Oct 2-6

We spent a good chunk of time at the rooftop pool, made it to beach, had a couple of good meals out, a couple of so so meals put, and many DIY lunches at the hotel.

On Friday morning, we took the metro and bus (Axel’s first city train and bus rides!) to Park Guëll, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (it was very cool).

Once we had all 3 bikes and our trailer we did a few trips to the beach and went on a bike tour into the city to see the Basílica de la Sagrada Família (we didn’t get tickets to go in, although we will try to if we come again!) then to Bogatell beach. The beaches are beautiful and the water is warm!

We also had a great paella dinner Friday night that Axel was actually very into, including deshelling and eating the claims, mussels, prawns and crayfish! They had great Sangria, seafood croquettes and patates de bravas as well (honestly the fried potatoes stole the show for me on this one!).

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We stayed 2 nights in a little apartment right near the old town Centro and it was very entertaining. We mostly walked around and tried to go see the Real Alcàzar de Sevilla but tickets were sold out to get in and there’s not much to see from outside. Later in the day we went on a bike tour of the Plaza de España and surrounding park. A surprise was a 200yr celebration of the Spanish Police with a helicopter exhibit, and also a robot police dog – this was a huge hit with Axel.

I really enjoyed checking out a big city by bicycle instead of by foot or bus, especially with a toddler in tow, even if it does include many stops at fairly terrible playgrounds (the one Axel insisted we stop at today had many mosquitos, but also a slide toy in the shape of a train, so who can argue with that kind of trade off?). It lets us cover more ground and check out the biking infrastructure of new cities, with the freedom to choose our own adventure versus bus or train. It has drawbacks of course, like not being able to eat inside or stray too far from our bikes, ever, as we don’t have locks. Most places have patios and we prefer eating outside in the nice weather. Axel has delighted in running around bringing us “thingies” while at restaurants, and hauling one of us off on any mission to look for playgrounds or parks.

We had some good coffee and found some good tapas in Seville, too. Our favourite was a restaurant that just had a tapas taster menu, so at a set price you just got to try many of the dishes, which was great. We did try to go to El Rancillo, the oldest restaurant in Seville which was highly recommended, but it opened at 8pm and had too long of a line up to justify with a 2 year old. Another time, maybe?

And in the big picture, we were able to find restaurants that served us food in this town! Hurray!

Seville > Barcelona

This was a bit of a circus! We biked into Seville on Sep 29th and our flight home from Barcelona is on Oct 6th. There’s a fast train from Seville>Madrid>Barcelona. But, the fast train in Spain isn’t always tolerant of bikes. We scoured the internet and a local bike store for advice, and also went to the post office to inquire about shipping them via post to Barcelona. We narrowed it down to these options:

Option 1) buy bike boxes from the post office and carry our packed up bikes onto the train with us – but, it’s not 100% clear the fast train will allow us to bring full bike boxes

Option 2) buy bike bags (most compact than boxes) from a sport store and carry the bikes on the train with us, but we’ll still have to get bike boxes for our flight home – we did look into this option but didn’t find any stores nearby that we could buy the bags from

Option 3) buy bike boxes and ship our bikes via post to a post office in Barcelona, then pick them up by Friday (post offices are closed on weekends), get them from the post to our hotel then again to the airport on Sunday for our flight (which will require many taxis or shuttles back and forth)

We went with Option 1! Ryley 2ent to the post office and purchased and carried 3 empty bike boxes back to our apartment in Seville and we packed up our bikes Monday night. We ordered a taxi at 11am for our 1:30pm train to Barcelona. 1 group cab didn’t fit all three bike boxes and the taxi driver was VERY annoyed with us, but she did take 2 boxes plus Axel and I to the train station. Ryley tried just hailing a cab for the 3rd box but no one would pick him up, so he had to order another group cab for himself and the 3rd box (Axel’s trailer).

At the train station, I went to pick up Axel’s (free) train ticket and ask about how/where we load bikes on the train. The info agent said bikes?! And I said “in boxes” so she said oh ok no problem. They go in the luggage area, you’ll see. Ryley was still worried they didn’t quite know what we meant so he flagged down another info agent and showed him our bike boxes. He took one look and said “no WAY”.

