Month: March 2017

As we neared the border of Portugal and Spain, it became increasingly difficult to figure out what language I should be butchering. If I greeted someone with “bom dia!” I would get back responses in English, Spanish, German, and sometimes Portuguese. One guy even responded “no falo Português” (I don’t speak Portuguese), which made me LOL.

We followed a lot of the Eco Via to the border of Spain, and it became painful in parts because of the rough roads alternating with highway, but there were some stunning areas riding through small farms and along the coast.

The border crossing was fun; we choose to take the ferry to avoid riding on a major highway bridge that was only built in the 90s. We met an Irish cyclist with his three Spanish cycling mates, who were all very curious about our gear setup. They wanted to know where to get our eyeglass mirrors and had questions about our bags and pedals. They gave us some tips on which roads to ride in Spain as well.

Our route had us on the highway all the way to our WarmShowers host, but we got bored with that and made the dubious decision to try out Google cycling directions, which work in Spain but didn’t work in Portugal. We ended up on a gorgeous quiet road beside a canal for 5km and then 30km of rough unpaved farm roads so that we could get back to the highway. I think my palms may be permanently bruised.

I was surprised how different Spain is from Portugal. I expected a gradual easing into the new country as we neared Spain, but Portugal remained Portugal until our last bifanas at the port, and as soon as you cross the border, the language changes, people’s attitudes change, the traffic patterns are different, the roads are paved with large bricks instead of small paving stones, the brands of coffee and beer are different, the cities sprawl out into the country more, etc… More of a shock than I expected.

Our gracious WarmShowers host tonight is taking care of her family’s runway and aircraft hanger, meanwhile accepting cycling guests and work away volunteers in her spare space. It’s a pretty cool place with solar hot water and electricity and an organic garden that provided us with oranges and vegetables for dinner.

We will leave for Seville tomorrow and have a rest day the next day. We are considering taking a second day day to train to Cordoba… Stay tuned.

Obrigado (Thank You in Portuguese) is one of the few words I have learned to say and quite often in these past two weeks.  Another phrase Tim taught me was Bom Dia which means “good day” and typically used in the morning.  Besides those two sayings, I’ve relied on my smile and blue eyes to get me through my first two weeks in Europe.

Europe so far has been everything I imagined and more from the architecture and history to the pastries and overall food quality.  I believe every day should start with an espresso and Pasteis de Nata….Custard type staple dessert of Portugal that is similar to sugar cream pie.  

Lisbon was amazing with it’s beautiful colors and cobblestone streets, sidewalks, and public squares with fountains and outdoor seating. The tiles around a window or doorway, and sometimes the entire front of the building are stunning.  Every corner we turned reminded me of a stock photo you might see in a picture frame sold in a retail shop in the USA.  We enjoyed a free walking tour in the city and another tour of the Alfama district during our first five days in Portugal.  I’ve been trying to post a picture a day on my Instagram (scubastevecyclist) page that you might’ve seen already, and here are a few more of my favorites from Lisbon.

To get the legs moving before the official tour started we enjoyed a day trip through Belem and then to Sintra where we spotted our first of many jaw dropping castles I can’t wait to see all throughout Europe.  

As soon as we left Lisbon and departed from the ferry we both were smiling from ear to ear and reminded of why we enjoyed the pure joy and sense of freedom from our first tour we did together last summer from Vancouver BC back to San Diego and Tijuana (where there is already a wall).  It’s the excitement of the unknown roads and what lies ahead or around the corner to our next campground, warm showers host, or a cheap hotel.  We’ve enjoyed the countryside of Portugal and all the little towns we pass through to grab a quick and cheap lunch for two which usually consists of a Bifana (simple pork sandwiches) and a beer (mine in Sem Alcool…No Alcohol) for each of us and cost between 6 to 8 euros total.

While pedaling through the countryside I love to moo at the cows, bah at the sheep, and ney at the horses.  I need to learn how to call out at the many goats we’ve seen as well.  Evora was a great stop for our first rest day and to be the warm showers guests and experience the other side of this hospitality network for touring cyclists that we enjoyed being a host of in San Diego.  Our hosts live on a sustainable farm just 20km outside of Evora where we enjoyed being tourist for a day seeing beautiful churches and a chapel full of human bones…..See my picture on Instagram.

I understand Celcius from a little trick that Tim taught me as 0C=30F, 10C-50F, 20C-70F, 30C-90F.  It’s not completely accurate but very close.  My comfort zone is anything above 20 degrees Celsius and if it’s below 15C, I have my arm warmers or wind/rain jacket on while riding.  It’s 14C now in the tent and I have my long underwear on as it’s supposed to dip below 10C overnight.  I may have to reach for my gloves in the middle of the night.  This California boy of 17 years is a little spoiled.  We are just 54km (34 miles) away from Spain and will pedal our way there in the morning and have lunch across the border and be in Seville by Thursday.  

