A Trip to the End of the World
Its a little disconcerting to walk past a Portugese fort in, well, Portugal. The fronts of old churches likewise transport me straight back to Sri Lanka.
Underneath the fort there is a little beach with coves in the ochre cliffs offering pretty little hideaways for a picnic lunch. The turquoise water laps up on the pale sand and makes me want to jump in but it is cold – this is the Atlantic.
I sit in peace for a little while until a dalmatian comes running slobbering into view. This is a town beach.
I�ll have to get away from tourist-land. I know I do. The Algarve is not exactly a destination for adventure travel; this is where wealthy aunties go for their winter retreat. Right now the ages of the tourists here are dichotomous: surfer dudes who, I presume, stay on the campsite and pensioners who are strolling up this little beach. Makes me wonder where I stand…
Pretty though it is, by the following morning Lagos has exhausted its possibilities. I’m not one for visiting churches and museums at the best of times and sitting on the beach was not an option because, by noon, the sun had disappeared and a stiff breeze was blowing from the sea.
I cursed having committed to stay for two nights and dithered for about an hour, walking back and forth between the town and the beach, then I jumped onto a bus to Sarges.
Sarges was once considered to be the End of the World. Here, the seemingly endless ocean thunders into sheer cliffs over 100 feet high and here, so the Romans thought, the sun would sink hissing into the sea at the end of each day.
But Sarges was also the beginning of the age of exploration.
Henry the Navigator Prince set up residence here in the fifteenth century and founded the world’s first nautical academy. Magellan and Vasco da Gama went to school here, as did Bartolomeu Dias who discovered the seaway to the Indian Ocean in 1488.
The surviving north wall of the once mighty Fortaleza high on a clifftop dominates the scenery. It is a pity then that the fort itself should be up for a special award for worst developed historical site, if there was such a thing. The ancient walls are obscured by a coat of ugly concrete in dire need of a coat of paint and more concrete buildings are found inside where, instead of a historical exhibition, they house some modern art and the obligatory shop and café. Only a few remnants of the once seminal school of navigation remain scattered on the site. A cobbled path (here in Portugal, all the paths are cobbled) leads around the windswept, rugged clifftop to a modern lighthouse at the tip. Fifteenth century cannons still face menacingly out to sea.
Below the fort, surfers play in the waves. The beach, a bay of golden sand surrounded by spectacular jagged cliffs, is deserted as everybody is in the water. I go down to sit on a rock and watch the sun fizzle into the ocean beyond the rim of the world. If I had a board, I would be back tomorrow.
Tags: Portugal, Tag Index
Denni