spotted these pretty flowers in a neighbour garden, and aren’t they a thing of beauty?
they’re orbea variegata, also known as star flowers. it’s a succulent with cactus-like “leaves”, but the flowers were what drew me to them — they grow around the edges of the plant in the winter rainfall season, and are just striking.
i’ve recently gotten my hands on a few specimens to plant in the garden, for further investigation… :P
lots of new birds, rain, video dinners with friends, a short caravan trip to hike around alentejo and check on our favorite coast, new succulents, lots of walking… and so much chinese studying.
a good month by all accounts, but i think this year is finally getting to me. :( slowly, tiredness settled in and it felt like my energy was barely enough to keep up with work and studying for the exam. i tried to squeeze in some walking everyday, but everything else just felt like too much.
we don’t usually pay much attention to eurovision, but we have friends who do and it’s hard not to get sucked into their enthusiasm and share the joy of the contest. although it ended up not taking place this year, we were reminded of eurovision by our russian friends, who brought up their country song in a conversation:
i haven’t listened to all the others, but little big’s uno is a huge hit around here and would likely have our vote! all of little big‘s songs are, in fact, brilliant — we’re fond of their deliciously nonsense lyrics, catchy beats and especially of the videos full of theatrical antics.
if you need a break and something to distract you from the world right now, i’d recommend a trip to their youtube channel. enjoy!
following j’s lead, i’m going to start posting a little bit about the hikes we do now and then, mostly so that i don’t forget them so quickly. we often find ourselves looking at hiking trails in the south, puzzled as to whether we’ve already done them or not… so this seems like a good idea! :)
first up, tavira’s own PR12, a small 6,9km circular path we did last weekend since we couldn’t get out of the area.
the day was sunny and warm, but the trail didn’t get off to a good start. we discovered early on that the signs for it were scarce and faded, and ended up taking a wrong turn right at the beginning. as we considered backtracking, a big dog watched over us in the path ahead. so, me being a huge chicken, decided to just detour and climb a steep wall of gravel to shortcut it instead… which wasn’t terribly smart, but we’ve made it. when my heart stopped beating so fast, we were finally able to get on the right path and enjoy the day.
the goal was to find the hidden village of curral da pedra, deep in the middle of barrocal.
on the way there, we saw all the colors of autumn in algarve, which are not the same as autumn in other places.
we also saw iberian magpies, one of our favorite birds with their magnificent blue wings, but my little phone is not good enough to capture them.
this was an easy route, maybe a bit boring even as it takes place mostly on country roads with just a bit of elevation towards the end. we were done in 3 hours at a very slow pace, and back home safe and sound.
