I could hear the festival last night wirh fireworks and partying until after midnight through my ear plugs. I slept in, leaving the campground at 8:30 am.
The Germans had also told me where I could find both a Dia and a LIDL (supermarkets) nearby across the street from each other. A good thing, after yesterday I ran through most of the calories on-board. I got to the intersection before 10:00 am and they were still closed. Not a big deal, but then I noticed as the day went by that all of the shops were closed. I did manage to find a bread store, and came close enough to a McDonald’s at lunch to rack up some calories. Just before I crossed the border into Portugal I found a small market open and picked up a few things. It occurred to me that perhaps this was only a Spanish holiday, but no luck.
Yesterday started mostly flat, with the mountains at the end of the day. Today I had two peninsulas to cross starting out the day. My German friends last night advised I cut across the first penninsula, and then work around the second. They had problems with the ferry at the second peninsula, because the ferry only runs at high tide, and they had to wait three hours.
I crossed the first with no significant problems, but examining the map for the second, crossing the peninsula avoided the risk of the untimely ferry. In the end, I’m not sure which straw of the proverbial camel changed my path. The climb looked like 200 m in the first 2 km, but then almost 20 km of flat or down (after careful examination of the topography). The climb followed a major highway, a river, and a railway. On the other side of the peninsula I could follow almost 30 km of greenway to the western coast. Or perhaps it was just that the path put me again on the Camino. The Camino path provides alburgues along the way, and a campground just past the last alburgue in case the alburgue was “completa” (full).
The day started with hills and ended with downwards and river-side greenway, so the day flew by. Still, at 120 km for the day I was starting to drag by the time I reacehd the alburgue in Caminha.
Arriving at the alburgue, I met a Polish cyclist. He said no one was at Reception. He’d called them, ad they would be here in a while; we should just pick out beds. While I start to drag at the end of a long day, especially today when I’m short on calories as well, an hour at the hostel and my energy levels return. We both headed back out, him for Mass and me to try to find an open market.
Tonight is my first stay at a Portuguese alburgue, which is more basic than the ones I stayed at in Spain. There is only one dorm room with 16 bunk beds all packed together. But there’s a (small) kitchen, a place for the bicycle, a place to hang laundry, and a (cantankerous) hot shower. What more could one want?
While I had to replace the destroyed phone charger, the new one is 2 amp, charging twice as fast as my old charger – invaluable in places where it’s hard to find power, or shared outlets amongst many people trying to chrge their devices.
According to the Plan, I need to be in Porto in two days, to travel to Lisbon on the third day. After two days at 120+ km, I’m now only 90 km from Porto, a straight shot down the coast. Again according to the Germans from last night, I should have a tailwind. Even with a shorter day tomorrow I can get to Porto early enough on the second day to investigate bus and train as cheaper options than one-way car rental. Then again, the GPS shows eight castles en route …
With the alburgue in Portugal across a river from Spain I barely have cell service. The alburgue offers no Wi-Fi. I need to swap my SIM back and update the cell service again for Portugal.