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November 28 Monday Bicycle touring Portugal from some farmer's field inland Portugal to Alamo Portugal The reason why we cycled 85 kilometres yesterday is because Susan wants to hopefully make it to Seville (or Sevilla) to catch a train to Malaga where she is supposed to catch her plane back to Victoria. She is beginning to get worried that she isn't going to make it out of Portugal at the rate we're going. Unfortunately, her poor little legs were cramping last night as we ate supper. Not training for a bicycle tour and then choosing to bicycle tour in a mountainous area is not a good idea. We are bicycle touring in Europe. We are bicycle touring in Portugal. I am standing in Portugal on a hillside, on a starry, moonless, windswept ledge by our tent. I am overlooking the town of Mertola. A medieval castle is cast in the luminous glow of artificial illumination. A pack of dogs yelp incessantly in the near distance; their voices carrying easily up the hillside. It is easy to think that the past is not too distant here either, a time when people actually had to live in a castle and barbarism was just outside its protective gates. Then again, all considered, we haven't really come that far in the past 500 years. After all, people still bar themselves inside their 'castles,' and wild dogs and infidels prowl still prowl outside our castle gates. The wind was toward us all day, making forward progress on our touring bicycles rather slow. Painfully slow. But that's a good thing. Once again, the roads had more patches than asphalt. The pavement is laid right over top of old cobbles and rocks. The asphalt isn't very thick or of a very good quality. Who knows when the last time these roads were paved? It's a jarring experience and, even without the headwind, makes for awful slow going on our fully loaded touring bicycles. This morning, awaking in our cork grove, a thick mist clung heavily around the cork trees. Great goblets of fat dew fell heavily earthward. It dropped with hollow echoes onto our little bicycle touring tents. In Castro Verde we found a municipal market that had fruit, meat, cheese, and bread. The buns were crusty, but fresh. The Clementina oranges were big, sweet, juicy and seedless. I would love to wild camp under one of those trees. Sharon found showers in a public washroom for a buck each. While Sharon and Susan went to shower, I was in the market getting a language lesson. I took my phrase book over to a woman in a stall and asked her to pronounce the words for me in my phrase book. She gladly and enthusiastically did so, and I repeated the words after she said them. Portuguese is a nice-sounding language -- the way the words work together, it's almost like they're in a rhyme. I had a hot shower, too. No timer on them or anything. Lots of hot water. Sharon and Susan went first, then I went. Sharon and Susan told me that I had to buy a shower ticket from a guy who sells tickets for the shower. I wander around the market, trying to find the man that sells the tickets from a description Sharon and Susan gave me. I eventually found him. I tell him I would like a shower. He leads me down a hall and around a corner. He unlocks a cabinet door and takes out a booklet. He pulls a ticket out of the booklet and hands it to me. I give him 100 escudos, which he places in a metal change box. He locks the cabinet door and then escorts me to the shower room. The showers are off to one side of the men's toilets. Another fella is showering in the only other stall. The ticket seller knocks on the door and says something in Portuguese. A key slides out from under the shower stall door. The ticket seller stoops down, picks up the key and unlocks the other stall. He hands me the key. I enter the shower stall, set the key down on the bench, and proceed to get undressed. I hear the water in the other shower shut off. The fellow is jabbering away. I don't understand a word he is saying, so I ignore him. I go on with my long shower. It is nice and hot and would have been relatively peaceful except for the fact that throughout my shower I can hear the person in the adjacent shower stall yelling. I figure he must be talking to friends in the hall. I finish my shower. I dry off. I get dressed. I open the shower stall door to have more room to put on my shoes. I glance over at my neighbor's stall. I see a pair of wrinkled old hands sticking over the top of the door. Oh, dear. The wrinkled old hands are shaking the door. The old man is muttering away in Portuguese. Hmmm. Now I think I understand. Without saying a word, I pick up the key from my bench, and slip it toward his fingers. He takes the key and unlocks his door from the inside. A tiny grey-haired old man pokes his head out and looks at me. "Deshculpe (sorry)," I say. He grins. |
