bed by 10pm. 

November 8: Málaga

                Today was a lazy day.  We got up a little later than normal (7am…hey, that’s sleeping in for us), and we went to breakfast.  No riding today so we lingered over breakfast.  The waiters were showing the girls some tricks.  One of them made napkin animals and showed them how to balance a fork and spoon on the tip of a toothpick.  There weren’t many people in there, so the servers gravitated to our table.  Since we were seated at a larger table, Phoebe kept inviting people over to sit with us.  This included the first mate that we had met earlier on the bridge, and to our delight, she accepted.  She chatted about her home city of Málaga that we were visiting today.  We didn’t leave the restaurant until around 9:30am so the girls could go to the WII games in the lounge. 

                We weren’t due in the port until 12pm, so the girls played the WII games until 11:30am.  They were basically the only ones in there until another young couple came in to play as well.  We had been bowling, but Phoebe liked tennis the most.  Lunch was served on the Veranda dining room since it was so nice out.  The girls sat with another couple they had befriended while we sat at a table with a German couple who now live in Switzerland.  They told us about their hikes in the Alps from hut to hut, or bike trips around their country.  It sounds terrific and beautiful.  They are a strong tandem couple too.  They had ridden the long route the day before. 

                We had been keeping a surprise from the girls for a few days.  One of the activities offered for this day was a horse ride in the Mijas Mountains outside Málaga at Rancho la Paz.  We decided to check to see if there were any openings on the first night, and they had just 4 openings left.  We figured it was fate, so we took the spots, and we didn’t tell the girls…until today when we finally revealed the secret.  It turned out that Ellen already knew because she had seen the receipt the night before when they had put themselves to bed.  At least Phoebe was surprised.  It was a 50 minute drive outside the city up into these really tight mountain roads that this bus had no business squeezing through.  It took a long time to get saddled up, but at least I was one of the last to get assigned a horse.  Jada and I were the only ones without any riding experience, so we got the worst horses.  I’m sure they think it’s good to give the people who haven’t ridden horses that know the route.  The down side to that is they don’t really have an interest in accepting your commands.  The girls looked very much in command of their horses.  Jada’s horse kept trying to eat grass and shrubs, and she wasn’t strong enough to keep it from doing it.  Mine just wanted to get the ride over with, so I wasn’t able to get it to stop much, and we eventually ended up at the front just behind Ellen who’s always at the front behind our guide.  Phoebe was next to me too.  Those girls are always trying to be up front.   After the ride, we enjoyed some tapas in their dining room.  Finally it was back to the boat.  Ellen fell asleep on the ride back while Phoebe chatted with Jan the entire time. 

                Jada finally found a place to exchange currency in the port terminal on the way back to boat.  It was already dusk when we returned.  I went straight to the lounge with the girls and their journals to wait for the evening announcements while Jada tried to make some calls in the room.  The kids ended up heading up to the deck to enjoy the view.  We gave them the run of the ship, but they did a good job of not running off very often, and when they did, we never heard of them doing anything they shouldn’t be doing.  I chatted with folks in the lounge.  After announcements, we went to dinner where there was a bit of drama when one of the passengers fell ill, and then fell to the floor.  She was ok, but she did cut her chin when she fainted.    We ate dinner with our friends on the triple, and we turned in around 10pm.

November 9: Gibraltar and Morocco

                I woke up just as we docked in Gibraltar, then woke the girls and headed to breakfast at 6:15am.  The route talk was going to be at 6:45am this morning for the riders that were making the epic ride through 3 countries today.  The rest of us got our instructions at 7am.  The long riders were going to get a bus tour of Gibraltar like the rest of us, and then they’d get back to the boat, hop on their bikes, and be on their way to Morocco.  They would get to cross the airport runway on the main road through Gibraltar on their way to the ferry that would eventually take them through a little piece of Spain in Africa, and finally into Tangiers where we would all meet up again.  The rest of us would take the tour of Gibraltar, and then go back to the yacht for the crossing over the Strait of Gibraltar. 

                We boarded the bus for the drive up the Rock of Gibraltar through the city.  Luckily the bus was pretty small because those streets were tight.  Gibraltar is a British military base that used the Rock of Gibraltar as a tunnel system to protect themselves and the Strait for the Allies during the war.  Prior to the English occupation which has lasted for the majority of the 20th century, the Spanish had tunneled into the rock to protect themselves from the Moors.  Before we got up onto the Rock, we stopped at Europa point to watch the sun rise over the Mediterranean See.  Europa point is the farthest spot south in Europe.  Then we drove up the very steep road into the military base that’s open to the public.  This is where the monkeys of Gibraltar live.  Our bus driver opened his window to invite a monkey to take a sip of his water.  There are ~250 of them in the park, and they are taken care of by a group of care takers.  They did not jump on us or try to steal anything from us.   More than anything, they tried to ignore us the best they could with all of our running about taking pictures of the monkeys and the wonderful views of Gibraltar from above, and Al Jazeera across the bay.  We were met by a guide at the tunnels for a tour of a very small portion of the over 30 miles of tunnels built in only 3 years working in 3 shifts around the clock.  The British military still occupies a portion of the tunnels using it as an active air base and for training for tunnel warfare.  The land around the Rock includes an airfield that was created from the debris from the excavation of the tunnels.  The airfield extends into the water on both sides of the peninsula, and it is bisected by the roadway I mentioned earlier.  When planes land (which we sadly didn’t get to see while there), they close the road.  I assume that the planes land from the right so they always have right of way.  They don’t see a lot of air traffic here until the British military are there in force for operations or training when they can close up the road for several days.  After the tour, we were able to see our fellow long-distance riders crossing the roadway from way up on the Rock.  We cheered, but I doubt they heard us.  Another note on Gibraltar is that even though it’s British, they drive on right side of the road in deference to the rest of Spain.   