Thanks for all the love, support, and comments on the blog so far.  As we finish our days of pedaling, our CA and West Coast friends are just waking up and our Midwest and East Coast families are thinking about lunch.  

I’ll leave you with a few more of my favorite pictures from the past two weeks as I need to get some sleep for our 110km day tomorrow.  

Carpe Diem

Steve

PS…This sunset photo with our tent was shared on Instagram by the manufacturer Zpacks who makes lightweight adventure​ gear.  Needless to say I was very honored and inspired.  

Today we had two choices for a route: follow the Eco Via do Algarve, a designated bike route along the coast, or ride inland away from the over-developed coast and through quiet villages, but with 6,000ft of climbing (if you’re not a cyclist: that’s a LOT!).

We chose the easier Eco Via route, and it was… interesting.

The route alternated rapidly from very quiet dirt and gravel roads to busy 4-lane highways with no shoulder. We rode through farmland, beach access trails, crazy over-developed planned coastal communities with 10-story high-rises hiding the sun, national parks, trash dumps, ridiculously posh golf courses, communities full of mansions empty except for workers, and run-down port cities. If it weren’t for having the whole route programmed into my GPS, it would have been impossible to follow the rarely-signed, meandering route. None of it we recognized as the Portugal we’ve grown to love. The Algarve region is quite a different place.

Steve’s bottom bracket has been creaking all day, one of the things we don’t know how to work on. It’s not an urgent problem but could eventually lead to a problem, so since we have some extra time today, we decided to stop at a bike shop 10km from our camp ground. They hope to have it fixed in enough time for us to arrive before dark, so we are sitting at a cafe next to the bike shop in Faro having coffee, pastries, and beer, planning our accommodations for the next week. We should be in Africa a week from today! Life is pretty good…

Ever since we tried the polvo grelhada (grilled octopus) in Lisbon, I’ve been craving more of it, so today we set off in search of some for lunch. We were successful, and it was delicious!

It was a perfect rest day. We spent the morning re-packing our bags, washing clothes in our hotel sink, wiping down our bikes from all the mud we accumulated off-roading yesterday, and planning the next few days of riding and accommodations.

After lunch, we walked a few km down the beautiful Portimão waterfront to Praia da Rocha. It’s a quite touristy beach with high rises that reminded us somewhat of Long Beach, but it’s low season so was relatively quiet. We chilled on a couch with a beer overlooking the ocean and then put on our flips and walked down the beach. The water was chilly so we opted not to swim.

We stocked up on too many supplies on the way back, but we did end up with some good stuff, like a new wine opener (my cheapo was not working with the dry Portuguese corks), some more thread (I had to make some more repairs to one of my bike bags), plastic ziplock baggies, reusable wash cloths, and way too much food (I picked out 4 oranges at a roadside stand, and the guy tossed in 4 more for €1! We’d rather not carry 1 kg of oranges…). We filled our bags with our favorite sweet and salty snacks as well. Steve is loving the Haribo gummies, and I can’t get enough almond cookies and Nutella.

Dinner at a local kebab shop, where we joined a small crowd of locals cheering on a football (soccer) game. I think they were from Africa, and they didn’t understand our English or Portuguese, but we figured it out with hand gestures and smiles and left happy with two chicken doner kebabs.

3 more days of riding and we’ll be in Seville, Spain!

Another gorgeous sunny day, we both got a lot of sun, and the solar chargers earned their keep.

After leaving our GoCampr site and thanking our hosts, we headed south with a quick detour to ride along some ocean cliffs.

We took a detour through some Parque Naturale trails, which in retrospect was not a great idea after some recent rains. Our bikes got caked in mud, but we eventually reached the southwestern-most tip of Europe. It was way more touristy than we expected, so we moved on quickly and found a decent bifana in Sagres for lunch.

We started to feel like we were riding through a British movie set in places along the Algarve coast. So many Brits and some posh neighborhoods. It’s nice to be able to speak English and be understood, but it feels less authentic than when we were riding through countryside. We will probably go inland when we continue riding to avoid the British developments along the coast.

Steve’s brakes started having issues, so we cut the scenic route short and hopped on the highway to get to the next bike shop before it closed. We reached G-RIDE in Portimão around 5pm, and the very friendly mechanic diagnosed a worn brake pad and quickly fixed it for us. Doh! We know how to fix these ourselves and have spares, but we didn’t recognize the symptoms and thought something more severe was wrong. Anyway, happy to be back up and running quickly, and we picked up some long fingered glove liners to keep us warm in the chilly mornings. Thanks guys!

