Category: Local stories

News, stories, and updates in languages around the world.

/ Derek H /

13 Years Lisboa — Bryan Roth’s Trip to a Portugal Mega-Event

Bryan Roth with Signal.
Bryan Roth with Signal.

Geocaching HQ staff are joining geocachers at Mega-Events around the world to celebrate and share the adventure of geocaching. One of the founders of Geocaching.com, Bryan Roth, a.k.a. Bryan, traveled from Seattle, WA to Lisbon, Portugal last June for the 13 Years Lisboa Mega-Event (GC42FFG). He says he was inspired to go by the exciting and growing Portuguese geocaching community and by other Geocaching HQ staffers who attended a Portuguese Mega-Event and raved about their experiences.

The Seeker awards.
The Seeker awards.

After arriving in Portugal, Bryan did what any geocacher would do—look for a geocache near the hotel. There was only one problem: the geocache description was in Portuguese. However, this didn’t stop him from searching. Luckily, Boonieh&  Cllydeh, some super-friendly members of the Portuguese geocaching community showed up. They helped Bryan find his first geocache in Portugal and decided to attend the Mega-Event as well. With a geocache found, it was back to the hotel before meeting the Geocacherzone Portugal team for dinner and then a good night’s rest before the Mega-Event.

Fraldinhas, the Mega-Event's host.
Fraldinhas, the Mega-Event’s host.

The next few days brought tons of activities for geocachers from Portugal and many other countries around the world. In fact, the event gained so much popularity, there were a few stories on the local news channels about it. The Mega-Event host, Fraldinhas, with help from his parents, Xana and Nuno, and many volunteers, created an exceptional four-day event that included night caching, a Lisbon bus tour, a much-needed CITO Event (GC4BNP8), an awards ceremony, a traditional Portuguese singing group with a rendition of “Geocaching Portugal”, a number of meet-and-greets, “Bruning” with the local Geocaching Volunteer Reviewers, and (of course) plenty of geocaching. The awards, known as the “Seeker Awards”, were given out to geocachers in multiple categories, including Best Maintenance, Best Log, Best Cache and more. Bryan ended his trip with another Mega-Event Cache hosted by Fraldinhas, the Hike @ Belém, that featured a walking tour of a number of geocaches at historical places within Lisbon.

Bryan says, “It was truly an honor for me to attend this International Mega Event, spend time with so many exceptional geocachers and experience Lisbon, Portugal in such a unique way.  I would thank all of the organizers for all the work they did to plan multiple days of fun geocaching activities for everyone that showed up. I also want to thank all of the geocachers who took the time to speak with me and make me feel so welcome in Portugal.” He would also like to give a special shout-out to Fraldinhas, Xana and Nuno for all of their guidance and support during his trip.

 

 

Check out some more photos from Bryan’s trip:

Attendees of the Hike @ Belem.
Attendees of the Hike @ Belem.
"Bruning" in Lisbon. It's kind of like planking, but on your back.
“Bruning” in Lisbon. It’s kind of like planking, but on your back.
The Geocaching Choir
The Geocaching Choir
The 13 Years Lisboa pinboard. Can you find Bryan's pin?
The 13 Years Lisboa pinboard. Can you find Bryan’s pin?
Night caching in Portugal
Night caching in Portugal
/ Derek H /

Home sweet boulder. — Lameirinha (GC16670) — Geocache of the Week

Nestled in the hills of Portugal lies Casa do Penedo. photo by geocacher trinamixx
I’m expecting Fred and Wilma to walk out at any moment. Photo by geocacher trinamixx

Out of the numerous things geocaching has taught me, one of the special skills that has carried over into my day-to-day life has been to look more closely at everything. For example, at first glance, the photo above may just be a pretty picture of another amazing rock formation. However, if you look a little closer, you’ll notice a door…and windows…and a roof. Then you’ll see that it’s a stone house that looks like it came straight out of the Flintstones.  Once you see that, you can take an even closer look to find Lameirinha (GC16670), this week’s Geocache of the Week.

We're super excited about this geocache, too! Photo by geocacher acaferreira
We’re super excited about this geocache, too! Photo by geocacher acaferreira

The Casa do Penedo was built in 1974, between four enormous boulders in the northern hills of Portugal. The entire home, except for the doors, windows and roof, is constructed of rock. Inside, a more rustic style prevails with logs for stairs, furniture and railings. While it may sound pretty lush, there’s one caveat: the stone house doesn’t have electricity. Its owners had to use candles (and maybe GPS) to find their way through the halls.

The geocache! Photo by geocacher Hippocaching

The stone home is amazing, but that’s not all you get see from ground zero. The surrounding hills are dotted with windmills that help create a gorgeous vista. Most of the Found It logs on the geocache’s page mention something about the view.  “Magnificent place with spectacular scenery. Also enjoyed seeing the house, fits well in the environment. A cache this in a spectacular location. TFTC Team Ogalo,” said geocacher Ogalo (Translated from Portugese). A log from geocacher Hippocaching reads (also translated from Portugese),”The cache was in a spectacular site! The house, the landscape, windmills, horses are all elements that make it very desirable to cache! While we were out walking by the place we realized that two more teams found the cache! Thank you!”

Looking out on the windmills from GZ. Photo by geocacher trinamixx (who took some amazing photos of this geocache)
Looking out on the windmills from GZ. Photo by geocacher trinamixx (who took some amazing photos of this geocache)

This geocache is all about looking beyond the first thing you see. What special skill has geocaching taught you and what have you found because of it? Tell us in the comments.

Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Geocaching blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.

If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, send an email with your name, comments, the name of the geocache, and the GC code to pr@geocaching.com.