                Once we got back to the boat, we had beautiful weather for our 3 hour crossing to Tangiers, Morocco.  The girls swam, and we mostly sat outside on the deck to enjoy the sun.  The wind was a little cool, but it wasn’t too bad.  Lunch was on the Veranda again.  Phoebe enjoyed the chilled cranberry soup and she sat with the 9 year old boy at a table for two.  We crossed the point in the Straits where the Atlantic Ocean goes under the Mediterranean Sea.  There was a definite demarcation area too where the sea got really choppy for a stretch and quiet again.  

We didn’t reach Tangiers until 3pm, so we were a little worried about how we’d squeeze in a bike tour around the city and a walking tour through the Kasbah.  We all road to the Hotel Continental, and we got put into the first group for the walking tour.  Everything was a little disorganized at the start, and 4 guides eventually got things us going, but we ended up merging into a big group with one of the other tours.  The guides were all locals and knew a lot of people through the part of the city we were walking.  The streets were narrow and winding up steep hills within the walled city that is the Kasbah.  The walls of the houses stretched up above us, and some of them appeared to be tilting in.   The streets weren’t packed with stalls and hustlers like I expected.  There were some hustlers, but the streets weren’t crowded.  Maybe it was because it was still early.  The people we came across seemed nice enough, but I’m sure they were laughing at our silly cycling outfits.  The guides we had weren’t great.  Not a lot of detail about the area, but at least they kept us from getting lost.  I wish I could explain it better, but the city was built onto a hill.  Nothing was straight.   Things moved off at odd and narrow angles very much like it had just been added onto for centuries, which, of course, it had.  All the paths were cobbled with patterned stone work in different ways with stairs and ramps intermixed.  Archways and doorways had intricate mosaic patterns around them.  Then in other parts, there was the garbage and random chickens wandering around.  It was really a neat city to walk around in, but I’m glad we were there in the day time.  In the middle, we went into a café and up to a roof top seating area to partake of a local treat of hot mint tea and a pastry type of thing with curry and chicken wrapped in filo dough and sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar.  It was quite good.  The tea was tasty, but man did they put a lot of sugar in it to make it sweet.  Bill had been worried that people would turn their noses up at it, but not this group.  I think everyone tried it.  Even Ellen and Phoebe liked it.  The tour ended with a hard sell in a shop where they exhibited the different kinds of carpets indigenous to the area called Berber.  They are all hand knotted, dual sided, fire resistant, and beautiful.  We weren’t interested in buying any rugs, though we found out later that they also had some table cloth styles that would have been nice and small.  We worked our way down to the first floor to look at more of the trinkets so the girls could get something.  They each got to haggle a bit.  Phoebe chose a pretty red Jilaba which is a traditional tunic with a hood.  They wanted 50 dollars for it (no one was clear if that was Euro or US), but ended up getting down to 20€ because Jada said that’s all she had.  They wanted her to pitch in, but she just said, “it’s not for me, it’s for her.  She has at most 20€.”  Ellen was able to get a golden elephant for 20€ down from 85 or 35 dollars depending on which shop owner you talked to.  We’re not sure why she chose an elephant instead of a camel, probably because we hadn’t gotten to ride a camel yet.  In all the tour ended up being 2 hours when it was only supposed to be an hour and it was starting to get dark as we rolled down the hill away from the city walls to start our bike tour.  We had gotten lights in our tour packet at the start of the trip, and I had both headlights on.  However, it was still a dangerous ride in the streets.  At the first turn someone stopped right in front of us, and I came close to dumping us in the middle of the intersection.  Fortunately, they had moved the camels to the beach so we wouldn’t have to ride so far to get to them.  Phoebe and Jada boarded one camel, and Ellen rode another with a nice lady from our trip.  I stayed on the ground to try to get pictures.  It was dark so it was difficult to get any good ones.  When Ellen’s partner was getting on with her, she hadn’t quite gotten on the saddle when the camel stood up.  Then the camel guides were pushing her up onto the seat as the camel stood up.  I was too much in shock/laughing to take pictures.  I’m not sure either of the girls enjoyed the experience, though Phoebe seemed happier on her exit than Ellen did.  The herders just lead them around in a circle on the beach under a full moon.  The night ride around Tangiers was still expected to go on, but we opted to ride back to the ship since riding the quad through a city at night didn’t seem like a great idea.  It would have been nice and another great experience, but after almost dumping us over earlier, I thought better of it.  We got into a tandem train with 2 other teams and rode back to the dock. 

