Life's a Stitch

Greg joined us today on our circular route trek.

It was a morning of varied walking surfaces:

Deep sand:

Uneven rocks:

Boardwalk:

And dirt roads:

The scenery lived up to its reputation:

Rounding the final curve we saw our trail marker in the right place to guide us back to our village of Carrapateira in the distance:

We had a relaxing  afternoon doing not much of anything followed by dinner at O Pontal (translates to The Point). Yesterday’s lunch there was reasonable and impressive so we decided to give it a go for dinner.

We had tomahawk steak for four, a great choice.

Tomorrow we have one more day of circular trekking before moving on toward Lagos.

Last night we stayed at “Al.Floral” Guest House in Aljezur. A lot of thought was put into the building’s theme, each room named for a wild flower. Ours was translated to lemon verbena with the accompanying tea provided.

My only issue with the room was it was described as having garden view. Sure, there was a strip of green space across the street, but between our window and the “park” was a busy, noisy road and a row of pull in parked cars. It did calm down at night, so sleeping was not a problem.

The four of us drove to our next stop at Carrapateira, about a half hour away. European rental cars are small and all our luggage and backpacks filled it, so we headed to our accommodation, Pensao das Dunas, to unload. 

Greg and I returned to Aljezur for the task of major grocery shopping as for the next six nights we have cooking facilities. The road is narrow and curvy and the locals are obviously used to it, ignoring speed limits and passing zones. We had to veer to the side of the road to avoid being hit head on by a car passing on a curve.

We made it to the grocery store in one piece. The shopping carts at Intermarche were huge. 

It was a good thing they were on four spinner wheels like luggage.

This morning my Fitbit had this message.

I succeeded with a cardio load of 2. Although it was a rest day, I still managed 10,000 steps. I guess that’s no comparison to yesterday’s 36,000.

Last night we headed to the third restaurant recommended by our host, Retiro do Adelino, for traditional Portuguese fare. We shared cataplana for two: a tomato based stew of huge prawns, clams, seabass, white potatoes and sweet potatoes. 

We are in sweet potato country complete with a sweet potato museum and festival that we’ll just miss at the end of November. And they had our new favourite Vicentina white wine for e12 for the bottle, a new low price. We’ve seen it priced up to e24!

Back at the room we packed and confirmed our route for the morning.

Breakfast was leftover pizza, the last of our prosciutto, and melon. Really, the cold pizza and prosciutto is the same as a ham and cheese sandwich with tomato, although not nearly as appetizing in presentation.

We headed out of town up the steep cobblestone road. Chuck stopped at the windmill for a boot adjustment.

We decided on the Historic Route today as it was a few km shorter than the Fisherman’s Route and it would give us a change in scenery. That’s if you don’t get lost.

We walked through farmland with hills in the distance on one side. All went well until the 1.75 hour mark when the road split in two, not a trail marker to be found. It was 50/50 and we chose the wrong 50. We didn’t see a marker again until we hit the town of Rogil, where we knew the two routes joined. 

We stopped at a cafe and shared a suckling pig empanada and a delicious mini lemon cheesecake. Their coffee was outstanding and they had decaf, not something you always find when travelling in other countries.

The next hour was on a scrubby dirt road with occasional glimpses of the ocean, then past a campground with sites surrounded by eucalyptus and a grove of those broccoli pines across the road. 

We were in the hills along the coast.

Close to our destination there was a steep downhill

followed by an equally steep cobblestone street up, then down again.

There hasn’t been any wildlife other than birds and a dead bat, but we met the requisite trail cat and dog coming into Aljezur.

Here we met C’s sister and her husband who will be on the transatlantic cruise with us back to North America.

Overall a great day of hiking, I’d rate it an average terrain of 2/5, true to the guide. It took us six hours including lost time and an hour for lunch. The previous long day, with the scrambling and slightly less distance, took seven hours and a half hour for lunch! Tomorrow is a rest day. 

We woke up in pretty good shape this morning thanks to a hot shower and good night’s sleep. I was surprised that my feet showed no evidence of yesterday’s over use.

