Word Of Mouse

The ferry from Lisbon took us out over the sparkling sunlit waters to Cacilhas, offering lovely views back over the red tiled roofs of Lisbon. We had lunch squatting in the shade of the ferry terminal at Cacilhas - not very scenic, but we needed the protein. From there, a tedious and hot ride through seemingly endless built up areas followed by flat farmlands along a busy road: however as with many of the N roads, at least there is a decent hard shoulder to cycle on. We found a place to get water, just at a point of maximum dehydration, and were able to continue, finding a campsite in the nick of time up a steep hill and down into a secluded little valley tucked away in the small range of hills on the southern edge of this chunk of land. After the horrible campsite of the night before, this one seemed like a blessed relief. The night was peaceful and quiet, with the exception of distant barkings from the dogs on the various farms that dotted the valley calling to each other. One curious thing: none of the toilets had any form of door. Ali found this a little, shall we say inhibiting...

From here, it was a short morning ride to Setubal, and the ferry across to the tip of the Troia peninsula, a long low lying tongue of land that seemed to promise the prospect of cycling between a view over the estuary to the left and the Atlantic to the right. In fact, for mile upon mile neither could be seen at all, and we eventually had to give up and have our lunch in the shade of a pine tree that at least offered a limited view over the estuary. Thus fortified, we continued through the endless pine forests as far as Saint Andre, where we planned to have another day off.

Saint Andre was notable for two things. It had the most perfect beach I can remember: long miles of sand, clear crashing blue rolling Atlantic surf, and almost no people. The whole place was delightfully low key and largely unspoiled by tourist developments. We had a lovely morning on the beach, until hunger drove us off to find a small restaurant which served a very delicious dinner. The other thing: ants- ants by the million. We have honed our Defence Against The Dark Ants skills, as Ali calls them, to a fine pitch, but still they kept coming, joined in the early evening by their friends the mosquitoes. At one point I was fighting four at once. We were again forced to beat an ignominious retreat into the tent in order to eat our supper in peace.

On south from St Andre we had an easy ride along a broad road to Cabo de Sines. Sines looked an unpromising industrial port town from the outside but turned out to have a pretty heart of old cobbled streets tucked away inside. We got trapped by a maze of back streets and industrial estates trying to leave and ended up cycling along a dirt track through a windfarm on the hill behind the town, which actually did bring us out exactly where we needed to be. From there a flat road took us through the lowlying beach dunes and countryside to Vila Nova de Milfontes, where we stopped the next night. Vila Nova, while small, did possess a cinema: we could not resist the idea and ended up going to see The Lake House, a preposterous Keanu Reeves vehicle with a ludicrous time-twisting plot. At least picking holes in the plotline kept us amused for a while afterwards. We got to bed at half past eleven, the latest for many days and way past our usual bedtime of 9pm... seems early but by then it is quite dark, we have already finished cooking and eating supper (an activity which is far easier in the light) and we both seem to need a lot of sleep while on the road.

From Vila Nova, we followed the main highway south, turning right back towards the coast and the small town of Cavaleiro, passing small herds of cows in the fields on the way. Unfortunately this was not the same road as marked on the map (in fact it was not marked at all), meaning that we went rather further than intended, and decided to cut the day's ride short at Zambujeira do Mar instead of continuing on to the planned campsite at Aljezur. Lucky we did as it turned out: Zambujeira was a beautiful little village on the coast, a wide public space around the small church commanding a fine view over a bay. We went into town for the evening and watched the sky gradually darkening over a tranquil sea.

A further short ride the following day took us along a coastal dirt road to a small beach, where we propped up Bramble to make a sun shield and had lunch and a swim. The water was clear, but felt very cold for some reason, much more so than somewhere like Biarritz. brought us to the small town of Aljezur: however the campsite being to the north of town, we did not actually pass through until the day after. The campsite, although three-star, had one of the most communistic supermarkets we had ever seen: try as we could there was almost nothing we could eat among the small range of things scattered along the almost empty shelves, and neither of us really wanted to bike down hill into town to find a better one. We scratched together a meal from our emergency food.