Surfing at Praia do Amado, Sagres
Let's go back to the beginning, to the pseudo joke, to meet its protagonists. The Irishman has returned to Europe after several years in Canada and his body cries out for him recharge batteries to start over , the Dutchman spends here the last week of a solo tour of Portugal and the Englishman (in this case, the Englishwoman), has arrived dragged by the need to see a sky beyond the scale of gray and put a brake on his frenetic activity.
The sunset from the Memmo Baleeira hotel
The Portuguese, on the other hand, is an expert surfer with tanned skin and a permanent smile, the Dane, her boyfriend, a mile-long 'yogi' who transmits peace just by looking at him, and the semi-Anglo-Saxon, an architect who came back from walking around world to his native Sagres and decided to hang up the rotring, the square and the bevel and reject a juicy offer from Dubai to go live in a house on a cliff with his dog (Fadista) and dedicate himself to what is now his profession, barnacle.
The first three are hotel clients, the second three, the brave entrepreneurs of an original and alternative program called Pure flow Motions , linked to memmo baleeira , where one would like to stay forever.
Memmo Baleeira Room with Beach View
we meet at a van full of wetsuits and cooler bags loaded with bottled water and dried figs. Mine is the first day of surfing (I rejoin the group). His, the third, and last experience in the water. Said like this, it seems almost the same, but in practice two days apart means a whole world because, while they are already able to get up when the wave arrives, I, a sad dry-land surfer, rehearse in the sand, how to stand up at the moment suitable for dancing on the waves.
Sagres: surfing, yoga and sunsets like no other
There are several hours of intensive lessons, but surfing is a sport of perseverance and patience that ue is not improvised at the first opportunity. When he catches you, he hooks you . If not, tell Rodrigo Machaz, the owner of the Memmo Baleeira hotel, a 41-year-old surfer with the appearance and attitude of a twentysomething, who has been glued to a board his whole life. After a great experience in luxury hotels around the world (Four Seasons in Vancouver and Ritz in Lisbon), he set up his here so as not to separate himself too much from the waves, pouring out his expertise and his affection in equal parts.
Like him, many of his guests are bitten by the bug and return several times a year. Many are families or groups of friends from Central Europe who are just starting out, others who prefer the very concept of bleached wick lifestyle and they want, more than anything, to live the experience. The rest are those who join our Pure Flow Motions, that includes, in addition to an initiation in this sport, other activities that have in common the contact with nature, the effort and the interior incursion.
The garden of Memmo Baleeira
yoga, meditation outdoors with sunset, trekking along the Vicentine coast with picnics on the beach and the spa afternoons at the hotel are combined with a vegetarian diet a, which is not aimed especially at veggies, but at people who, in their daily lives, do not usually give up meat or fish, but here they accept the challenge.
atlantic yoga
Neither alcohol nor sweets are allowed throughout the week . Except on the last day, at the surprise and farewell dinner, when Nicolau, the architect turned mountain guide and barnacle collector, appears with his chocolate mousse , the best in the entire Algarve, as his colleagues like to say… and the last of the sweet reasons to want to repeat.
** Pure Flow Motions Pack:** one week duration (6 days/7 nights). In low season (from March to April) prices start at 635 euros. Includes full board accommodation, activities and transportation.
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Enjoyment in Sagres