On the Road....Algarve, Portugal, points east (Tavira & Seville) , Gibraltar, heading off the edge...

Welcome back...enjoy the posts from the other side as we head to Europe and beyond this Fall, 2016...

We book our flights with just days before flying out of Canada. We have a rough plan (as usual) about what to see and where to go...so up, up and away! 

After 3 flights and 30+ hours of traveling, we arrive in Lagos, Portugal. This section of the Algarve is truly stunning...craggy cliffs, quiet beaches, epic sunsets... it's something from a travel article.

We spend several days here.. visiting our daughter and taking a trip to Portugal's version of Land's End - Sagres!

The summer crowds in Lagos and along the Algarve have vanished by late October. Days are mild, not sweaty hot; while nights are cool.

The final good-bye to the frenetic tourist season is Halloween. Started a number of years ago by the expats living in Lagos and homesick for crappy candies and scary clowns, it has morphed into one ghoulish send off to the summer.

Celebrities thought to be Virgin Airlines' Richard Branson and the President of Flight Operations dropped by...

....along with Big Bird and friend

And legendary rock icon Ozzy Osbourne....

Putting costumes away, we head east towards Spain to the gorgeous Portuguese town of Tavira. It is as every bit laid back as Lagos is booming with tourists and young backpacker's energy.

Quiet tree lined streets and empty of tourists at the beginning of November. Shopkeepers are preparing for a mid November shut down of most restaurants, cafes etc and will spend the winter repairing energy, interiors and organizing for another tourist season in 2017.

We leave Lagos on an easy, efficient, clean bus for Seville. Like Lagos, we were here over 30 years ago. We find a room near old Town, walk the streets.

Marvel at the architecture, drink wonderful wines, eat tapas and sweets.

Seville is a world class big city, vibrant, full of people, shopping, talking around a cafe con leche, scanning a morning newspaper over a cigarette. 

We wander into old cathedrals and just enjoy the European way. 

We say goodbye to Seville and head out on the bus for Tarifa. It's west of Gibraltar and the closest land point to Morocco.

Here  the Mediterranean Sea on the left and the Atlantic Ocean on the right meet at Tarifa, Spain. 

Europe is soon to be behind us.

Tarifa is home to a huge kite surfing crowd on Playa de Los Lances. Surfing on the winds and waves that roll in on the Atlantic Ocean.

St. Catalina Castle - Tarifa 

Playa de Los Lances

Our home in Tarifa old town is at the wonderful Hostel Africa. Friendly, clean, safe and quiet....OK..that 4 am bar crowd was a bit noisy!

We take a side trip to the massive rock of Gibraltar...

a wonderful step back to a Merry Old England that was 40-50 yrs ago. English phone booths, fish 'n chips, beer...this little enclave has quite an historical history. The rock has guarded and been witness to the passing of maritime and world events over the last several hundred years.

We take the usual tour...see the resident Barbary macaque monkeys ... the only wild monkey population  in Europe 

...visit a magical natural cavern where concerts are regularly held and music is played as you progress through it

View the scenery from the highest point of over 400 m (that's Morocco in the distance)

The 30 000 populated city that sits at the base of

 "the rock" with airport, too.

And...walk through the tunnels engineered into the rock starting over 200 years ago, now consisting of more than 40 km

Oh, what secrets this Rock could tell....Shh!

Our final night in Tarifa is spent at a lovely seaside bar watching the sun dip into the Atlantic or is it the Mediterranean ? 

But, we say good bye to Europe...as we ferry across to Morocco and onto the next leg of our journey.

Adios and Cheers!!

S & Y

Fall, 2016 - We are Leaving on a jet plane...Want to come along?

Hey there, once again we are off travelling to some mysterious part of the world. 

We will be sending out semi-regular updates/photos over the upcoming weeks. 

If you DO NOT wish to receive these blogs from the heart; you can just trash them when they arrive, or let us know and we will delete you (forever) from our mailing system.

Living Bolder...not Older......

Happy travels to all the adventurers out there.

Shayne y Yvonne

Cagayan de Oro....in and gone in a blink...the long and winding road back to the Camotes Islands.....our last days....fond memories and friends....So long, Philippines...

We leave Camiguin, Mindinao with a handful of days remaning before we need to be on our flight home from Manila...

....so as usual, we have some rough plans of where to go and what to do...and, with crappy/non-existent WiFi around Camiguin... we are traveling old-school, like we did 40 yrs ago...little info about what's ahead, where to stay, flight schedules etc...so, what could go wrong?

...we are on the quiet ferry from Camiguin heading to the big island of Mindanao... almost empty, with a mere 20 passengers....

....we talk, plan and come up with some vague idea of finding some sort of beach side spot to enjoy the last days here....

...our packs have served us well these past 2 months....like a faithful pet, they handle everything thrown at them....always eager to climb on our backs and go....they've been durable on the trikes, jeepneys or navigating the broken, narrow concreted roads and sidewalks...never straying far from our side, these little Sherpas carry their weight.... or as much as Shayne sheds while away for 2 months...Yvonne wishes it would be more for her...

....we disembark on Mindanao port to gloomy and cloudy weather and start a 90 min bus ride to the big city Cagayan de Oro (CDO).....

....we see no coast line here to stay.... 

....in CDO, we grab a bite and look to move on....find a van heading along the coast to the airport...and the driver is willing to stop at some beach side places...

...1st stop is full, 2nd stop is rundown, 3rd stop is padlocked, 4th stop is down a dusty, rutted road to a 'resort' that has several palapas and not much else....

...on the fly and in the van we make a decision to head to the airport with the driver and see about flying out north to another spot..

....we love the freedom of changing our minds midstream.... it's so nice to be flexible and not locked into a hotel or schedule so that we can change and go in any direction, if needed...

...however, this laizze-faire approach does have the odd drawback here and there.....we must eat an already bought flight and buy another for Cebu...from there we've decided to head to the Camotes Islands....

......we have come to enjoy the uncertainty, the flexibility of making last minute, on the fly decisions .....keeps us young!

...north of Cebu City, we hop on a 2 hr ferry ride to the quiet islands of the Camotes...between Cebu and Leyte.

A comfortable open-air ride...

...we grab a trike and head to our resort...

Small stores everywhere, if needed.

Our view from our room...wow! Santiago Bay.

....sunsets

great beach...quiet...our resort/hotel 

...Beach side ...

...and a Reggae Bar....yeah for Bob Marley!

A neighbouring beach we walked to...

...imagine a beautiful low-key group of island approx 2 hrs by boat from a major city with millions...

....anywhere else, the islands would be full of city-folk, many beach retreats and traffic... not here, while development is happening, it is slow and small scale....

...the perfect way to spend our last weekend in the Philippines...

....best view in the lovely cove for the waterfront gravestones.  Most cemeteries seem to be built at the seaside here.

A nice view for the departed - all built above ground as the limestone is too hard to dig into.

...local kids swim, jump...

The graves peak out from under the trees asking us to visit...

A view back to our beach...

....we manage to wade back in the rising waters...'native-style'..