Boating Week

Boating with my buddies. by: Duarte
May 25, 2007

When I lived in Lisbon (15 years ago) I owned a plastic boat and used it frequently to surf in the ocean. However, it wasn’t until I moved to Bowling Green, Ohio (of all places) that I learned to (Eskimo) roll and became addicted to white water. A year later I visited Portugal and had a disastrous descent of the Paiva river with Lipe and my long time adventure buddy Octavio Canhao. So, as I gradually accumulated white water experience in the US, I became increasingly fixated with spending some time with a hand full of hard core boating friends here in northern Portugal during the rainy season. Then, one wintery morning in State College’s Barnes & Noble I spotted a centerfold photo with what seemed to be the world’s most incredible triple waterfall – it was a photo of the main drop in Castro Laboreiro Creek, a creek located about 1.5 hrs of Quinta da Mata. That was it… I just had to make this dream come true.

Well… the dream just came true! ☺ My buddies, Craig, Sid, TJ, Traff, and Wade spent the second week of May here with us. We paddled great rivers, ate lots of meat, drank tons of wine, “abused on the motocross”, slept little, and danced and laughed like there was no tomorrow. In the process, here are some of the things I will remember:
• I dropped a kayak off the LR’s roof 10 min into the trip which made a dent on the back door;
• Wade, Traff, and TJ reluctantly tried roasted lamb on the way to Paiva river. Sid (the vegetarian) had his first (of many) Portuguese vegetable soups;
• The guys had an “Abelhinha” (fire-water and honey) shot at the tavern in the Paiva river take-out. The bottle was empty when I arrived;
• We had blood sausage as an appetizer, and shared a glass of home-made fire-water as digestive;
• We hung out with a bunch of fun, fun, fun Portuguese boaters until 4am at the put-in beach of the Paiva;
• Wade and I got up at 6am to pick-up Craig from the airport. The others got up at 11:00am… %$#@&#%$
• In a mountain village near the put-in for the Cavado river (inside Geres National Park), Craig stopped a pack of dogs from barking by flipping his left Chaco upside down (a Portuguese trick learned from my mom);
• At the Cavado take-out, we all agreed that we had just ran the most beautiful gorge of our paddling careers;
• At a T-intersection somewhere near Montalegre, Traff and Sid stopped their car to take a picture of the sunset and lost sight of the LR. They became hopelessly lost and ended up seeking help at a gas station in Braga (check out how far that is from Chaves in Google Earth and note: they were not able to speak a word of Portuguese). They bought a map, beer and chips and made it to Quinta da Mata by 1am;
• One of us (please don’t make me mention that it was Sid) left his kayak poorly parked on the bank while scouting a rapid in the Tamega river and it slid onto the water and drifted under a big rock and became hopelessly stuck. We had to leave it there and he had to swim and hike out of the gorge – the same trail Susanne and I had to use in January. Remember?
• Lipe took the guys partying haaaaard at a crazy university concert/party in Braga. At around 8am, still partying hard, Traff had a close encounter with a couple of bad boys jealous of his impeccable dance moves;
• We went back to the Tamega and found Sid’s boat one mile downstream. Yippie…it was a borrowed boat and it would have hurt to compensate its owner;
• We did the first descent of a set of tea cup drops just north of the border with Spain (see pic). Sid got lost again and we had to yell for him from across the border;
• We ate Tapas in Verin, Galicia. The best dishes were Pimientos al Padron and seared pig’s ear. Henrique, the owner/cook insisted that he’d prepare his best vegetarian dish for Sid. This vegetarian dish turned out to be squid;
• We ran the Tua – an amazing river gorge inside the Alto Douro Vinhateiro World Heritage Area condemned to be flooded due to a soon to be built hydroelectric dam;
• We all had a “little French girl” (Francesinha – a regional specialty sandwich) for lunch at the Povoa de Varzim beach and enjoyed a beer in Porto’s Ribeira.

Now we are all more or (in my case) less back into our normal lives but we will be meeting again soon to boat together. In July I am going to kick Traff’s butt on the Upper Yough Extreme race and in September we’re all meeting up at the Gauley river for a family fun and boating weekend. There has also been some talk about visiting Craig’s homeland – New Zealand some time in the near future. Oh boy… I wonder if they have good boating and good food there too! ☺