Tomorrow is a rest day, so we found a really cute hotel in downtown Portimão, where we are doing laundry and going to the beach tomorrow. Had an amazing dinner next door at a traditional Portuguese restaurant. The rice with razor clams was absolutely incredible, one of the best dishes I’ve had in Portugal so far.

So it turns out, all of the cemeteries in Portugal and Spain have water available, and all the cemeteries are sign posted throughout both countries. Our Portuguese hosts told us about this, so we tried it out today, and it’s true!

Really nice day cycling from Villa Nova de Milfontes to just south of Aljezur, entering the Algarve region of Portugal. Beautiful weather, calm roads, great food for lunch, picturesque towns and villages, and easy riding just 80km.

We are trying out a new website called GoCampr. It’s like AirBNB for camping! So we are staying in someone’s beautiful backyard, with plenty of space to pitch our tent, hot showers, bathroom, WiFi, and there’s even someone nextdoor playing the accordion as we eat oranges and prepare dinner. How perfect and very European!

Today’s weather was a complete change from yesterday! Chilly and rainy all day. When we saw the forecast, we made the decision to skip camping tonight and put our budget towards the cheapest indoor lodging we could find along the coast, which happened to be in Vila Nova de Milfontes.

This changed our route a little (we were shooting for Porto Covo originally to ride along the coast), but given the weather, we wouldn’t have seen much on the coast anyway.

The hotel also completely blew our budget so breakfast was Nutella and leftover bread (it’s actually great energy food!), and lunch was a €3 bifana. Dinner may be something from a market, or else we’ll have to borrow from tomorrow’s budget.

The ride was great, aside from the weather. Low (or no) traffic country roads and dirt farm roads, gorgeous open farmland, cork farms, olive trees, sheep, goats, cows, horses.

We are very happy with our Patagonia rain jackets; they kept us super dry and warm today! They work equally well either on or off the bike.

Tomorrow calls for 20°C and partly cloudy and the next few days sunny and 24! So we are drying off inside and look forward to enjoying the outdoors again soon. Oh, and this is the first time in 2 weeks we’ve had our own toilet. Heaven!

I’m sitting in the sun in the grass listening to bees buzz around me, overlooking a reservoir, munching on bread and cheese. And I don’t feel like writing a blog, so I’m just writing to say that it’s time for me to live in the moment, and I will update this when I can.

Follow me on Strava if you want to see the route we are riding. That will update every day: https://www.strava.com/athletes/timnorman

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!

Another great day, though we are not used to riding back-to-back so many miles, so we’re a little tired.

We rode all day today (95km) on quiet country roads and through small towns. We saw many other road cyclists out for their Sunday rides, and it was fun exchanging “Bom dia”s and smiles. 

When we approached Grândola, we chanced upon a mountain bike race! We had to cross a bridge on their route, so we did our best to stay out of the way. We watched a little of the race and found a fast food bifana (steak sandwich) place. €3.20 for a beer, bifana, and coffee. Yay, tasty!

All over Portugal, we’ve seen water spigots, usually with a tile back drop, meant for public water use. But whenever we run out of water, we can’t find them. We’re trying to figure out the trick to finding them. We checked out the park, but they only had a fountain that shoots straight up and can’t be used to fill a bottle. Stay tuned, we’ll let you know when we figure out how to find them.

We continued riding through country side until we reached Torrão. We picked up a few snacks and paid for water bottles. Of course, 2 minutes later we found a public tap. Dammit!

We decided to go to a grocery store to pick up some stuff to make dinner, and then we realized that everything shuts down on Sunday. We’d read about this, but it just didn’t click this morning, so we forgot. The whole town was shut down and all we had was a Kinder Bueno in our bags from the gas station. Crap! Nothing showed up on a Google maps search either.

There was a small town 2km off our route to the campground, so we took a chance (Google has been wrong more often that not, we’re re-learning how to find things without Google’s help). We stopped in the town and asked at a hotel where we could get something. He barely spoke English, and I murdered the Portuguese language, but thankfully he understood and pointed us at a bar where we ordered a cured pork sandwich to go. Close call, we need to try to plan things a little better on Sundays!

But lo and behold, when we got to the campground, they had a restaurant, and they were taking orders for delivery at 6pm! We were famished so ordered some french fries, olives, and apple pie, not really sure what kind of cuisine that consisted of, but it was yummy.

This campground, Markádia, is super swanky. The toilets here have lids and toilet paper, and they have cabins for rent starting at €63 for 200 sq.ft. But for just €14.40, we get space for two people and a tent. Bikes are free, and Steve has a stunning picture on Instagram showing our site overlooking the lake. Go follow him @scubastevecyclist to see it.

Okay that’s it for now. See ya!