Dinner that night was an “elaborate” BBQ dinner with pig, lamb, and chicken.  It was all really good.  It was all served out on the after deck so we ate under the full moon and the stars.  The food table had carved watermelons shaped into flowers, and the bread table had bread shaped into lizards, frogs, and turtles.  We were joined at our table by the rest of the Oregon contingent where I found that the couple from Portland had also graduated from the University of Illinois.   The girls put themselves to bed again, and we followed shortly after as we began our sail through the waters of the Atlantic to Cadiz, Spain.

November 10: Cadiz to Jerez to Cadiz

Distance: 45.42mi

Avg: 9.2mph

Max: 27.6mph

Time: 8:27:00

 

                Today was an early rise day which meant I was up by 5am to get things together before waking everyone else up to get ready for breakfast.  We arrived in Cadiz where Columbus launched his voyages to the Americas.   The bikes were unloaded by 7am so we could be off and riding as early as possible.  We needed to be in Jerez, about 30 miles away, by 11am for lunch.  We were on the road by day break as we wound our way through town with the shops to our left and the Atlantic Ocean beach on our right.  We had a sunny morning as we road through the Spanish country side.  It was a pleasant ride even though we had to traverse the Autovia a couple times.  At one point we missed a turn off to get onto a frontage road that probably would have been more pleasant, but we weren’t the only ones who missed it.  There was a gas station on that road, but luckily, the Autovia exit was just up the road, so we turn around to pick up some snacks and make a pit stop.  Not too long later, as we circumnavigated a loop around a hospital, we caught Phoebe’s crank on a speed bump which caused it to work loose after a couple miles when we had to stop and fix it.  It’s a good thing I always carry a good selection of tools.  We were back on the road again and riding through a lovely forested recreation area and then through some rolling hills outside of Jerez.  We were passed by some local cyclists who gave us thumbs up.  The ride into Jerez included a rough climb on cobbles where I still couldn’t shift to my smallest front chain ring.  The lunch stop was at a Sherry company called Sandeman where we had a nice array of tapas.  Before I headed in, I got some help from the mechanics to fix my shifting problem which thankfully they were able to do.  We sat with Bill at lunch.  The tapas consisted of a potato and egg quiche, crispy bread sticks, chicken croquettes, ham and cheese, and sherry to drink.  We opted for some water, and I had some juice that I thought they had produced, but it turns out they just bought it at the store. 

                At noon, we walked over to the Spanish Royal Equestrian training center for a display of horse dancing on Andalucían horses.  The demonstration was a bit like ice dancing.  The first portion was a single rider with staff essentially having the horse dance with him to music.  The second section was 4 riders doing synchronized and assorted trotting techniques. I’m afraid I don’t know enough horse terms for what they were doing, but some was a sort of sideways trotting, high –stepping, skipping, that sort of thing.  Ellen was more concerned for the horses because at least 1 did not seem like it was having a good game that day.  The next part had trainers making the horses stand up on hind legs, jump, and kick out.  All of this is set to music, by the way.  The final segment before the intermission was a choreographed carriage number with 3 different sized carriages pulled by 1 horse on the smallest up to 4 horses on the largest.  At intermission, Jada took the girls through the gift shop while I had tried to get some pictures of the horses since photos were not allowed during the performances.  Then we needed to saddle up ourselves and get back to Cadiz for the early ferry over so we could hopefully do some shopping before the boat left for the next leg of the journey. 

                It was a 12 mile ride back to the ferry terminal on this side of the bay.  Cadiz is a peninsula, and we were using the ferry as a shortcut across the bay back to the boat.  The roundabouts through this portion of the city all had beached ships in the middle.  I haven’t talked about the roudabouts much, but they almost all have something in the middle for decorations.  Mostly it’s flowers and foliage, but there are ships, towers, and sculptures in them too.  If I hadn’t been piloting the bike, I might have tried to take pictures of them.  Hopefully someone did.  We made pretty good time on the return trip making it within 30 minutes of time to leave with only a couple wrong turns near the ferry terminal.  The bikes were packed into the back of a medium sized shipping container to be taken back to the boat since this ferry only had room for 6 bikes, and there’s no way we could get the quad on there without serious help.  I got the quad into the first container after getting Jada’s help to explain our bike to the guys loading it up.  They suspended it from the side of the container box which was good since it’s so heavy.  I thought they would try to put it down one side, but the container wasn’t wide enough for that.  Anyway, once that was loaded, the only thing we had to do was wait to board the ferry.  This was more or less the point at which this would come to be known as the “Ferry Fiasco”.  Bill had given the tickets for the ferry to one of the faster tandem teams to make sure that the tickets they had purchased earlier that morning, essentially selling out the ferry, would be there when we were ready to get on board.  However, that person didn’t arrive until much later due to getting off course, and suffering a mechanical problem requiring them to get a taxi to the ferry terminal.  In the meantime, Bill tried to just buy another set of 140 tickets for the ferry, essentially paying them twice because they remembered and had in their system from early that morning us buying the tickets.  They wouldn’t let us buy the tickets because the tickets were already sold out….to us. They claimed the ferry captains had to have the actual paper tickets for insurance purposes.  That’s when Bill got, let’s just call it irate.  He tried to have us board the 2:45pm ferry as planned, but they cast off right on time without us on it.  The ferry manager called the police to come talk to Bill claiming (as we would find out later) that there was an angry mob of bikers waiting outside his office.  That angry mob was us, and as far as I could tell, no one, except Bill and maybe his wife, was all that angry.  The kids picked up on the stress level and tried to get worked up, but we calmly kept repeating we can only do what we can do.   The next ferry would come along in 40 minutes, so we all just hung out.  Some people tried to find some shops open, but it was siesta time.  A group of people did some yoga (including Phoebe).  Most of us just sat around chatting.  So when the 3 cop cars pulled up expecting to find an angry mob that the manager had described us as, they sent 2 of the cars away and they chatted with Bill as he apologized for getting upset.  We bought out the next ferry, and the person with the original set of tickets finally made it and told his tale of woe. When the next ferry did arrive, do you think anyone asked for or even looked at our tickets?  Not a single person so much as glanced at the tickets we were all clinging tightly to in our hands.  The ferry ride was nice, and it dropped us off right across the bay from our boat, so we all got some good pictures of the WindSpirit at dock.  It was a short walk around the edge of the bay from there, but I spied a small gift shop across the street, so we stopped in there to pick up some trinkets.  We got back to the boat with about 30 minutes to go before launch.  Our bike was already safely on board (with a couple new scratches), and the girls went up to practice on the piano quickly  since they were scheduled to play before announcements in the lounge in front of the assembled guests.

