Tuesday 20 August 2013

A long day..

Today we leave at 6:30am. My hostel has packed a little breakfast as the included breakfast isn't served until 8am. I meet up with Carlos and we leave Tomar. Neither of us have had a coffee and we don't find anything open on our way. The first section today is through forest and along a river and we make the 8.5kms to Casais where there is a cafe fairly quickly. We stop again in the next town as it is the last place today that we will be able to buy food and drink. We buy some things for lunch and load ourselves up. By 10:30 we are ready to leave, we have already covered 11kms, so we have 20kms to get to Alvaiázere. We pass through a hamlet that has a communal washing pond. It looks like a very social way to do hand washing, but I can understand why it was abandoned for machines. Just washing a few things each day by hand is ok, but I would not want to have to do the whole family.

We enter a eucalyptus plantation which we will be walking through for the next 8km. We reach the top of the first of two hills for the day and decide to stop for lunch as it is midday. After taking an hour for a break we head off. My guide says that the next section is not well marked. I would like to correct that to read not at all marked. After 2 hours walking and trying to keep heading north we emerge from the forest and enter a village that is not in my guide book. After checking GPS I realise that we have managed to walk two hours east rather than north and that we are still 15kms away from our goal. It is 35 degrees and we are running low on water. We fill up from a garden tap and then stumble into the heart of Areias where we find a shop. I don't really want to become an advertisement but right then two cokes made our folly seem worth the effort. Caffeine, sugar and ice cold. We are renewed.

We set off and after 45 minutes we reach an intersection that we should have passed through if we had managed to stay on track and we find a yellow arrow marker. With a couple of rest stops we make it in to Alviaiázere at 7:30pm. I have spent a large part of the afternoon trying to work out where we made our mistake. We probably got close to walking 40kms today, but we made it ok. My feet are doing ok and my blisters are almost gone. After a shower, I wash my clothes and then head into the town square for dinner.

It's a beautiful little town and at the restaurant we are given more food than we can eat. Even with getting lost and walking for so long I have enjoyed today. We make plans to start early again tomorrow and to not get lost. Day 7 is done.

Today's photos: A village lane in the morning. Grinding stones at Casa Torre at 5pm. The church in Alvaiázere at 8:30pm.


2 comments:

  1. All we could say when we read the change of direction is oh no!! However, how good is God to show you that if you are running short of time at the end for the certificate, you know you can do those 40kms/100kms, no problem! Good you are spending time with Carlos still. L&R

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  2. You're getting Stronger! You did really well today.

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