Irresponsible decisions sometimes lead to unforgettable memories and beauty!
Travelling life, new experiences and new friends. Momentarily working in a hostel in Portugal. Working in a hostel is great. You meet new people all day. Working in a hostel sucks. You constantly have to say goodbye to all those people.
Hiking, decisions and creating stories
After I think half an hour or hour of hiking, with two new friends I made at work, we went into the forest and I was wearing my only good shoes I have with me. Somehow while packing for Lisbon I must have missed something. No hiking boots with me on this trip. Strange! Anyhow, this morning I decided to walk on my nice fancy easy walkers and take my flipflops for at the beach. But into the forest, the vision of mud all over my shoes made me decided to switch to my flip-flops.
I hiked around 20 km on flip-flops and even hiked down the cliff on them.
Not very safe I know, you slip easily in them but the other shoes were not really suitable for that either.
The hike was beautiful along several palaces, through the forest, along lakes, over mountains and through nice towns. Amazing landscapes and the view from up on the cliff to the sea and the beach was amazing.
To be honest I can tell you from this experience: flipflops are not made for downhill hiking! Last part of the hike down the cliff was so steep, so I threw my flip-flops down the cliff and climbed down barefoot. Totally forgotten that I was still wearing a backpack where I could have put them in. But on the other hand, throwing the flipflops down felt so good! Like a burden on your shoulders that you throw away.
The path that we took down the cliff was not an official path and was quite difficult. Down on the beach, there was a sign at the place where we came down ‘dangerous falling rocks’.
It started as a normal path, walked down a bit, but got steeper and steeper. Loose rocks everywhere. We had to jump a few times of a rock to continue ‘the path’. And on two third of the hike down, where I decided that down was always ‘easier’ than back up, there was a cliff with a small waterfall going down. ‘The path’ ended there and it looked like we had to jump from 30 meters high down. Well, we decided that this was not the way to survive, so we jumped over the river to another hill, climbed up a bit to find another way down. Well there was one or there was none but we decided we went down there. That was the point where I threw my flip flops down. It was to steep to go down and here was the point where I thought well back up would have been definitely easier.
So not completely safe and not at all on flip-flops but it was a great adventure.
This struggle to get down took us 45 minutes.
Beach
The reward, the beach where we arrived, was amazing! So beautiful. Hardly any people, which I understood because for normal people it’s not possible to get here. The high cliffs around there made it almost windless. It was great! This is how I imagine heaven to be. This is what makes life amazing! It was paradise but and even better. Words can’t describe, pictures can’t show.
For this feeling, you probably need the difficult hike down, sore feet, the sun, the whole surrounding etc. Because a hike like this makes you even more grateful to arrive safely at a place like that. We relaxed, enjoyed the sun, the sea and the magic of life.
Most western point of Europe
After an hour of relaxing and recharging our energy on the beach, we decided to continue our trip and we wanted to walk to Cabo da Roca, the most western point of Europe.
We thought to walk along the coastline. But when we came around the cliff there was no beach only sea and a huge stone wall. Even with our downhill experience, we were not able to climb up there. Before I could turn around this big wave came in and I was soaked until my hips. It was a nice sunny day but still not so hot that I needed to cool down desperately. So I was not really happy with that.
Finally, we found an ‘easy’ way up. Anyway a lot easier than the way we came down but still not doable for everyone. Back on top, we found people that were looking sad that they would never be able to go to that beach, which we could understand for both reasons.
We walked on the edge of the cliff to Cabo da Roca, where we partly watched the sunset over the sea, this hike was amazing on the edge of the world!
In the meantime, my feet started protesting. They weren’t really happy anymore. Because of the slipping in my flip-flops while hiking down the cliff I gave myself some blisters. The fact that my pants were soaked and were dripping water all time on my feet in combination with sand all over my feet made it even worse; My feet got a deep scrub and couldn’t really appreciate this.
And if that wasn’t enough, arrived in Cabo da Roca where there is always a lot of wind and the sun went down I was freezing in my soaked clothes.
Back home, soaked, cold and with feet that needed at least a full week recovery… But it all was so worth it!
More love for my flip-flops
Apparently I really do love my flip-flops, see here another story about the relationship between me and my flip-flops.