                When show time came, Phoebe went first, and she played both of her memorized pieces well.  Ellen had difficulty remembered one of hers, but she wowed the crowd with her Stormy Night piece.  She started crying afterwards because she was embarrassed that she couldn’t remember the other one even though she had just played it earlier.  Several people came up and congratulated her and Phoebe on their playing so she was able to recover a bit.  The woman who heads up the on board entertainment brought each of the girls a fancy glass of sparkling water with lime.  Ellen didn’t prefer the drink, so Phoebe downed both!   Everyone on this tour is just so nice.  The next day we were off to Portugal which is on GMT so we had to move our clocks back an hour.  At that point we were only 8 hours ahead of PST instead of the 9 we were in Spain.

November 11: Portimao, Portugal – the Algarve region

Distance: 36.7mi

Avg: 12.4mph

Max: 37.9mph

Time: 2:57:06

 

                It was raining as we pulled into Portimao, Portugal this morning.  We had breakfast and got ready for our ride.  There were 3 route options today, the longest being a 70 mile out and back to the eastern most tip of Europe where the navigation school founded by Henry the Navigator and Columbus taught was located.  The ruins are now part of a military base.  There was a shorter option to the city of Luz, and then the short option to Lagos which was still a 35 mile round trip.  Of course, people were welcome to just hang out in Portimao all day, which many did.  We chose Lagos as our destination for the morning.

                Before we got going, though, we staged a photo in front of the ship with a single, double, triple, and quad tire to tire.  It sprinkled on us as we pulled out of the port with our new Beaverton friends.  They easily got away from us on the rollers through this resort town which was very quiet since it was the off season now.  We would catch back on the downhill sections before they’d pull away again.  They flatted not too far from Lagos, so after we offered what assistance we could, they had us go ahead and push on since they’d catch up.  Lagos is a beautiful city right on the ocean.   We rode all the way through town looking for the slave trade market museum we had heard about.   Apparently, Lagos had been the hub of the slave trade because of its strong connection to the ocean voyages.  From Lagos, slaves were taken all over the world for forced labor.  First we looked at a couple fortresses nearby, and we took our picture with the big Lagos sign carved out of stone with the crest.  The girls went in to look at the exhibits while I stayed out in the Placa dedicated to Henry the Navigator watching the bikes and people as well as taking some pictures.  We walked up a side street which is just how you would picture an old world city in Europe - cobbled, crooked street with shops opening up, and tables outside of cafes.  We leaned our bikes against the wall of a building across the street from a café where Paul and I ordered some food while the girls shopped in a gift shop next door.  Apparently, the lady in the shop had seen us riding out this morning from Portimao, and she was so impressed with the girls’ behavior, she let them each a free bookmark.  The sun was shining down and warming us as we relaxed out on the street.  We watched a group of Polish tourists on mountain bikes walk by admiring our tandems.  Amazingly, this was also a street for cars, but they rolled through cautiously, and there weren’t that many.  I had ordered up 4 ham and cheese toasties.  Luckily the café owner spoke English because Portuguese is not much like Spanish.  It seems to have developed almost independently.  I had my Portuguese language guide, so I tried out my “thank you”, “where is your bathroom”, and “check please” since, like the Spanish, they won’t bring you the bill until you ask for it.  They’re all about hanging out here.  No one ever rushed us for the door. 