Ok – option 2! It’s now 12:20pm, our train leaves at 1:37pm. Ryley runs all 3 boxes back out to the taxi area and tries unsuccessfully to fit them into 1 taxi. A second (and third, even!) taxi jump in offering to help, so a second taxi brings the 3rd box to the post office. Ryley stood in a 15 person-deep line up waiting for his turn while the clock is ticking. The plan is if he doesn’t make it back in time, he’ll catch a later train and meet us in Barcelona. Luckily, most people waiting were there for pick up and not shipping. He got the bikes shipped while his taxi driver (insisted) on waiting outside for him (we thought that might be expensive but not as expensive as a whole new train ticket to Barcelona!). Boxes successfully shipped and Ryley made it back to the train station at 1:15pm. Phewph! That was ~: €50 in cab rides, €45 to buy the boxes, €100 shipping and a few wrinkles in stress. This saga to continue as we’re now in Barcelona and haven’t retrieved our bikes yet or know how good of shape the boxes will be in to take them as luggage on our flight…

Axel was actually great in the morning during these logistics. He LOVED the taxi ride through the city to the train station sitting on my lap. He was originally very excited about the trains but the novelty wore off and he actually wasn’t that into it once we were on the train for a bit.

He didn’t nap on our train to Madrid, became a bit of a bear from Madrid to Barcelona, and fell asleep in Ryley’s arms at 7:17pm (our train arrived at 7:37pm).  We’ll take a 20 min nap, I guess!

We unloaded a sleepy kid off the train but he perked up through the station and into our taxi, and then was VERY into the ~30min taxi ride to our hotel, sitting on Ryley’s lap. (Although, after we loaded our bags and ourselves into the taxi Axel declared he had to pee, so Ryley jumped out with him and the taxi driver tried to drive away without them, with the door open – oops).

We arrived at our hotel, complete with a 10th floor view of the Mediterranean, a view of the city including many taxis, city buses and emergency vehicles (Axel loves it), and a rooftop infinity pool (to check out tomorrow!).

We have a tracking number for our bikes so we’re hoping we see them soon!

Oct 3 (Thurs)

We received a notification that our parcels had arrived, but when we went to the post office at 12:30 only two of three at the boxes had actually made it. We were able to pick up both Ryley’s and my bikes but the bike trailer was still MIA. It was only 450 meters from the correos to our hotel, so we hauled our bikes back to our hotel and up onto the porch of our room. Hopefully our last box arrives tomorrow (Friday, before the postboffice closes for the weekend) so that we can get everything to the airport and back home with us in one go!

Axel had a solid 2h nap where Ryley and I unboxed and rebuilt our bikes (with plans to go to the beach, plus some cheap but decent grocery store wine) but when Axel woke up we were just as happy to take the convenient choice of going up to the pool and that’s what we did. We had tapas, live music on the rooftop, and a beautiful view of the sunset over the city as we wound down another day.

We got a notification that Axel’s trailer arrived so we’ll be able to pick it up tomorrow morning (Woo!).

We will use them in Barcelona then re-box them for our trip home. We’re going to pay for a private shuttle from the hotel to the airport to be sure we get everything there in one go and in time for our flight.

The traveling bike saga obviously started before we even left and won’t wrap until all bikes (and humans) are back in Pemberton! The logistics on the leaving end were to ask cousin Shelley to load us up in her truck and drive us from Pemby to a whistler to catch the airport shuttle from Whistler to YVR. Luggage wasn’t included in our Porter airline flights so the bikes cost about $300 to fly. On the way home we fly WestJet with 3 included bags, but tbd what the oversize baggage costs will be. Gran-Jan has graciously agreed to drive down from 100 Mile to pick us up in Pop-Pop’s truck (with Claire’s car seat for Axel) from the airport to transport all humans and bikes back to Pemberton Sunday night (our flight lands too late for the last shuttle to Whistler).

Worth it? Well, we think so…

Sep 29

Today we head to Seville, 75km away but mostly downhill! I feel bittersweet about it as I love the camping aspect and Axel’s delight at our spots we find in the wild. But, I’m ready for some good food and a break for my butt 🙂

We had camp breakfast then stopped in Valdeflores for coffee and a treat (their version of a Boston Cream donut, pretty good!). The café was absolutely packed – we can’t tell whether it was because it’s Sunday or were just getting closer to the city (or both, or some other reason entirely).

