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22 Portugal Ready to ride at 6:30 a.m., we were halted at the roadside by ground fog as thick as cotton. We stuck out our thumbs as a couple of trucks came by, but no one showed interest in picking us up. At eight o'clock the fog still hadn't cleared. We left anyway. In Fundão we hit the bank machine and it spat out hundreds of escudos. A farmer's market sold nuts, fruit, vegetables, flowers, and live chickens. I couldn't imagine strapping a live chicken onto the back of our bike. Sharon bought a bag of fruit for ten bucks. I told her she got ripped off-supremely annoying her. "That's the last time I'm shopping!" she blasted me. Me and my big mouth. I should have said, "You got all that for ten bucks? Wow! That's great honey!" Naw. The results would have been the same. Sometimes I just couldn't win. A spectacular climb out of the valley into the brilliant sunshine presented a magnificent view of the cloud cover below. I saw why we hadn't been able to see. The entire lower hillside was a solid mass of fluffy clouds. A high village stuck out of the woolly mass. In the middle of nowhere, a no bicycles sign appeared. Locals assured us the police would ignore us. We rode through many small Portuguese villages. The Portuguese were livelier than the Spanish. They always laughed, smiled and called out encouragement. The children would hang into the street and cheer us as we rode past. Many of them laughed and awkwardly said "Hello." When we responded they would break into giggles. When I stopped for a washroom break at a gas station the owner persistently offered me wine. It took perseverance to repeatedly explain my legs were already weak. Wine would finish me off. The men laughed and waved goodbye. We rode into the night until our paved shoulder dissolved. Turning back to a recently passed side road we pitched the tent next to storage buildings. Wearily tumbling into our sleeping bag, we had nary a thought of removing our sweaty clothes. In one hundred eightyeight kilometers we climbed over 4000 feet. Our time limit to reach Lisbon was 1:30 p.m. the next day. I told Sharon all our pain would be worth it when we saw Vicky. We knew she would appreciate the Herculean effort we had made. I asked Sharon, "Would you like an orange?" I peeled two and set them on her pillow. I awoke before dawn to find them exactly where I had left them. |
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