What came before: Algarve field course

Hello, this is our weblog of the Portugal Hydrology 2006 trip! For starters, we have to warn people reading this stuff in the Netherlands. Since the weather is great and we have a LOT of fun, this might be shocking to you:). The participants are: Yi (China), Susana (Guatemala), Jo (France), Kyle (Canada), Bastiaan, Josie, Sjors, Rob (only Algarve) and us, Jessica and Maarten (Netherlands).

We first got (really) acquainted with each other during the Twente fieldwork. There, we learned how to use a lot of equipment and, especially, how to have fun during fieldwork…

Us with Achille (Italy) and Hylke (Almere, booee), Jochem was there too.


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After having finished that, we flew to Faro, in the south of Portugal (Algarve). There, we started with a one week excursion in the Algarve, with Henk Kooi and ‘Riesjart’ as drill instructors. Again, it was a lot of fun! And we learned some system thinking too, all that in one week! (don’t underestimate the power of system thinking!!). During the excursion we visited some nice spots, like the very impressing beaches and an amazing waterfall, named “the hell”. And indeed, the name says it all, it was a breathtaking jump!

Rob, Sjors and Maarten holding on to his nose. And the girls jumped too!!

After this experience we sat down for a beer and spent some time with the locals. As you can see at the picture, it didn’t take long to fit in.

Doesn’t Kyle look like a typical Portuguese farmer after a hard day of work?!


Henk being the ultimate drill sergeant at a new excursion point: even Riesjart isn’t paying attention…

A very special feature of the excursion was a visit to a salt mine in action. Like real miners/moonwalkers we went down till 230 m. We almost lost a couple of students because the power broke down and the elevator got stuck…(but no worries, everything was under control)
Here, everybody is still a okay…



















Richard and Henk planned our excursion days in such a way that we always ended up on a nice beach! So if the beaches are that interesting, why not a whole day on an island on our only day off.














Working on our tans















This was our cab to the island close to Olhao.

After the first week, we finally got to do some real work ourselves. Divided in groups we explored our areas on mountain bikes. We had to make an inventory of all the water flows in our designated areas. We looked for wells (noras) to measure the water depth and chemistry (i.e. some water stuff…) It was a week full of fun and we all passed! Hatsekiedeee, kat in ‘t bakkie!

To wrap it up, we would like to make a final remark on the first two weeks in Portugal: it’s very interesting to have a cultural diverse group!! For example: Yi finds it very cold here (tsss..) and he sleeps all the time if he doesn’t get enough rice, Maarten is very Dutch and he already found peanut butter here, Susana brings in the Latina spirit (especially on the dance floor..), Kyle is showing how to eat hamburgers, Jessica can already speak some Chinese but no Portuguese, that’s handy…, Sjors is showing how to be a real surf dude, Jo only drinks red wine, sometimes a little too much, Josie being the best uphill cyclist from Limburg, Bastiaan was too busy with the coming world cup, Rob showing his Dutch Pinocchio moves on the dance floor, Richard being the writer of Riesjart on our Portugal football and last but not least Henk, our ‘excellent’ van driver :)!




















A very nice nora makes all of us very happy (or gay)















Yi just ate rice















Rob doesn’t get the system thinking yet
















System thinking in our base camp (if the beer is gone, order a new one: tada we created a system). Beer is 70 cents!!!!!!!!!!

So, this was the summary of the first two weeks. We have only three weeks to go, so see you guys in The Netherlands very soon!!!

Henk, Richard, thank you very much for the two amazing weeks!

Cheers,
Jessica and Maarten