Returning to the pier, we stomped back to the center of Faro. On the way, we got caught in a crowd of gawkers who were staring at an incomprehensible phenomenon: two young dudes with a bottle were poking at some black wavy thing. As happens with humans, we copied the gawking and also froze, studying the incomprehensible. Explanations didn't take long: the dudes' tracksuit-wearing buddies standing nearby didn't fail to tell us that it was a kind of fish called "Old woman's vagina". They apologized for the name, but you can't erase words from a song. However, considering the guys repeated this fact several times, they clearly got a kick out of mildly shocking the tourists. But Ira is no pushover, she herself can tell anyone a thing or two about vaginas, and this time it all ended with just jokes and banter in response.
Half of the pics are by Vika
I searched for the fish in English, didn't find it, but discovered this beauty instead. If I knew how to reply to people with pictures, I'd definitely show it to the dudes.
Sheela na gig — a bas-relief for scaring away evil spirits (or the devil knows what for), can be found in many countries of Western Europe, but especially in Great Britain and Ireland. It hails from the Middle Ages, which is kinda weird — how did Christianity ever allow such liberties?
The Portuguese love all sorts of house and street decorations
Globalization has washed away and blurred all borders, now there's a mix of everything possible and impossible all around. In the background are meditators based on the see-no-evil monkeys principle, which are generally a mix of Shintoism and Buddhism, and below — fat Chinese gods of folk beliefs, in the same formation. A whirlwind and a hustle.
The plan for today is a macabre little place known as the Chapel of Bones. (Capela dos Ossos). Google, spying on me by the way, hints that this was Friday, February 22nd, which will play its role further down the page.
The chapel is called that because it's made from the bone remains of local monks who were pulled out of an overcrowded cemetery. It seems it's not even the original, but a copy-paste from another Portuguese city — Evora. In that one, there's an inscription at the entrance: "We, the bones that are here, await yours", so that no one relaxes, and remembers the eternal.
To each their own, but bones don't stress me out at all. I can't wait to be with them, here me and the five thousand monks are on the same wavelength.
Well, the time has come to move on, to leave Faro. Andrey really wanted to visit Gibraltar once more, a place, according to his words, very interesting and peculiar. I was moving again at the whim of the wind of other people's desires. It often turns out this way for me, from one extreme to another: either I plan the route from scratch, and we go exactly as I planned, or I vaguely imagine even the name of the place where I am, let alone where I'll end up next.
However, before leaving the hospitable south, we headed to another curious place, and simultaneously — an event. We had to drive there for over an hour, and we set off, plunging into the twilight.
So as not to get bored on the road, we dropped by the Norwegians' craft beer bar. By the way, our dear native academics even came up with a word by which this beverage should be called in Latvian — arodalus. The root arod means craft, alus — beer. Well there you go, and I promised in the last post not to torture you with linguistic trivia. Couldn't help myself!
Anyway, back to the Norwegians. The bar is called NanoBrew. Apparently because it brews only 60-300 liters of beer a week, as the blond owner told us. Sixty is in winter, when in a tiny village, which Fuseta is, there are no tourists at all. The bar is open in winter only on the weekend, and even then closer to the evening. As much as I'm not a beer fan (it just doesn't go down), even I appreciated how different the aromas and tastes of all these APAs, IPAs, and stouts are. They pour a whole 12 varieties on tap, and even let you try them. I got so buzzed from the samples that I didn't need anything else, it's even somehow awkward to do free tastings. Although, we later bought a couple of bottles for Andrey and Anita. If memory serves, Andrey never got the chance to drink his.
Having stocked up and loaded into the black jeep, the four of us, without Vika and the kid, we moved out into the night, towards adventures and Friday Happiness Pizza Party, whatever that might mean.