M. de Ruiter
We spend a week here at their camp to go kite surfing at the end of August and it was amazing. Since they do all kind of things, I'll break this review down into 3 parts: 1. Accommodations/the camp 2. Activities 3. Kite surfing 1. Accommodations We got the room with the 2 beds and a private bathroom. Not very big, but it had AC, a good shower and beds that were decent. But you'll not spend a lot of time in here anyway. It's Portugal. It's hot and sunny and the only time spend in your room will be for sleeping or horizontal yoga anyway. The rest of the camp was awesome. They have a pool, that feels really cold when you jump in but is actually pretty nice compared to the 30+ degrees celcius outside. They got all kinds of areas to relax. Either at the couch of happiness in the sun, or a sun bed underneath the massive tree or just on the grass, you'll be able to find a spot that works for you. It can get a bit chilly at night with the high winds, so they also have a living room area that's perfect to relax after a hard day of activities. Now i have to give an extra big special shout out to the food. How they manage to feed 60+ people every day (except wednesday) for breakfast and dinner and still maintain that quality, i do not know. It's magic. They must put some special kind of spice, like ground up sunshine, into the dishes to make them taste so amazing. I figured that with the buffet style meals they advertise it would be just the average hotel kind of stuff. Filling but nothing special. I was so, so wrong. I gained a kilo, even with all the sports, just from being compelled to go for seconds. Big shout out to the cooks for making this one of the highlights of the day. 2. Activities We got becalmed for 2 days, so no kite surfing. But that means you get to do other things! We went wakeboarding at the nearby wakepark and the camp just takes care of you with transfers and pickups and everything. Brilliant. No need to worry about if the uber is ever going to show up or get annoyed it takes the long way around. Yoga lessons are also offered for free and they're actually pretty fun. Don't always fit our schedule but it's a fun thing to do when you have time. We did also sign up for a sun rise sup tour, but the minimum number of people was not reached. So that was a bummer. Probably had something to do with the end of summer party and the start of the tour being at 6 in the morning. 3. Kiting The actual reason for our stay. I'm a tall fat guy. No hiding it. But with the kite surfing, this didn't matter. I just got a bigger kite! I can tell you, when you fly a 13m2 kite in gusty winds, you really start to appreciate the power that thing can generate. I went flying! The instructors were very good, very friendly, knowledgable and funny. Shout out to JJ for getting both myself and my girlfriend to do a waterstart right at the end of the week. It was glorious! The lagoon we did the kiting at was a 20 minute car ride away, nice warmish water, even at high tide not too deep. It could get bussy with 30 students trying to learn how to kite at the same time but there's really no avoiding that. Only advice i'd give is don't wear flip flops. Get some watershoes or shoes that you don't care about to get you to the starting beach because you have to clamber over a lot of loose rocks. There's so much more to say, Lagos is a nice town to just visit, there're plenty of bars to go out at night , at least according to the other people staying at the camp, we never went, we're 20 years past that stage. The weather was fantastic, Rusty the cat is cute etc. etc. etc. I highly recommend this place for anybody that wants to do water sports and have a great time. Even when you're no longer 20 and lost that body of a Greek god and have more of a beer keg then a 6 pack, you'll probably still enjoy your stay.