Tuesday, February 10th – Pool Rules : Monchique - Marmelete

Well, two days rest at the Casas de Monchique Mountain resort and Spa did me the world of good. Although, I’m not sure if it was tiredness that made me cynical, but I can’t say I really liked the place.
It has been “a place to rejuvenate and lift the spirits since Roman times”, although it didn’t seem to have that effect on the staff, who came complete with the four star brand of respectful snottyness which people seem to like.
For all it’s turrets and castellations, it didn’t fool me, it looked like someone had dropped a small german village on the Portuguese mountainside. There wasn’t many people around, a German mother who seemed to be constantly disciplining her children (and if they know what was good for them, they would be taking her advice). There were a few Portuguese, a sprinkling of Americans. Over lunch an American husband tried his best to explain to his wife how to use their camcorder, each of the four times he tried, she patonisingly added “Why thank you Mr Spiel-berg”. I ate lunch outside on the second day.
My break did give me a chance to get down to see Paulo (my good Samaritan friend) and his band playing in the Café Anglais in Silves, I haven’t had much music while I’ve been away, so my aching bones were soothed greatly by it. Ana from Via Algarania came up and joined us for dinner, much chattering and stories told, all the worlds problems solved.
Perhaps it’s this sunny itinerant lifestyle that I’ve got used to, but I couldn’t wait until I got out on the hills, and felt lousy until I did. But once there, all was right with the world again.
It was probably the nicest day’s walking yet, one of the shorter stages, climbing out of the upper streets of Monchique up to Foia, the Algarve’s highest point. It then brought me down through stonewall layered mountainside, with hilltops swimming into the distance as far as the eye could see. Breathtaking.
The trek then passed under four giant hillside wind turbines, their thirty meter long arms swooping down gracefully from a great height. I stood below them with hurley and ball in hand, like a modern day Don Quixote. You all know that I am far too grown up to have hit the ball fourty meters up through their oncoming blades (but if I had, it would have made an interesting “ping” noise when it hit them).
The road then winded through a sweet smelling eucalyptus forest, leading me down to my destination, Marmelete (or as I like to call it, “Marmalade”).
I can’t say how much I enjoyed the day, difficult as it was to get started, a real joy. My mind wandered to what I was doing, what I was up to. The conclusion I came to was that doing something that is of no consequence is of the highest importance.
The way I see it is this. If we consider our minds to be like a swimming pool, we have all sorts of things going on in it, all sorts of thoughts and responsibilities to contend with, there are kids playing, there are lane-swimmers, well trained, getting on with their constant muscular work. All I am doing is emptying the pool, getting everything out, enjoying the calm water.
Once you do that, you can let one elegant thought in at a time, appreciate all that there is to see in it. It might even give you a chance to put down some new pool rules.
No running, no diving, no pushing, no divebombing, no rough play, no skinnydipping.
Well, maybe some skinnydipping.