Oh Ollo
March 24, 2026. To Libby, it was just another beautiful day in Portugal. Waking up in Porto, we both felt the gravity of a day spent in the Douro Valley --Â the oldest regulated wine region in the world and one of the most extensive and iconic terraced wine landscapes ever created. A region where we found port wine is much more accessible and widely offered than water. After a short drive down to Sintra, we dropped our bags at the air bnb and took off to the coast for a sunset hike. Unsuspecting as ever. I love sunrise/sunset hikes and am always looking for "the shot" so in my head I thought I was getting away with it. You'll need to ask Libby for the truth. After a decently strenuous climb, we stumbled upon a ledge that demanded attention and stillness. Making ourselves comfortable, we ceased to speak - as words were no longer necessary. Leaning into the rock, a perfect 65 degree evening without a cloud in the sky, existing as the sun dawned on the horizon, illuminating the canvas in front of us. Listening to the cyclical waves crash against enormous rocks, and the seagulls call out from above, we discovered the true meaning of tranquility. It was like living within a real life Sigur Ros song. Breaking the silence, I mustered whatever speech I could come up with and got down on one knee - again, you'll need to ask Libby the nature of the actual words as I truly don't recall. The gravitas of carrying a ring to another country and hiding it in a duffel bag finally escaping me. The moment was perfect and meant only for us. Not a soul in sight and the breadth of jubilation echoing all the way back stateside it felt. It was important we shared that moment with only each other - to experience that long awaited joy in its purest and most raw form - void of even a photographer. However, the downside to this desire is that a photo, which can capture so beautifully a moment in time, would be forever vacant. That is until Ollo came rolling over the hill. Roughly 15 min after a teared-filled "yes", a jolly man bearing a very large camera came strutting down the cliffside. I was more impressed than anything as we certainly did not take the "normal pedestrian trail". He introduced himself as Ollo, an Austrian man living out of his van. We told him we had just gotten engaged, and he exclaimed, "I know! Would you like some photos?" With an enthusiastic yes, Ollo snapped a few shots, I gave him my phone number and he said if any of them turned out he'd shoot me a text. Two days later, while drinking yet another glass of port wine on our couch, I received a text from an Austrian number which is when I learned that Ollo had not randomly stumbled upon us but rather, he saw us getting engaged from across the mountain, took photos of the proposal from afar, and then somehow channeled his inner alpinist and sprinted down and up an incredibly vertical cliff to come meet us and take more photos. He gave to us then, the gift of a lifetime, and the ability to experience our moment together alone, and still have that moment frozen in time. We also learned from Ollo that this area of Portugal had been experiencing immense rainfall each day for the last 3 weeks up until only 3 days prior. As my dad always says, "sometimes things just work out". As Les says, "it's a Dalp wink." And as Ben says, "the stories that can be characterized as "you can't make this up" which naturally veer into discussions about God are, at this point, many in number -- but this one in particular is really pushing into new territory." We're grateful for our new friend Ollo, and we're grateful for a new top of the leaderboard memory.
