Quarteira Triathlon & Paderne Easter Bread Fair

Slept in a little this morning, didn’t wake up until 8AM, guess we were making up for some missing sleep last week.

First off we had to figure out if we could pay our road tolls that Andre was supposed to look after last week while I was in London, but forgot. We searched on the internet but couldn’t quite figure it out, except that you could pay at a post office. Found the post office very near to our apartment, but it is closed on Saturdays, oh well something for Andre to look after next week, I will remind him since he seems to be getting old.

Andre made a yummy breakfast of french toast with strawberries and fresh squeezed orange juice. I noticed a bit of a sore throat this morning, maybe because I have gone a week without fresh squeezed orange juice.

Yummy breakfast

Did a load of laundry and put it out for the day, hoping it will dry and we won’t get much rain, then we were ready to start our adventures for the day.

First stop was not far, we went to the little market in Albufeira. We bought some almonds for snacks, and some figs which I like though I know most don’t. Then we spotted a newspaper shop, and we had read online that you could pay your tolls here too. Went into the little shop, neither of the shopkeepers could speak English, but there was a girl there that was some kind of distributor and she was able to translate for us, I did figure out when she said she like to practice her English. Anyway she was able to help us out, we passed them our car keys which had our license plate number on them and came up with tolls of 21.75 Euro outstanding. She told us the locals are all upset about these new tolls and do not use the toll roads, I can understand why. We are not even sure exactly what we paid for, there are no details on the receipt, just how much you owe. We were actually expecting it to be a little higher than this, so Andre will go back again later in the week to see if our last trip to Faro airport just hasn’t caught up with us yet. What a system!!!

Streetlights changed this week, love is in the air in Albufeira??

Buying Almonds and Figs at the market

Market in Albufeira

This guy in front was tailgating us but got by, I was glad when he moved on to his next victom!

From the market we went on to the town of Quarteria where there is a European Triathlon happening today. I was amazed how busy the road was to get there today, guess everyone is avoiding the toll roads like us!! We got there about an hour before the race started, it was fun to see the girls getting their bikes ready, getting their numbers painted on their bodies, and warming up. We only saw the girls, as the guys were after the girls and we didn’t want to spend the whole day here. First off was the swimming section, quite something when it is in an ocean with big breakers! They start off about 100 feet from the water and run down to start all at once. Sounds easy except there were 40 women, all leaving at once, and they had to get through the breakers, it was amazing to see. Another thing we didn’t realize is we thought they did 2 laps, well they do 2 laps, but after the first lap they actually have to get out of the water, run around these pylons, and run back into the water for the second lap, which of course meant another trip through the breakers. It was fun watching them try to catch the waves on the way into shore, an easy way to make up a few places if you caught the wave right! We watched the transition to the bikes, then a couple of laps of the bike race then decided we had enough and headed out for our next adventure.

Beach in Quarteira where Triatholon was

Start of swimming section

Get out of water, run around pylons and start second lap!

Bike ready to go

Transition from swimming to biking

First lap leaders

Murals at bus station

High speed downhill with sharp corner at bottom

Next stop is the town of Paderne where there is an Easter Bread festival going on. Yep, it was exactly what it said, all kinds of booths set up selling different Easter Breads. Seems every little town has their own recipe for Easter Bread and they were all represented here, and no signs of any hot cross buns. We got to sample a few different ones, and we picked one to have for breakfast tomorrow morning. They were also baking bread in brick ovens, we bought some and it turns out it had chorizo sausage baked in it. They also were roasting a whole pig over an open fire, Andre had a pork sandwich. He also tried some little snails that were interesting, they are so small they give you a toothpick to pick the snail out of the shell with. They also had a stage set up with live entertainment, the accordion players from the other night were there, so now I am afraid we are going to be know as the accordion groupies, or maybe the accordion stalkers. We stayed until about 7PM then decided it was time to head home.

Getting ovens ready for baking bread

Ladies we bought our Easter bread from

Making Filohs, their version of a churro

Piti Piri sauce, yummy

Roasting a pig -  Lima Andre wants one of these basters for next summer for the BBQ!!

Bread added to oven

Andre eatting little snails that they have everywhere here, so small you use a toothpick to get them out!

Little boy didn't hold on tight enough to his balloon

If Craig didn't like the car we found him, maybe this bike would do?