                However, we did have to get back to the boat for a 2pm boarding call, so by 11:45am, we were heading back.  We mostly followed the same route back to town until just outside Portimao when we continued straight to take a cool suspension bridge across the river, and then we crossed back over another bridge made from the parts left over from the Eiffel Tower.  We didn’t find that out until later, so I didn’t get a picture.  It wasn’t as impressive looking as it sounds because all the girder work was on the underside.  All we saw was a flat, narrow bridge as we rode over the top of it.  We found a lovely plaza where several of our fellow riders had stopped at a café for coffee.  Jada went off to find a shop to pick up some trinkets while we sat on a bench in the sun next to the fountain.  As we were about to leave, a couple of guys approached us asking where we got our bike, how much it cost, and where we were from.  I don’t give them any concrete information just in case they weren’t above board.  Then we went on to the boat for lunch.  First, however, we had met up with our friends Barry and Pam.  Barry had missed the girls’ piano concert the night before so Ellen and Phoebe gave them a personal concert in the lounge before lunch.

                After lunch the girls went up to the aft deck to swim while I showered.  When I came up, I went to the front of the boat and discovered that the pilot was still on board, so I got to watch the pilot boat pull up next to us so the pilot could jump in.  The sea was a bit rough so it took a couple attempts to pull the pilot boat up next to ours.  However, the pilot jumped onto the boat successfully and waved as they pulled away back to the bay.  Meanwhile, Jan brought out a whole bunch of kites to fly off the back of the boat.  Everyone was flying kites, and Phoebe was flying 2 at one point.  Jan kept making her string long and longer.  Some people tied theirs off to the railing.  I wasn’t able to get mine to stay up.  I don’t know when they cleaned them all up, but they were flying for quite some time.  After going to the room for a bit for the girls to shower, we went to the lounge to play name that tune with the piano player.  The theme was movies and TV shows.  We didn’t win either game, but we had fun.  The Atlantic was really rolling the ship this night, and many were not feeling well including Ellen, Phoebe and Jada.  The lounge was probably the worst place to be at the rear of the ship in rolling seas for those who are affected by sea sickness.  Luckily our rooms are on the lowest deck and in the middle of the vessel which is best.  I had just been snacking too much throughout the afternoon and was no longer hungry.  So we turned in early without dinner as the ship rolled heavily in the waves.  As I walked down the hall, I felt weightless.  Once back in the room, I collected all the tools I’d need to break down the bike and put them in my bike bag since we have to take it apart when we reach the boat tomorrow in Lisbon.

November 12: Setabul to Lisbon, Portugal

Distance: 33.12mi

Avg: 10.4mph

Max: 38.1mph

Time: 3:10:59

 

                It was cloudy in Setabul with some wind.  We only had 3 hours to make it to our ferry over to Lisbon, and 3 climbs right out of the gate, so we had to haul rear end to get there today.  We were the first ones out of the port at 8:10am.  We were blessed with a tailwind this morning.  The climbs through the Arbiata National Park were steep.  The first 2 weren’t too bad.  Since we were the first ones out today, we saw everyone pass us.  Bill and Jan passed us on the last and steepest climb.  It just kept going up and up with ramps at 15%.  We had caught up to the triple, and they decided to bail and walk the rest of the way up.  I thought they might pass us walking.  No climb beats us, so we pressed on clawing our way up the climb at the best pace we could muster while Jada called out the elevation on the Garmin since we knew it maxed out at 550 feet.  As we crested, we let out a whoop and started the long downhill to the port.  With a downhill and a tailwind, we put the hammer down and went for it in the biggest gear we could turn.  We had to slow down for the traffic circles, and then when we hit the port town of Almada where our ferry was to be, we kept getting stuck by red lights.  The hill through town was more difficult than advertised, so I was starting to worry we’d miss the first ferry across the Tagus River, but with about 5 minutes to spare, we rolled in thus making the first group for the guided bike tours of Lisbon (or Lisboa as it appears on the signs) when we reached the other side.  This ferry was a car ferry, so we could wheel our bikes on board.  Once on the other side, we got into 3 groups for our tours. 

                Lisbon is not a good city for bike tours on tandem and horrible for the quad.  It has abundant train tracks and poor sidewalk to road transitions.  The guide we had wasn’t really prepared to deal with our length so he started out taking us on sidewalks with corners way to sharp for us to ride.  He was also way too soft spoken to hear anything he was saying.  He was nice enough, but even when asked to speak up, it didn’t seem he could reach the level for anyone not standing directly next to him.  Even the few times I was standing next to him, I had trouble hearing him.  As a consequence we didn’t learn much, but we stopped in beautifully cobbled plazas commemorating Portugal’s independence, tributes to a former king who never actually lived in Lisbon, remembrances of all the wars fought with Spain, and an earthquake that destroyed much of the city which is why the king never lived there.  The pedestrian walkways were plentiful with outdoor seating.  Everyone turned to watch us go by.  We stopped at a small store which sells Ginjin cherry liquor.  We declined, but we did partake of the official Portugal egg tarts called Pasteis de Belem.  It is basically a custard filled filo dough pastry.  We rode past a museum where we could see through a window to a Roman ruins excavation.  There are Roman ruins all the way under the pedestrian walkway we had just cycled down.  I think I heard the guide say that Lisbon is one of Europe’s oldest continuously occupied cities.  We then rode out to an interesting tribute to a knight that had given his life by throwing himself under the gates of a castle to prevent them from closing all the way allowing the Portuguese to drive the Spanish out again…at least, I’m pretty sure I heard him say that.  From this vantage point, we could also see the walls of the ancient castle up on the hill side.  Thankfully, our tour wouldn’t be going into the hills of Lisbon since it’s a lot like San Francisco in the way it was built up and down steep hills.  Also, there are trollies and trams running throughout the city that have the ability to stay level on the steep climbs up to the areas of the city where there is more nightlife.  Finally, we went through their arc de Triumph back towards the Tagus.  As we passed through, there was a street musician playing Pink Floyd tunes (the beginning of Shine On you Crazy Diamond, for those of you interested) on his electric guitar which sounded quite nice echoing off the ancient stone walls. 

