Word Of Mouse

From Aljezur, a little way inland on the west coast, it was an easy day ride over to the south coast town of Lagos over the Dog Back Ridge (such is the way I translated from the Portuguese name on my map), through low hills and cork oak forests studding the dark red earth. I feel an abiding respect for the road builders: as we rode, I thought about how remarkable it was that we could pass through a complex region of hills and valleys that seemed to offer no way through, but through which the surveyors had found a route that took us up a single slow and steady climb, one fairly sharp descent, a further small climb and then a long virtually flat route out, at the cost of several twists and turns around intervening hills. It was hard to feel a sense of scale in that landscape, because in many places the trees, while having the appearance of being fully grown, were in fact quite small.

A straightforward run took us into Lagos where we found after some searching a campsite that had avoided being demolished to make way for apartment complexes, a fate which it transpired had overtaken at least one other campsite marked on our map as being nearby. It was a grim little place, surrounded by high concrete walls. But it was OK for a night. Relaxing on the ground as we brewed our evening cup of tea, I noticed that we had broken yet another spoke: this time, in the front wheel. I resolved to go and find a bike shop to fix it. Ali suggested taking the whole wheel, but I decided not to: surely just the spoke would be enough? Clutching the broken spoke, we set off into town. It took some tracking down, but after a few false starts, we were directed to a street containing a bike shop which we were assured would have what we needed. We almost went right past the place: there was almost no sign of it from the exterior, but in the gloom I spotted bike wheels, and in we went. Inside in the darkness were a pair of men, obviously brothers, if not identical twins: both short, bespectacled and liberally covered in oil. I handed over the broken spoke. Ah. No, sorry: they didn't have that size. Could we bring the wheel in?

I was despondent and inwardly cursing: I couldn't see how having the wheel was going to help if they didn't have the right spokes. "Don't be silly," said Ali. "Look at him. He's small and greasy. He's obviously going to be able to fix it somehow." Back we went to the campsite, and I returned to the shop with the wheel. One of the brothers, I couldn't tell which, took one look and immediately said "Ah. Nao problemo." Within literally three minutes he had replaced the spoke and adjusted it back to perfect tightness. Once more our wheel ran true. "One euro." All I had was a five euro note. It took him longer to find the change than to do the job.

We left the next day on the coastal N-road, wide and busy, towards Albufeira, where we had rented an apartment: however this would not be ready for us until three days time. There was little of interest along the way, and we had problems where the N road suddenly turned into motorway for the short distance across a bridge. The best bit of the day was stopping for lunch in Lagoa: a small boy of maybe seven or eight appeared as we sat and ate on a bench in the centre of town. He was obviously captivated by the bike. I was struck yet again by the ease with which Ali could converse with him, despite knowing a total of perhaps ten words of Portuguese (mostly pertaining to vegetables, and therefore of little use). He suddenly disappeared at a run into a house, then reemerged to wave us off. Such encounters are one of the things that make this trip come alive for us.

We killed time camping at Armaçao de Pera, a place which far from the tranquil village we imagined from our map turned out to be enormous and full of ugly highrise hotels. It did at least possess a halfway decent Indian restaurant. It felt so good to be able to look at the menu and see not none, not just one, but a whole slew of dishes under the "Vegetarian" heading. Curry is definitely one of the things I have been missing about the UK.