/ Adela B /

Vytah – GC3A6Y9 – GEOCACHE OF THE WEEK – August 20, 2012

A vintage elevator near the cache

The Geocache of the Week is sure to lift geocachers up – literally!

Vytah (GC3A6Y9), or “elevator”  is a difficulty 2, terrain 1.5 traditional cache located in Jihomoravsky kraj, Czech Republic.

The small cache container has been sitting on private property, with the land owner’s permission, since January 2012. Over the last 8 months, 625 geocachers have taken the time to log this cache and award it 227 Favorite Points.

berx.cz placed the geocache to showcase how the design of an elevator influences the retrieval of the cache container. The cache page provides significant insight to the purpose of an elevator, what it consists of, and how it works. Each of these factors provide small clues that could aid geocachers in their search for and retrieval of the cache.

The Vytah logbook

Berx.cz explains, “I love technical toys and I like a challenge. I wanted an urban cache that you’d have to put a little bit of thought into in order to find it. I was highly inspired by elevators when I came up with the idea for this cache.”

In order to avoid spoilers, berx.cz encourages geocachers not to take pictures exactly at the cache location.

One geocacher logging the visit says, “This is really the best, very creative, and very well executed cache! If I could, I would award this clever hide 10 points!  Hesitation to visit this cache is a mistake.”

Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.

If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, send an email with your name, comments, the name of the geocache, and the GC code to pr@groundspeak.com

The elevator machine that inspired the cache

/ Adela B /

GPS Awards: Highlighting Quality Caches in Portugal

Awards Medals

Peter!, the Website Administrator and Video Producer at GeoPT.org, said of the Portuguese GPS Awards, “Just like the Oscars, this is to recognize the quality of geocachers’ work.”

What better way to highlight quality caches than to encourage the community to discover and vote for their favorites? In this case, that community includes geocachers across all 20 regions of Portugal.

“We decided to organize the event to improve the quality of geocaching in Portugal and to reward the owners of the best caches,” explains prodrive, another GeoPT.org Website Administrator and Event Organizer.

Portugal experienced a geocaching boom in 2011. On average, over 500 geocaches were published each month, accumulating to more than 6,000 caches that year.

Peter! says, “We have around 18,000 active geocaches in Portugal, but not all take you to a place with an incredible view or put a smile on your face because they took you on a real adventure.”

GeoPT.org, a geocaching discussion portal in Portugal, initiated and organized the GPS awards to highlight quality caches across the country.

Geocachers at the Awards Ceremony

The organizers selected 365 of the Portuguese caches published in 2011 based on the following criteria:

  • Favorite Points
  • GCVotes
  • Average length of logs
  • Number of photos in the gallery
  • Terrain rating

They then encouraged geocachers to go out and discover as many of these caches as they could between February 17 and June 4, 2012. Geocachers who found at least 40 of the caches could vote for up to 20 of their favorites. An incredible 600 votes were submitted.

Voting closed on June 4 at midnight. Five caches in each district were selected as finalists. The awards ceremony took place on June 16, where the winner of each region and a national winner were announced. Over 150 geocachers attended the awards ceremony and crammed into a theater-style hall to recognize the finalists.

The 365 nominees received a bronze icon for their cache page. The 100 finalists received an additional silver icon, and the 20 regional winners received a gold icon for their cache page along with a medal.

You can view videos of the 20 regional and national awards winners here. The big winner of the night was “A casa mistério” (GC34FCJ), created by helderjust.

One geocacher who attended the awards ceremony says, “Our first participation! We like! Not only because we stood on stage but for everything we experienced that night. We liked to see all those fantastic [cache] owners take the stage. Some more than once and without a doubt very well deserved. We kept adding more and more caches to our “to do ASAP” list. A great and fantastically organized event. Many congratulations to the organization that made it all possible.”

With the success of the GPS awards, another awards show, honoring 2012’s best regional and a national cache, is expected to take place in fall of 2013.

2011 GPS Awards Winner, helderjust

 

/ Eric Schudiske /

Geocacher Competes in the 2012 Olympics

João Costa username: Neverfail1

Portuguese Olympian João Costa embodies his Geocaching.com username. It’s “Neverfail1” That tenacity leads João to find an average of 2.5 geocaches day. He joined Geocaching.com in April of 2011 and has accumulated more than 1200 finds. The spirit of “never fail” also led João to the 2012 Summer Games in London. These are his fourth Olympic games. The Portuguese Air Force Sergeant competes in Shooting.

João and Arne

He ranked 7th in his first event: Men’s 10m Air Pistol. And he’s not the only geocacher at the Olympic Games. João says, “My coach is and I know two more shooters, I’m sure there are more, but we all aim to have good results in the Olympic Games, and geocaching goes to a second level.”

Geocaching took awhile to hook João. He says, “A friend was in my car and said, ‘Stop, stop I want to go there.’ I asked, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘I’m looking for something.’ He explained what geocaching was, but then I made fun of him. A few months later it was the same thing, but then I found the cache and it was a very nice one. The switch turned on and I was infected.”

João at the Olympic shooting range at the Royal Artillery Barracks

João quickly became part of the tight-knit Portuguese  geocaching community. His wife encouraged his geocaching outings. João says, “My wife loves geocaching as I get off the sofa and go walking or go hiking.”

He attended the Mega-Event 12 years Geocaching – Portugal in May. That’s where he met  Geocaching.com Lackey Arne Moen, username RandolphAgarn – and shared his story about competing in the Olympic Games.

You still have time to root on your fellow geocacher. Leave a message below in comments for João. João’s competing in his final Olympic event, the Men’s 50m Pistol, on Sunday August 5th.