                We finished back near the ferry terminal for lunch at a riverside restaurant.  We ordered off the tapa menu, but there weren’t a lot of protein options.  Jada ordered some breaded cod and a vegetable soup for she and girls.  I ordered a roast beef sandwich.  As we ate with the triple family, we watched our boat go up the river past where we had originally been told it was going to dock which was under the replica of the Golden Gate Bridge that crosses the river.  From my guide book, I found out that it is called the Ponte 25 de Abril and was inspired by the Golden Gate Bridge.  Also on the south bank of the Tagus across from where we had our lunch, was a smaller (though still quite large) Cristo Rei statue similar to the Cristo Redentor statue in Rio de Jeneiro.  We finished up lunch and waited thinking it would come back by.  It never did, so we eventually headed off to try to find it which we did well up the river tied up next to the same cruise ship we kept seeing wherever we went.   After getting through security, we found an empty piece of ground to put down blankets to begin the operation of taking the bike apart and boxing it up.  Our bike boxes had just come off the boat as we were getting setup, so we were able to get started right away.  With everyone helping, it went a lot faster than it took me to pack it originally by myself.  Jada did an awesome job of wrapping the tubes in bubble wrap, coiling cables, and labeling everything as I took it off.  Ellen was in charge of making sure things didn’t blow away because the wind was really starting to whip up this afternoon.  Phoebe was our runner.  We would send her to the ship to either take things there or bring things out to us.  It only took us about 2 hours to complete the task.  In hind sight, I should have just tossed my chains since they were worn down from Moroccan sand and salt water spray.  I threw away my shoes as I had planned from the beginning, but it didn’t seem to help things fit any easier. 

                With the boxes stowed safely in the terminal, we took our showers and packed up our rooms.  I went to pick up our passports from the desk (at the beginning of the trip, they take the passport information and encode it to a boarding card that we present whenever we leave and re-board the ship so they can keep track of us.  The passports are kept securely so that the customs officials can validate if necessary.)  They had originally given us a departure time too late in the morning to give us at least 3 hours to get through check-in, so I was able to arrange an earlier departure time on the 6am bus to the airport.  Then we went to the lounge for the final evening’s announcements where Bill complimented all 3 kids on their behavior for the trip.  He talked about other trips that are coming up through Santana including next year’s family friendly trip right here in our backyard Columbia River Gorge.  The captain came out and spoke about their cruise options.   For dinner, we sat with our new friends from Beaverton and at our table with service by Aga, our favorite waiter.  After dinner, the girls were tired as we continued to chat, so they went and said their goodbyes to a few people and headed to bed.  We followed a little later saying our goodbyes as we made our way to the door.  By the time we got down to our cabin, the girls were already in bed with the lights out.  We put our bags outside the cabin door to be whisked away in the night to the terminal where they would be waiting for us in the morning for the bus.  We turned in at 10pm with the waves crashing into the boat at the dock. 

November 13: Departure day (Lisbon to Heathrow)

                We were up at 4:30am to get breakfast.  Aga was there again.  He said he hadn’t even bothered to go to sleep since it was such a short period between dinner and breakfast for the last day due to all the people leaving at different times.   While we were at breakfast, a thunderstorm rolled in with lightning. The lightning had already stopped by the time we ran to the terminal from the boat, but the wind and rain were still in force.  We loaded our bike boxes onto a truck, and our regular bags onto a bus for the trip to the airport where we reversed the process in the terminal.  There was an agent there to direct us to the ticket desks we needed to get to.  The Lisbon airport is a combination of efficient inefficiency.  The lines moved pretty quickly, but then you’d queue up in front of the counter where you’d have to wait.  The bike boxes were checked in as overweight, not oversized.  They took our regular bags, but we had to take our bike boxes over to another window to pay for my boarding pass.  They wouldn’t check our bags all the way through to Portland, so that was troubling.  When I asked the agent if 2 hours was enough time to pick up the bags from the carrousel, get through customs, and get checked in at our next flight, she shrugged and said maybe it’ll be ok.  Not exactly confidence building.  I only paid 40€ for both boxes after waiting in that line for at least 30 more minutes.  This was odd especially since it only took me a very short period of time to actually get this taken care of.  The handing off of the overweight bags was also quick.  They just put it on the conveyor belt and ran it through the scanner, and we were free to move on through the security check points.  They directed us through the express line since we had the kids, which was nice, but then I was randomly selected for a pat down.  It wasn’t as terrible as all the reports that you hear about, but maybe it’s just the TSA that have that bad reputation.  Then it was just a really long walk to our gate.  We had plenty of time to wait there before it was time to leave, so I worked on the journal.  Some of our tour group was departing from the next gate over.  Lucy and Hal gave the girls a game called Lonpos as a gift.  Like I said, everyone is just so nice on our trip. 