This was one of those stops where we stayed for two nights, a great option avoiding the daily reloading of the packs. The Rota Vicentina has options. Rather than hiking point-to-point, you can do up to 24 circular routes along the way or mix up the two. Yesterday being such an intense day, we elected to walk around town then to the coast and back, part of a circle route, about a three hour walk.

First we had backpack food in the room for breakfast. I carry my favourite French instant decaf with me and there was tea in the room. We walked to town to find the ATM and the bakery for a pastel nata, our favourite Portuguese custard tart for added energy 😉. We ran into Lisa, from Germany (now living in Madrid) as well as David from Toronto, both of whom we met on the trail yesterday. We are quite the attraction on this hike, being in our 70’s 🙀, two of the oldest hikers. Lisa told her parents there were two their age on the walk and they wanted to see our picture! We agreed to a selfie.

Today’s walk was all paved and along a road with the exception of about 2k each way where you’re walking through a farmer’s field. 

The beach was the classic rugged  coastline variety. 

This beach has two sides, this one is the ocean facing side. The opposite side faces a river resulting in calmer, warmer water, but swimming wasn’t on our agenda.

While walking we saw the trail we descended yesterday slicing through the hillside on the other side of the river.

We headed back to town for a pizza lunch and back to the room for a quiet afternoon.

A few more thoughts about our epic second day. 

Trail marking was not great, especially when there were crossroads of trails. Three times, in the absence of markers, we were lucky to be joined by other hikers with more knowledge of the way. This marker expressed our feelings of the coming narrow track close to the cliff’s edge. You must leave any fear of heights at home. I have no photo as I wasn’t going to stop and look down.

Besides the cliff and dune trails, there were stretches of tree tunnels that gave us relief from the sun and the sand flies. 

We also encountered several streams requiring careful stepping or jumping to negotiate.

A piece of non-hiking advice: don’t assume the house wine means the least expensive. In our case last night it was the most expensive, ending up at e23 for the bottle. That’s high for Portugal.

I forgot to post a photo of our room for two nights in Odeceixe, the SulSeixe Guest House. A warm host, a meticulously clean room, church bells on the half hour and welcome drinks added to the charm.

You may have noticed two posts per day recently. So grateful for WordPress and the ease of blogging as opposed to Typepad that couldn’t get ahead of its technical difficulties, which probably had something to do with their demise.

So I ended my last post, regarding watching trail previews, with the question, did it make us better prepared or scared.

The answer: not scared enough. Whoever rated the trail difficulty as 2/5 has a different rating system than we’re used to. Overall it averaged a 3, but some parts were a 4. I confirmed this with an experienced hiker,

The good: spectacular scenery, really spectacular.

And meeting hikers from Germany, Canada, Czech Republic, and Italy.

The challenging: 

• some narrow cliff trails with steep, high drop offs. I chose to look the other way.
• Hiking on trails with deep sand.
• Scrambling on rocks. 
• The flies on the sandy parts of the trail that were attracted to our sunscreen.

I bummed down the top portion of this segment:

Each step was calculated in these two, one downhill, one up:

I’m happy to report we made it unscathed. 

Tonight’s dinner was typical hotel room fare for us when our stomachs are riched out from an excess of regional eating or if we are too exhausted to manage restaurant decision making.

It’s more appetizing than it looks. Leftover pork from last night’s dinner, local hard cheese with Italian herbs, pimento, bread and Douro wine accompanied by Fado music. Just enough after that luncheon feast.

Getting ready for tomorrow, our electrolyte infused bottled water. I learned my lesson in Jordan. Water is heavy, but necessary.

I made the mistake, maybe, of reading up and watching videos of tomorrow’s route. Better prepared or scared? Stay tuned.

At 6:00 a.m. the storm was still raging. By 8:00 it was a beautifully sunny day. We went for the included breakfast and were joined by a young woman, hiking on her own. Who’s this first person we meet at brekkie? Coincidentally, a nurse from Vancouver. We exchanged info about other point-to-point walking experiences. 

Today was our short day, two hours to transition from jet lag to a 19k day tomorrow. The initial trek was breathtakingly beautiful, high up on cliffs overlooking the east Atlantic. We looked for the small blue and green trail markers for the Fisherman’s Route of the Rota Vicentina, which were easy to miss.

