June 2-5
We bid goodbye to Portugal the best way I know: at a Praia fluvial where we met more wonderful locals— a young family (Eddie and Ivanna of Quinta Canada) running an organic farm and living off-grid. We are getting smarter about taking long breaks in the heat of the day.
But still learning the hard way. We set out late from Castelo Branco (saw that cool White Castle on the hill from a distance) after provisioning at Lidl. Coming off 2 days of rest, I was eager to get going. We should be in Spain by now as it’s already a quarter of the way into our trip. Mostly we like less trafficked places but this trail so close to the city was ridiculous.
It was still hot at 7:00 PM and I began to feel dizzy. When I couldn’t go another meter, John walked up to the nearby farmhouse. They said we could camp by the barn and John set up while I laid, despondent. (Yes, I bonked!)
Our accidental and gracious hosts were Manuel (79) and Maria (72). First, they brought us large bottles of cold water. That was soon followed by a large bowl of blackberries, cherries, what looked to be apricots but had 3 seeds -Alden tells us it’s a loquat😊– which we were well into it before I thought to take the picture. Delicious after a diet of largely meat and bread. Then they brought a sack full of oranges and bottle of wine! They grew all the fruit themselves commercially as well as olives (the major cash crop), potatoes (second biggest crop by my measure), tomatoes, figs, and other stuff I missed. Can you tell I was impressed? And feeling better? In the morning, we chatted with Maria as best we could over coffee. She doesn’t have email, so no quick follow-up thank yous. (Photo of Maria)
So many people have cared for us in Portugal, I’ve come to think of us as being conduits for the largesse in the world– not part of the largesse per se, just allowing for it. (Still working on how to say it.)
We are making our own route over to the Via de la Plata in Spain. We crossed the border of Spain to find more spectacular roads that are at once better maintained and a lot less traffic than we could have imagined— maybe one car per hour. We can’t think of anywhere in the US where one could find roads (we use either Apple Maps🚴🏻♂️ or Ride With GPS here and in the US) half this good. Not to mention the beauty!
I forgot how much we love traveling this way!! I got great advice from my friend I affectionately call “no brakes Nita” to wear two pair of padded bicycle shorts at first. Also glad I took my dear friend Sue K’s expert advice to leave the long tights behind.
We rode through what looked like public land in the desert Southwest, with rocky canyons, sagebrush, Mormon tea and creosote bush (or their European counterparts).
A wonderful surprise to us has been all the white storks (I thought were wood storks). We saw them frequenting ag fields and in higher places and each town’s bell tower.
The grades have mellowed. We finally crossed the 50 mile-a-day mark! There are more fences in Spain — wild campers notice these things— likely due to increased cow and touro activity. But we were able to find nice camps as two reservoirs were in our path. Two reservoirs, two nights.
