I left you on Monday evening and it is now Wednesday evening so I have another 48 hours to fill you in on. I best get typing then.
After I posted on Monday we decided to go out and get some moody evening photos of the sun setting over the sea. Just before we did the maintenance man arrived to fix the wifi. He swapped the router out and showed us the flashing lights and indeed we were connected to the Internet…..for all of about 30 minutes. Knowing the location of the router however has enabled network guru that is Paul Brennan to fix it himself. The hotel has a DNS issue that needs sorting as Paul chatted to Sharon (our rep) about earlier today when she called to check on our wifi progress!!
Anyway, we did venture out in the end and got some great shots by the sea. I found the compositions and Paul did the techy bit to get the perfect shot. Sadly we have no way of downloading them here so you will have to wait to see them.
We returned to the villa to watch part 2 of celebrity apprentice USA. Sadly Nadia Comeneci fell foul of Donald when she failed to fight her corner.
We awoke on Tuesday morning to a glorious day. Warm Sunshine and a blue sky with wispy clouds. We sat outside basking in the sun and headed out about 11am. The plan was to go to the beach and find a nice bar/restaurant for lunch. We parked up and wandered down to the beach. Paul had seen a recommended place on trip advisor and felt sure he could find it. To do so this included a long walk across the beach and the sand is far from soft underfoot. It was littered with broken shells that were not comfortable inside your sandals I can tell you. Needless to say we didn’t find the place so headed back up to road level (being Coastal and hilly the beach is a long way down) and walked along the front. It was windy but still warm. We then made our way down the escalators (yes, you read that right) to beach level again and found a secluded place in the sun where we decide to stop. Pretty much everyone speaks really good English and the whole place seems geared up for Brits so not surprisingly Paul had a full English breakfast and I opted for a jacket potato with tuna. The food was really nice and we sat in the warm sun for a good hour or so. I had purchased a hat along the way as the sun gets in my eyes so sat there in my old man’s style trilby.
When we moved on we had decided to go and find the lighthouses that were at the tip of Lagos. It was about a 45 minute drive to get to the Marina where we stopped briefly and then about 10 mins to the coast where there was a very small, uninspiring gated lighthouse building. It was all locked up however there were lots of people there all seemingly heading around the back. We did the same and found ourselves at the top of the Coastal cliffs looking down into some caves. There were pathways and even steps all the way down to sea level and there were some amazing views (yep, you guessed it, photos to follow – sorry). Paul did his Edmund Hillary impression and scaled the tallest peak, which seemed to concern a middle aged couple next to me but we had seen several people climb it so it was reasonably safe. Paul did say it was a little blowy up there though which made him slightly uneasy.
We returned to our trusty punto and headed back. We wanted to take a Coastal road but Tom Tom said no! So it was back down the motorway and came back. By this time it was around 5:30 so we had a breather, got spruced up and went out to get some dinner. Paul had spotted a restaurant he wanted to try on the chavvy strip so we managed to park and wandered down. It was the restaurant costa rica and we got an outside table on the path edge and watched the world go by. I ordered melon and Parma ham to start and Paul had the French onion soup. I then opted for grilled chicken and chips and Paul had omelette with sautéed potatoes. We finished this off with a pancake with cream, ice cream and chocolate sauce. The food really was nice and it was a great dinner, they would have been handsomely tipped if it hadn’t been for their attempt to diddle us at the end. They gave us change for 50 euros when we had given them 60. Wrong people to try and swindle as we have our wits about us. Of course it may have been a genuine mistake you may think us way too cynical!
We came home and watched episode 3 of celebrity apprentice USA and this time Gene Simmons was out. Donald gave him every opportunity to stay and offered him another contestant on a plate to be fired but Gene defied him (and defied all logic it has to be said) and committed boardroom suicide.
Other notable tv highlights at the stage are French x-factor and a variation of millionaire called high pressure where contestants have to answer and if they win they stay on and if not they are replaced by another contestant who takes over the winnings so far and carries on. Paul and I answered more questions correctly than most contestants even with them being in Portuguese. We did use the trusty iPhone translator app once or twice admittedly.
This morning was another hot sunny one and again we lazed around the villa until after 12. We had decided to go the the zoo marine park which is not overly big the afternoon would be enough. It was 25 euros each to get in and was pretty empty. This whole place is dead this week which I really like but Paul wants a few more folks apparently. The first show was the sea lion show at 1:45 so we made our way to some good seats. The warm up act was a weird looking pirate who got 4 male members of the audience out front and got them playing air drums, air guitar, air bass and even and air vocalist. A couple of them were clearly Brits but the star of the show was a foreign guy who went all out to perform for the crowd and was awarded a big stuffed polar bear for his efforts. Upon seeing that I urged Paul to make a pratt of himself but to no avail 😉
The show was a little dated (this whole area seems stuck in the 90’s) and needed a script update but the sea lions and grey seals were cute. I was slightly disturbed that the show included a piece with the actors wielding clubs when grey seals were around and also a scene where the “baddy” character shot a sea lion who then proceeded to play dead but it all ended on a typical PC note where the treasure they had been hunting was life itself and Michael Jackson’s “heal the world” played out.
After this we had an hour before the dolphin show so went to get some food. We had grotty cheeseburgers but it did the job. We then wandered to the turtles and onto the alligators and the crocodile. The keepers were feeding the croc, named Jando, and at one point the croc spun round and scared the living daylights out of us all. He was certainly quick and we were able to get really close. The gators were all spark out in the sun.
We then went into the dolphin show which included a synchronised swimming team display. An odd choice and more cellulite than you see on your average swimmer but mildly entertaining all the same. There were about a dozen dolphins who did the usual stuff; pushing trainers along, waving tails, jumping and a section where 2 toddlers were pulled along in a boat. We had seen the toddlers be selected pre-show. A little blond girl clearly keen and a young Portuguese looking boy who seemed far from keen but his parents were not taking no for an answer! I forgot to mention that pre-show entertainment was the previous pirate geezer this time appearing as a clown. It was not as good as the air band and there were no stuffed polar bears on offer. There was however a popcorn seller so we did buy a cone and it was really nice popcorn.
We exited the show at about 3:45 and wandered around in the sun for a while until the sea lion feeding at 4pm. There was also an underground viewing area where you could see clearly into the tanks and we watched the seals and sea lions for a while.
We then made our way to the aquarium where we saw a wicked octopus, a cool starfish and a pretty big tiger shark. We then made our way to the sting ray pool and stroked the rays, exiting with slimy fingers!!
There was not a lot else to do so we left and came back to the villa. We sat outside for a while deliberating dinner. Neither of us were overly hungry and didn’t want to get all dolled up to go out so headed back to the main strip once more. We ambled along and eventually settled on Chinese which was really nice. I had chicken and sweetcorn soup to start and Paul had chilli prawns. I then had sweet and sour chicken with noodles and Paul went for prawns in black bean sauce with egg fried rice. It was really cheap at 22 euros total.
We came straight back to the villa as we were both tired and that is where you find us now. I think Paul is pretty fed up with the limited uk channels so I’ll sign off for now so we can use the iPad to watch the next instalment of celebrity apprentice USA.