I often send my family a morning seagull photo when walking along the water at home. Here’s my Portuguese version.

We lucked out weather-wise.

The next bit was along a not too active road.

Once in the rhythm of walking it all came back, that glorious Camino feeling. I am so grateful to be able to do this again, considering the last time was six years ago. Truthfully it felt no different. The fact that I’m 40lbs lighter maybe helps? 

We trekked to the local fishing boat launch and turned around, avoiding the steep tricky wooden stairs.

We were back at town in time to take advantage of a reasonable set price “Executive Meal” offered at lunchtime. 

It included bread, spreads and jam, cheese, olives, Melba toast, entree with veggies, salad, fries and a small beer, wine or soft drink for e12.50. You can add on dessert for e2.50.  I had grilled seafood platter with six kinds of seafood (prawn, cuttlefish, squid, salmon, dorado and swordfish).

C had prawn curry. 

I think we’ll be on the lookout for this kind of option where possible, followed by a light dinner.

The journey started with three flights – Vancouver to Calgary to Paris to Lisbon. It wasn’t as pleasant a trip as we have had in the past. I can understand a small child being vocal about ear pain while flying. What I can’t is the sibling shaking a rattle that sounded like a New Year’s Eve noisemaker – the ones you spin around on a handle – the entire time the baby wailed. I think it was his coping mechanism to drown out the sound.

The weirder experience, possibly the strangest of the thousand plus flights I’ve taken, was the man in the seat in front of me. He and his wife found it entertaining to use something to push at or put weight on my feet, which were well behind the metal bar separating my under-seat from their area. I can’t imaging the contortion involved to reach my feet. So strange. I settled for a minor confrontation, but next time I’d involve airline staff. It  was a bizarre experience.

We Ubered to our hotel located near the Sete Rios train station. In the morning after a delicious hotel breakfast, we repacked our bags, one for our hiking trip, the other to remain in hotel storage. While waiting for the bus to arrive I went to Lidl for lunch supplies. A well stocked little Lidl, I was lamenting the fact that I had no cooking facilities.

On the 3.5 hour bus trip to our starting point on the Rota Vicentina, Zambujiera Do Mar we passed miles of pines resembling broccoli stalks. We saw threatening clouds, the remnants of Storm Claudia that brought extensive flooding and tornados to coastal Lisbon. 

A rainbow followed.

We checked into our inn, Rosa do Ventos, where we have a peek-a-boo ocean view from our tiny balcony, but can hear the ocean sounds so calming at night.

There are many restaurants in this little town, but no banks or ATM’s. Luckily cards are widely accepted. We did our online research and chose a place for dinner based on their menu, but for some reason they were closed when we arrived. We found another, with similar sounding entrees and locals watching sports in the brightly lit dining room. The real Portuguese deal.

Chuck ordered Feijoada, bean stew with whelk 🐚 meat. It looked nothing like the one pictured from the previous restaurant, and was a little disappointing.

I ordered one of my favourites Porco a Alentejana, pork and clams, salty deliciousness.

The local white wine was excellent, tasted like a mix of Sauvignon blanc, Chardonnay and Semillon. 

We walked home before the skies opened up. Instead of the ocean we listened to the sound of rain and wind all night, also calming in our cozy room. 

Tomorrow will be a short hiking day.

For our Caminos de Santiago we didn’t train overly hard and were quite successful. If we could manage a 10k trek we figured we could do 20. We were correct. Six mile Sundays were our routine with half that on our daily walks. 

This trip will average 16.5, so six mile Sundays could be reduced to five. Excuse my distance references, living in Canada has given me the gift of binumeralism.

Last Sunday took us to Delta, BC, where we walked the Millenium Trail follow by the intriguing Spirit Trail, with its carved wood spirit guides.

It was a beautifully sunny November day, not always guaranteed in British Columbia.

Afterwards we met up with long term friends, Lynn and Dennis for lunch at Greek restaurant, Ramies. C and I shared a platter for two, highly recommended. This is my half after the Greek salad.

Eating is the icing on the cake for point to point hiking. Looking forward to the food (and wine) of Portugal again. Stay tuned.