Headwinds and ruins, to Évora

We left our campground early because we knew the headwinds would be very strong, and they were quite intense! We were pedaling just to go downhill at times, across open fields where the wind whipped through so hard that the caterpillars attempting to crawl across the road would be tossed back into the grass.

We were still in good spirits though. The traffic was light, and it was sunny, and the expansive views were stunning.

After about 3 grueling hours, we made it to the historic town of Évora, a UNESCO heritage site, due in part to the fact that it’s a walled city that is still active. It is home to many historic places including these ruins from the 1st century, nearly 2,000 years old.

We will spend a full day there the next day, exploring, and resting our legs.

But for the rest of the day, we cycled 22km more into headwinds to a small traditional Alentejo farm house in the countryside, where our extremely generous host family (from the WarmShowers network) prepared us dinner, introduced us to friends they’d meet in Laos, as well as their three friendly dogs, two cats, and chickens, and told us stories about their cycling tours (they took 1,001 days cycling from New Zealand to Portugal two years ago and are writing a book about it!), as we watched the sunset over a field of cork trees and snacked on local sheeps-milk cheese and Portuguese bread.

Nuno has an organic, fully sustainable vegetable garden that supplies almost all of their produce. His techniques are fascinating and require no pesticides due to mixing of plants that resist certain pests, and he produces his own fertilizer by fermenting a poisonous weed that grows in parts of the yard. Now this is a life I could envision coming back to after years on the road!