                Back to the inefficiency, we were led down stairs assuming we were going out to our plane, but instead we got on a bus where we waited for it to fill up.  Once it was full, we continued to wait for several more minutes before moving.  Then we stopped at another place where the driver got out to chat with someone while we were still all jammed into the bus with the doors closed getting way too hot.  After several more minutes, the driver came back and we were driving again.  And driving.  And driving past the end of a runway.  And driving out to a small patch of tarmac where 3 plans were sitting.  Here we pulled up to one of them and were able to get out.  We were able to board from the front and rear of the plane this time which made boarding go pretty quickly.  Once again, my seat was going to be one row up from everyone else, so I asked to swap places with a nice gentleman so I could sit with Jada and Ellen with Phoebe across the aisle.  The public service animations for the TAP Portugal planes were actually entertaining.  They were CGI wooden puppets.  Throughout the entire 2 hour ride, the TV’s would show basically nothing but commercials, but there were no headsets, and no place to plug them in even if we had them.  Jada and I both nodded off a little bit before lunch.  They served lunch in the air of what we believe to have been a turkey sub with a small cute bottle of fruit juice – apple, mango, or pear.  Ellen liked her mango.  They were pretty good.

                We had been making good time, but then, we hit traffic at Heathrow and circled London for a good 30 minutes.  Any hope of making our next flight was starting to dim.   We technically touched down at the time we were supposed to be at the gate, so we were already a good 30 minutes behind schedule with 2 hours to go when we made the really long walk to the baggage carrousel through the patented Heathrow Habitrails.  The whole airport just seems like it was cobbled together haphazardly in an attempt to make sure no one got anywhere on time.   This was in Terminal 1, and we had to wait in another line to get through security to check our passports before finally getting to the baggage claim.  Our bags all came off again on the regular conveyor even though we had positioned ourselves between the oversized return and our carrousel.  At this point we were down to 1 hour to get to Terminal 3 from Terminal 1.  First we had to go through customs which turned out to not be a big deal.  Then we had the mad sprint through the bowels of Heathrow with Ellen pushing a cart where all 4 wheels turned so she couldn’t keep it straight, Jada and I had the boxes.  People were on the moving sidewalks like they were rides just standing there, so we avoided them so we could move faster.  We finally reached the counter, and they said they had just closed the trip and given our seats away since it was already about 30 minutes to take off, but we might still be able to make it…then I put the bike box up there and it registered at 44kg at which point, our return to Portland that day was lost.  It turns out that there is some sort of health and safety rule only at Heathrow that they will not take bags over 32kg (70lbs).  It was more or less at this point that Ellen started to cry.  Jada and I regrouped.  She went over to the ticket counter to start working on how we could get home, and I took Ellen with me down to the air freight service the lady at the counter had recommended.  They wouldn’t take the bag as is either.  So in the interest of just getting home, I set the cases down in the middle of their floor, they brought me out some boxes, and I started pulling things out.  In the tandem case, I only had to take the wheels out to make the weight, but I also tossed the chains, and took the pedal box out.  The other box was heavier and more tricky.  I started with helmets, seats, and camelbacks.  I put my tools in my other checked bag, and it came in just under the required weight.  With everything under 32kg, the shipping would still cost a bazillion dollars (I think they converted that to around 700£ and then customs charges would be added to that).  I paid for the boxes, and decided that the charge for extra baggage would be considerably less.  We had no cell phone signal anywhere in Heathrow so Jada finally came down to find me and let me know we couldn’t fly out today, but she had gotten us on a Continental flight the next morning at 9am local time.  We regrouped again to figure out what to do for the next 18 hours.  The Air Canada ticket agent had given Jada a brochure for a cheap hotel “nearby”.  However, the map on the back was one that showed Heathrow and the hotel, and then an ambiguous break in the distance.  The continental flight out the next morning was from Terminal 4, and we now had 6 bags plus our backpacks to carry around.  So, we decided to go to Terminal 4 to see if we could check our bags at least for the next day, and then see what type of options for just hanging out in the airport we had. 

