Day 30 (Thursday, October 28, 2021)
Costs for the Day are in the Table below:
Today, I woke up at 7am. The planned snorkeling trip with a naturalist had been cancelled last night due to visibility. So, I got up and ran 0.6 Miles to the Calisthenics Park for my workout. Here is what I did:
3 sets of 10 pullups to chest level, 3 sets of 8 dips as low a possible from the pullup bar, 3 sets of 8 leg raises, 100 pushups (30/20/20/15/15), 1 minute straight arm planks – Left/Right/Regular, 1 minute flutter kicks, 3 sets of 10-15 second side holds from the bars, 50 inverted rows from the rings.
Then I went to Spar to pickup some bread, peanut butter, and jelly to pack a lunch for our climbing trip. (Cost: 6.07 EUR). After that, I met Bi at Millennium Bank at around 8:10am. We were the first in line to get our ticket at 8:30am when the bank opened but it took until 9:40am for them to issue 3 cashier’s checks for us. It also cost 66.16 EUR!! Nothing with the bank is easy or cheap here.
Bi split off to go to Vodafone to fix her sim card but found out her phone was locked so she has to call ATT to get it unlocked. She then went home and made PB&J sandwiches and packed fruits, water, and snacks.
Bi also made a nice breakfast of sausages, eggs, and toast with coffee. So, we had a quick breakfast and then packed up everything to meet up with Amanda in Estombar to go climbing at Rocha da Pena. We grabbed our bicycles and pedaled over to the train station on the other side of the harbor. There we purchased tickets from Lagos to Estombar and back. (Cost 9.8 EUR). The train was on time, safe, and fairly clean so not a bad experience at all. The ride took 27 minutes we went about 25km.
In Estombar, Amanda picked us up in her car from the train station and we went to get gas. Gas is expensive here costing 1.659 EUR/Liter. We chipped in 15.33 EUR for gas.
Amanda drove us 47km out to Rocha da Pena which takes about 51 minutes. On the way, we stopped for coffee and cookies at a Bicycle Cafe along the road which was quite nice. (Cost 2.4 EUR for a Coffee, Cookie, and some Fig/Walnuts)
Then we continued on our trip and soon arrived at Rocha da Pena. The approach to the climb is up a dusty dirt path to the base of the limestone cliff. Limestone feels more porous and sharp and the main agent of erosion is water that becomes slightly acidic when it dissolves atmospheric carbon dioxide. This acidic water chemically reacts with the limestone transforming the calcium carbonate in to soluble bicarbonate and creating cracks and crevices in the rock.
The routes were all sport routes and Amanda led them so we top roped and cleaned them except for the last climb which was an easier grade so Bi and I led that route for practice.
It was a beautiful day and we had a blast climbing!
