Where are the Veggies? by Sid (guest writer)

May 11th – 20th Where’s are the Veggies? Guest blogger: Sid (the vegetarian boater)

First, much love to Duarte and the family for the first class amazing experience we had in Northern Portugal. I’ve studied abroad in Australia and New Zealand, traveled to Alaska for Fisheries biology, hitched hiked for 22 days in the Hawaiian Islands, spent time in the Bahamas for reef and shark scuba diving, skied in Jackson Hole, Stow, and upstate New York, all for seeking adventure. While all these trips were memorable, this trip to Portugal will always remain a favorite. There were elements of world class untapped whitewater, fine dining, historic castles, world heritage sites, an unexplainable paranormal phenomenon, getting absurdly lost, family love, and of course motocross, beer, and 6 guys in a 4wd loaded with kayaks with nothing to do but to seek adventure.
Besides the companionship and boating, a couple of things that I will remember are: First, I had heard Portugal might be hard for vegetarians. It was true, Portuguese love meat. I survived but only because Duarte and his family looked after my best interest. While I can say I never had a phenomenal vegetarian meal, there was no shortage of extravagant wine and cheese. In fact, there was so much good cheese that I know I raised my cholesterol levels quite a bit. Besides the cheese, I could almost always get a salad, cheese sandwich, boiled veggies, and Portugal’s famous veggie soup.
Northern Portugal still seems to be rooted in traditions and very much family oriented. When visiting restaurants, cafes, or small businesses, the shop owners would inevitably be there greeting, cooking, serving or anything else to ensure your visit to their shop was worthwhile. There were no big business chains, American tourists, or trash littered streets. Little villages away from everything are still very cozy, neatly maintained, and aesthetically pleasing to look at. We hardly saw any run down houses or businesses.
Another interesting thing I noticed was the social aspect of the people we met. It seemed like it was culturally insensitive to meet with someone for say five minutes and then take off. Every encounter seemed to take at least 30 minutes and usually involved a little shot of espresso coffee. It didn’t matter if you were late or going to be late, you still would chat over cigarettes, coffee, and some type of fresh food. There were so many times where we had this somewhat set time to do something but was inevitably delayed because of café and pastries. It was like rush, rush, rush to have time for socialization over café. It was great. Only after this, both of you would speed away like rally auto racers. The stress of business or the rat race didn’t seem to have nearly the same part in their lives as in our culture.
We boated for 6 out of the 8 days. The two days we missed were either due to lack of sleep or the shuttle rig had minor problems. Its hard to say what day was my favorite because they all could easily have been. Each day had a new twist. The first day, Saturday and Wade’s birthday, we boated on the classic Paiva river. With no sleep since Thursday night, we boated and partied with the local boating motocross group until the wee hours in the morning. Yeehaw for the ride home in Octavio’s vintage Land Rover ☺.
Sunday we picked up Craig, boated the Paiva again where he joined the Portuguese swim team.
Monday we boated the Cavado, steep creeking, big drops and big boofs, one of the (if not the) most scenic river gorge we had paddled to date. On the way back to Chaves, Trafford and I made a wrong turn, got lost, ended up in Braga, and had a huge adventure just trying to get back to Chaves as we didn’t know any Portuguese. Wednesday, we boated the Tamega where my boat and paddle tried to run the biggest rapid of the day without me. My paddle survived but my boat (with Craig’s video camera) was terribly stuck under an undercut rock with little chance of getting to it. That day, TJ joined the Portuguese swim team for his hero seal launch line into a house size bolder with pining rocks abounding. Due to an unfortunate sickness to Marcos (Duarte’s son), Duarte’s brother volunteered to take us to an incredible university party in Braga where Da Weasel rocked the party (approximate 20,000 people) until 4am. The party continued until 8am where unfortunately Trafford lip ran into the fists of two guys. Sadly we had to bid farewell to Craig who had to fly back home for work the next day. I bet that was an interesting flight, partying hard with friends until it was time to catch a taxi for the airport.
Wednesday was a recoup day with a nice long scenic drive back from Braga, stopping at Vidago, the small village where Lipe’s wife serves as the city planner. Later, we enjoyed a calm evening in Chaves drinking hot spring water in the center of town, enjoyed an assortment of fine teas at the Shiva bar, and soaked in the night lights of Chaves’s downtown historic architecture.

Thursday we recovered the boat I lost on the Tamega. Later we drove north into Spain and had a first descent of a series tight waterslides that dead ended into a 200 foot vertical waterfall. Later after the multiple runs, I was lost, again. We were supposed to run a lower section but when I hiked the ½ hour trek (mostly of which was done in bare feet because of the extremely steep smooth rock terrain and major concern of a bloat out in my flipflops) into the unknown gorge, there were no boats or friends to greet me. After the hike out, I found everyone at the vehicle laughing at me because they had changed their minds and I had taken the wrong trail down into the gorge. If I had taken the right trail, I would have spotted the group, avoiding the mix up. Later we had the most eventful and entertaining dinners, which were Spanish Tapas. We each ended up riding a coin operated horse (for children), ate the most unusual foods or should I say meats (excluding myself and Susanne), drinking firewater, taking home complimentary bottles of good wine and several beer glasses, and enjoying the owners absurd gestures and comments under the moon lit night.
Friday we boated the amazing stretch, soon to be dammed and under water, of the Tua in the Douro region. This region is famous for its wine production, widely recognized as one of the best regions in Portugal.
Saturday we had plans to take the playboats to the beach but fell through because of the shuttle rig’s brakes not functioning properly. Instead, Susanne and the children and Lipe’s wife Susanna joined us where we enjoyed the beach over beers. The ocean was producing 3 to 4 meter swells which we could only dream of surfing given that our boats were back at the house.
Saturday night we had an amazing seafood dinner highlighted by an evening at a collective artist discotec. The discotec was the 4th floor of a building in downtown Porto. Each room was designed by a different artist. Our favorite was outside in a triangle shaped courtyard under the stars, flowering plants hanging from the exterior walls with views into each of the different rooms with an outside bar specializing in Brazilian cocktails right beside us – Yum.
Sunday we all flew back to our homeland, exhausted but forever enriched with wonderful Portuguese memories. There are not enough words to express our gratitude to Duarte and his whole family for the invitation, hospitality, planning, and adventure that we were given.