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November 29 Tuesday Bicycle touring Portugal from Alamo Portugal to El Gordo Portugal The morning began with a red sunrise over the hills. I took a picture of a one-lane dirt track leading off in the distance. There is an uncommon fence on the right -- used to keep the sheep in. We're free camping on a knob of land with hills surrounding us in every direction. The terrain is a constant bone rattling series of ups and downs. Grey clouds with wind from the south -- in our face, of course. We eat bread smothered with chocolate Nutella before leaving our free bicycling camp spot. Sue didn't sleep much last night -- she is getting stuffed up and sniffly with the beginnings of a head cold. Plus, dogs wailed constantly into the clear night ... and Sue refuses to put in earplugs. She's afraid she won't hear someone coming. Personally, I would just as soon not hear someone coming. I read for a long time last night and just before I stuck in my earplugs before beginning to snore peacefully away I overheard Sue in her tent start laughing. "Oh, God," she kept saying over and over as the dogs hit a feverish wailing pitch of brotherly togetherness. They were howling up enough of a din to wake the dead. We all had to go to the washroom. We pulled our fully loaded touring bicycles to a halt in the first town we came to: Alamo, about 7 kilometres away from where we had free bicycle camped. We went inside a cafe. Believing it impolite to barge in and ask for the toilet, we sat down and ordered three cafe-o-laits. After, I asked for a lavabo, and was kindly directed to a hand washing sink. Sharon, noting my lack of luck, tried 'toilette' next and was told no, the toilet is 'kaput' -- another of those international words that everyone understands. Terrific. Maybe we should ask first from now on. We drank our coffees and dejectedly left to find another cafe. On the way back to our touring bicycles, I looked fondly towards the flower beds. We pedalled into the main town area; it comprised a total of a dozen houses. The first guy walking along the street, I nabbed. He took us to an unmarked bar a couple of houses away. It is interesting there are no signs in these little towns -- and even in the bigger ones -- telling what is located where. I guess the villagers know where everything is, so they don't need signs. We have learned to look for a stack of boxes or crates or some bottles piled up outside a doorway. It helps us identify places of business. Our noses help direct also. We have become quite good at smelling out terrific places like bread baking, or horrific places like butchers. The proprietress was in the back when we arrived. When she came out front the men sitting in the cafe motioned for us to ask her. She said, "No toilette." The men disagreed with her answer. They said, "Yes, there is." Loud arguing followed. Then it became clear. The water is shut off all over town today. With a wave of my hand down the road I intoned, "Santo Espirito?" "Si," they all reply with vigorous nodding of heads. One fellow holds up five fingers and says "sink-o" to indicate it is five kilometres away. We go back outside and mount our fully loaded touring bicycles. The five kilometre ride to Santo Espirito feels much farther though with the rough road,uphills, and full bladder. We pull our touring bikes to a stop outside the Casa Verde Restaurant. It is alongside the main thoroughfare. It is closed. Sharon spots a cement cubicle and asks, "Is that a washroom?" I had thought it more resembled a cold storage shed, but I go over and check it out. Sure enough, it's a toilet. How she spots these things I don't know. Sharon and Susan use the cubicle first. When it is my turn, I get to look out a tiny eight-inch slot thoughtfully left in the wall. I can see orange trees in a garden. As I prepare to leave the cubicle I impulsively stick my arm through the glassless 'window' and pull an orange off the tree. Cool. I return to where Sharon and Susan are waiting by our bikes and hold my orange up. "I've always wanted to do that," I said. "I'll bet," Sharon responds. Susan has found even more toilets across the road, but she reports back that they are not as nice as Casa Verde. Every toilet has a toilet brush beside it. I am beginning to clue in that every person is supposed to do a little scrub-a-dub-dub when they have finished their business. I used to think it was left for a cleaning person, but the toilet scrubbers are so ubiquitous that I am changing my mind. The toilets are always in such pristine form that this has to be the case. We continue bicycle touring, cutting off the principal route 122 just after Santa Marta. For awhile the secondary road is actually smoother than the primary road was. But as we climb farther into the hills, the road surface deteriorates to cobbles poking through chunks of pavement. The hillsides are terraced to prevent erosion. Scrub brush is