Movin' on South

Fare-ye-well Espana, you were great but now we are on to Portugal! I have to admit i really knew little to nothing about Portugal or the Portugese culture - I very ignorantly assumed it was just like Spain - from where we have been so far i can safely say that it is not.

After leaving Vigo (we only needed to stay for two days thankfully) we toodled down to a quaint little fishing Village on the boarder between Spain and Portugal - name: Unknown. There we had the best and cheapest meal to date and I got my frist taste of a real Spainsh Hot Chocolate - so thick that whether it contains milk is dubious - absolutely delicious though! We then heartily joined in with all the locals with wild gestures and grunts at all three TV screens in the tiny cafe, each showing a different football game - and they say men can't do more than one thing at once. What were we booing at with them? Who were we cheering for? Not a clue, but this seemed to be the accepted behaviour and was pretty fun!

We then went to Porto and hung around for two days but were sadly dissapointed with the place. Like the food the city seemed to have a thick covering of grease and grime. Everywhere looked just a bit too run down and yet also lacked any character. Although the people were super friendly everywhere, and the restaurant we found just of the main street was cheep we could see why. I went for the 'Potugeese sausage' and Jarvis had the Pork Chops. What we got was half a plate of rice and chips thick with oil and greece (the waiter proudly explained how they were Vinegar flavour - yum), and my Portugese Sausage was mushed up chicken and lard, to runny to solidify. I didn't finish it. The best looking building in the town was housing a McDonalds of all things and after three hours of wandering around we returned to the boat.
Let me give you a run down on 'The best bits'....

A graffiti worm with pants on its head...

yummy deserts from the Panderia num num num...

and a very old random tram that runs all over the city...

From Porto we continued south to Aviero, sadly motoring the whole way as the wind, when it has picked up, has been coming at us from the South making the journey generally unpleasant and poor Jarvis has had to do the brunt of the sailing whilst I confine myself to holding my stomach and waiting it out - thankfully they have not been too long days.

We only anchored over night in Aviero but were right outside a large military base and work up this morning to the roll call horn just as you see in the movies - very cool! We eneded up here in Figuera de Foz and are sadly wishing we had used our extra day here instead of in Porto. Its beautiful (despite the grey sky). Very mediteranian and has a lot of character and random side streets. We met an English Couple as we left the marina to go and shower (its been 4 days since a proper shower - armpits were firmly down) who told us that they have been here for three months and are still loving it. Retired and soon to be heading down to Greece to continue cruising it was really nice to bump into another yacht and some like minded people ( we were starting to worry as we hadn't seen another yacht since leaving the UK).

Touch wood, nothing else has broken - after the final fridge debacle in Vigo where, after two days the guy came back to us and told us that yes it was broken but no he couldn't fix it, we ordered the parts needed from Germany instead and sent them to Pete (see you soon in Morocco and thank you for receiving parts for us) and that has seemed to be the last of it, we even had enough spare time before we left Vigo to get one of the evil Chelsea Flowers off - that's right, one step closer to Croc Bones love!

The plan for tomorrow is to push on to Lisbon, which could be a 24hr sail, and then spend a day there to explore, eat and be merry. Hoping that we see sunshine soon and can I can loose the red space-girl suit! 

Tia and Jarvis, Over and Out!