Kayaking Benagil

June 11, 2024

We had set the alarm for 7:00, but I think we were both awakened by the refrigerator that was running super loud in our room at 6:30. I definitely did not sleep as well as I had the night before. We got out the door by 8:20 and made it to our kayaking meet up spot by 9:00 for our tour of the Benagil Sea Caves.

There was 11 kayakers plus our guide, Pedro. These kayaks sat more on top of the water and were not as deep as other kayaks I have been in. Our butts were definitely getting wet! We were on the water by 10:00 and the water was in good conditions . . . not too wavy and the sun was shining. We kayaked to several caves and even kayaked in some of them. In my opinion, the caves were much more impressive than the caves in the Apostle Islands in Northern Wisconsin, however what I could not believe was how close and fast tour boats went by all the kayakers. This is a very popular destination in Portugal and you can certainly tell by the number of tours and traffic on the water by the caves. The last cave we went to was the highlight and why people come here. It was a beautiful cave with a beach and hole at the top where the sun shines right through. It was quite impressive. We got done at Noon and was super pleased with our experience.

The area around Benagil was crazy with cars and tourists so Tom Googled another beach about 30 minutes away where there was a restaurant on the beach. We had to park in town a bit, but it wasn’t a bad walk. We had great seats at the restaurant but had to wait for ever for a waiter to take our order. We considered leaving, but stuck it out. I’m glad we did. Although the meal was a little on the expensive side, it was super delicious. We shared shrimp tempura and a chicken quesadilla.

After lunch I walked the beach (by far the longest beach I have seen yet in Portugal) and walked to the end in one direction, and didn’t consider walking in the other direction because it went forever. Tom sat in the shade and enjoyed a cider beer while I walked. No treasures to be found on this beach. Before we left town we did a nearby virtual geocache.

We next went to another beach in Albufeira. Here we just sat on the deck of a restaurant and had smoothies, that really wasn’t the consistency of a smoothie that we’re familiar with. It still tasted good, but the consistency was weird. I didn’t walk this beach and we decided to head back to Lagos.

In Lagos we went to Camilo beach and walked down a ton of steps to the tiny secluded beach where we snapped a few pictures and then walked up the steps. We made reservations at the restaurant Camillo’s that is on top of the cliff for 9:00 this evening.

We came back to the apartment to shower and relax before our dinner reservation. When we headed back out for dinner it had gotten quite windy and the temperature dropped quite a bit. At the restaurant they wanted to seat us outside (I noticed they were giving blankets to patrons to use who were in the outdoor dining area), but we asked if we could wait until there was seating available inside. I’m glad we chose to wait. We had a very comfortable seat inside where no blanket was needed. We picked a fish from the case to share. I’m not exactly sure what kind of fish it was, but it was super tasty!! The fish came with potatoes and vegetables and was more than enough food. We walked away quite full.