below us. Pine trees are a vibrant green across the narrow valley. No water is flowing in the river beds. A few places in the river bed have shallow pools of water. The roads have been paved right over the old cobbles. Coupled with the fact that it doesn't snow here, has created some monstrously thigh-killing climbs on our fully loaded touring bicycles and then, descents, which I usually look forward to, have become nut-loosening ordeals. Oh, for a touring bike with shocks! Shocking, indeed. We cycle tour out of the Alintego area and enter the Algarve. Suddenly, it rains quite hard for a few minutes -- just long enough to soak my biking pants, of course. The wind drives the rain into our faces. Is it possible to be blown backward on a cycling tour? A steep winding section drops us into Alcoutim along the Rio Guadiana River. We can see Spain across the river. There used to be a ferry here, but it has been discontinued. A town in Spain, Sanlucar de Guadiana, is directly across. There is a fort on each hill in the two opposing towns. Just to keep the neighbours friendly, I suppose. A stork nest is on the church across the river. I pull out my camera and take an all encompassing shot of the fort, the whitewashed town buildings, two storks in their nest, and an old paint-peeling boat in the foreground. We drop our touring bicycles and try to find shelter to eat lunch out of the wind and rain. As we're eating, a dog comes sniffing around. Its skinny ribs are sticking through its skin. Feeling sorry for the poor wretch, I throw it a piece of the horrid hard bun I am eating. The dog barely sniffs it before rejecting it. Dogs are smarter than I give them credit for. It likes the cheese and peanuts I throw it much better. Sharon tells me I'm going to have the whole town's dog population over here in a minute if I keep it up. There is an old guy pushing a trash can and a broom going around sweeping up debris. The trash can has the initials CMA on it in bright red paint. Sharon and Susan are both Chartered Accountants -- or CAs. Another lesser accounting designation is Certified Management Accountant or CMA. I make a joke about that's what being a CMA will get you for a job. Neither Sharon or Susan laugh. So I say it again. They both say it wasn't funny the first time. Some people have no sense of humour. And most of them are accountants. One time the accountants at Sharon's office wanted to rent Yuk-Yuks for a night for a private party and perform some of their standup routines. The owner of Yuk-Yuks wasn't having anything to do with it. "I'd rather rent to morticians," he said. I guess he figures accountants don't have much sense of humour either. Lots of people are standing around staring at us as we hop on our loaded touring bikes and leave town. I figure it is just the end of the usual siesta time, but Sharon thinks there is a funeral. I have no idea how this ties in with the morticians above, but I laugh anyway. We opt to cycle tour on a secondary road that follows the river for 20 kilometres. We had rationalized that the scenery would be great -- and the road is somewhat downhill, following the river to the Mediterranean. Not so. In a couple of kilometres we are sweating so hard we can't see much of the scenery. As we puff along on our fully loaded touring bicycles we realize the terrain is another series of brutal uphills. Part-way along we come across a goat herder with his flock and dog alongside the road. I stop to take a picture, trying to capture the essence of these strong proud people who once led the world in discovering new lands. By the time we cycle back to the main road Susan is bagged. It has been a tough day with wind, rain, and over 2500 feet of climbing in 60 kilometres. And Susan wasn't feeling 100% to start with and she is bicycle touring on only a couple of hours of sleep. There is still more climbing to do on our fully loaded touring bicycles before we reach Castro Marim. Once there, we discover there is no campground. We look over at a stadium. After convincing Susan there are no more hills (ha), we decide we may as well cycle to the next town. We get back on our heavily loaded bicycles and continue to Vila Real. A campground at El Gordo is where we are heading for. We arrive in the darkness at 7:30 PM and wearily ask for a discount. But as soon as she the woman sees our Canadian passports she says, "No discount." Susan sets up her lightweight bicycle touring tent and then heads off to the showers. Sharon and I walk to a Super Mercado and make short work of the 5000 escudos Susan had handed us with the words, "Go crazy!" I still can't believe how expensive stuff is here. Especially cereal. I see why they don't eat much of the stuff here. Everything is inflated in price except for fish, bread, and wine. We return to camp and just get our tiny bicycle touirng tent set up when lightning and thunder and a drenching downpour flood from the heavens. The cactus should bloom. |