                Terminal 4 was so far away, we had to take a 10 minute underground train ride (Mind the Gap).  There were some airport porters in the tubes that were very helpful getting us where we needed to be and unlocking the turnstiles so we could keep our bags on the trollies.  Jada found the Continental counter, and they told her the earliest they could accept the bags was 5:30am the next day.  We started looking around and seriously considering sleeping in the terminal when I noticed a sign for an airport Hilton right off the terminal.  In typical Heathrow fashion, though, it was a “6 minute walk” through another habitrail.  There was no line at the desk, so we were able to get right up to find out if they even had rooms available. That’s when fate stepped in because they not only had rooms available, they had adjoining rooms where one was 2 twin beds, and the other had a double bed.  The second room was also 50% off.  We would also later find out that kids eat free in the hotel restaurants.  Sold!  It was another large unexpected expense, but it sure beats taking the risk of leaving the airport and missing our flight tomorrow or sleeping in the terminal itself which is severely lacking in seating this side of the security gates.  We briefly discussed heading into central London since we were here anyway, but it was already 4pm with the sun setting.  We were exhausted so we had a snack in the restaurant (chips for Jada), and then we went to the pool to let the girls swim for a while.  It was situated in front of a large window facing a roundabout, so we got to see double-decker red buses driving by.  Too bad there wasn’t a hot tub, but at least the water was warm.  We went back to the restaurant (Oscar’s) for dinner where I had a burger, Ellen had curry chicken, Phoebe had a burger, and Jada chose a huge bowl of tomato soup that she ended up sharing with both the girls.  VAT (English tax) and gratuity were included in the bill, but our server had been very nice, so I didn’t mind.  Plus the girls were getting their meals for free.  I bought 30 minutes of internet time on the hotel computer so I could send email to my boss and parents to give them a status update since our phones still had absolutely no signal.  Jada also needed to arrange for a sub in her classroom, as well as care for Scarlet and our mail.  I don’t know what sort of cellular veil they put over that place, but it’s strong.  We got the girls to bed by 7:30pm for the first time in a week, and Jada and I were in bed not long after 8pm.  For an airport hotel, we didn’t hear any planes.  It was nice and quiet so I was actually able to sleep about as well as can be expected on the road.  At least, I was only waking up via my usual waking, and not being woken up by hotel noise.

November 14: London, England to Portland

                I woke up around 3am, but the bed was comfy enough.  I showered and got everyone else up around 4am so we could get some breakfast before heading out to the terminal to make another attempt at getting home.  Breakfast in the hotel cantina was carb heavy, but they had some ham and cheese.  I guess we were too early for eggs because they had a place where it looked like they should be.  They had good granola, though.  The waitress only ended up charging us for one meal because Jada barely ate anything.  We picked up a cart from the concierge desk and all of our bags that we had put in the storage closet behind the desk for the night.  Then we headed for the terminal through the habitrail.  It was 6am when we strolled up to the counter to try again.  We got hit with the extra baggage fees and the fees for the overweight (but not over 32kg) bike boxes (they never even asked what was in them), but we had no troubles from there.  They couldn’t check them all the way through to Portland either because the US requires all bags to go through customs again at your point of entry to the country.  Luckily, this time, we had a 4 hour layover in Houston to work with.  Jada’s personal item bag got flagged for a more detailed review because Ellen’s Kindle was in it, and they had just started a new rule the week before that personal electronics have to go through the scanner separately.   So that slowed us down again for about 10 minutes.  Even first thing in the morning, it took us an hour from ticket desk to through security.   We visited currency exchange after that to trade Euro for English Pounds to use in the airport, but they said that the shops all take the Euro as well.  With that, we strolled through Terminal 4 which had been decorated for Christmas.  We found a gift shop to use the last of our Euro to buy some small souvenirs of our time in Heathrow.  Then we had another hour to kill before our flight boarded.  We amused ourselves weighing our backpacks on the little scale next to where we were sitting.  Phoebe’s backpack weighed in at 11lbs, Ellen’s was 9.9lbs, and Jada and I both were carrying 13lbs on our backs. 

                We got a 777 jet for the 10 hour flight to Houston this time, and it wasn’t close to full.  We had an entire row (3, 3, 3) to ourselves.  So Jada and I sat on the window side of the aisle while the girls sat in the middle separated by an empty seat.  They spent the trip watching G-rated movies since they’re all free.  I think they watched “Cloudy, with a chance of Meatballs” and the “Frog Princess”.  I think Ellen watched that last one a couple of times.  Phoebe also watched “Horton Hears a Hoo” and listened to Barbara Streisand (“I liked it”) and David Brubeck.  Jada and I watched “Captain America” which I liked.  She watched a couple of other movies while I tried to nap unsuccessfully.  I listened to some albums from various artists (Adele, Earth, Wind, & Fire, Billy Joel, Eric Clapton, Death Cab for Cutie).  We arrived on time in Houston.  It was a very efficient airport.  The bags came off quickly, security clearance was quick, got rechecked on the other side of customs quickly.  I complimented one of the baggage handlers on how well the airport was run and setup.  Once we found our gate, we re-established electronic communication to let people know where and how we were.  About an hour before take-off, we went to get some dinner since food on this 4 hour flight would be for sale.   That flight was not good at all.  The attendants were rude and unfriendly.  I was stuck sitting off on my own again next to a boy who took up more than his own chair.  But I just sucked it up and tried to ignore him playing his game system without headphones.  I finished the book I had bought at the start of our trip, but hadn’t started reading until this leg of our flight.  We still made it to Portland on time.  It took a while to get our bags off the conveyor, but they all came off on the regular baggage carrousel…not oversized.  We took some time to reconsolidate our bags to 4 and get rid of the cardboard boxes for the trip on the bus back to the economy parking where our car was waiting for us just where we left it.  Almost two weeks’ worth of sitting in the lot wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. We got home around 11pm and put the girls to bed as soon as possible.  Jada and I didn’t make it to bed until after midnight.  And the day closed on our European vacation.