We’d only done about 35km by lunch time, but stopped in El Garrobo and found 2 bars open, one which wasn’t serving food at 1pm,and one which was serving tapas (hurray!). This is one of the first times we’ve successfully been able to eat lunch in a town! And it was very good – home stew, an egg/pepper/potato/pork dish, and “lizard” (direct translation), we don’t think it was actually lizard but we don’t know it wasn’t!

Then we followed Google maps bike suggestion off the state highway to avoid the interstate into Seville. It surprised us by taking us on some very rough gravel side road single track (which Axel fell asleep through) and on and off some very gravely backroads dirt and gravel options to avoid major roads. That part was a success but it slowed our cruisy road riding pace to a crawl. We biked by a massive solar farm which Ryley and I were quite interested to see. We had to cross a (small) river – it is just strange to see running water here at all.

To its credit, we did very little riding on main roads for the 40km from El Garrobo into Seville.

We checked into our booked apartment near the city center, showered then wandered around and found gelato, new shorts for Ryley and the Decathlon, tapas for dinner and my first glass of Sangria of the trip (finally!). Axel found a playground then we headed back to our apartment for a much needed sleep!

https://strava.app.link/gxExwdIjiNb

Total distance: 747km, total elevation:10, 479m ️

Sep 28

We’ve decided to wrap up the bikepacking part of our trip and pivot to part 2: get our bikes to Barcelona, and, find some good food/beach/hang time. This is a combo of Ryley and I finding the EDT pretty hard and a bit too much work on our parts to convince Axel to be biking. It was always intended to be (mostly) type 1 fun for everyone. On our day off, Axel demanded to go bike riding (on a smooth road)…and that’s part of the plan.

Today’s experiment was to test ride the (smooth) state highway to see how busy/hot/safe we found it. The state highway intersects our original route in Aracena, so we can kick back into gravel if it’s a no go. Then, we decide based on how it went whether we gravel bike 5 more days to Cordoba, or, state highway 1 more day to Seville. It went great, actually – not too hot, the roads were fairly busy but didn’t feel unsafe, and it was very satisfying to make good progress despite 800m of climbing to Aracena.

We decided we’ll continue on to Seville and see what vacationing looks like on our vacation – hey, maybe we’ll even like it.

Despite going through several towns on the main road, we still found very little open during the day so made our own lunch at closed restaurant beside a gas station. We found the town square in Aracena so Axel could play on the playground and actually a bunch of the restaurants were quite busy, so we checked a few out but they were so busy we couldn’t get seating. Then, when we did, we got a drink but when we tried to order food we were told the kitchen was closed until dinner (this was around 4). Just adding to our pile of evidence that Spanish people survive on coffee, beer and cigarettes 路‍♀️

It was a bit harder to find camping tonight but we tucked into a side road and set up camp, made ramen, went on a couple big bear hunts, had another nice sunset, and Axel finally fell asleep just before 10pm…oh my.

Sep 27

Ryley, Axel and I all shared a queen size bed which sounds roomy but with a rolly, flaily 2 year old it is NOT and neither Ryley or I got a great sleep. Axel even rolled himself off the bed and Ryley caught him by his ankle before he hit the ground – quite impressive!

Hotel breakfast was included – coffee and toast with jamõn (ham/prosciutto), olive oil and tomato sauce. It was interesting/good although not very filling. We ventured out into town mid-morning to find more breakfast but the cafés only sell coffee and more white toast with jamõn.

Axel found a playground and we found Ryley a pair of boxers to serve as shorts as his shorts fell off the trailer and he just has rain pants as back up. We hung out at the saline pool with Axel then tried town again for lunch, but were told no one serves food until night time. It seems everyone just survives on coffee and cigarettes until 9pm every night! We found a mercado and stocked up on lunch stuff and snacks and had a picnic lunch in “the nook” back at the hotel, then a nap for everyone.

We went into an ALDI grocery store in Ourique, Portugal that had carts for littles to push around and Axel has asked to find one every town we stop in since – “Axel wants a small cart”. Possibly the trip highlight for him, it really stuck! So he was pretty stoked on this push cart at the el jamõn mercado today.

Post nap was more time at the pool, then a makeshift dinner for Axel and bedtime, and a late night dinner again for Ryley and I. Axel’s dinner was: an orange, a small yogurt, pistachios, a few bites of a Pb and kiwi jam bun-which, a kiwi, and the last of the pb out of the jar. I can’t say Axel is generally awake to experience much of Spain’s food but neither are Ryley and I it seems!

Sep 26

We started with a big bear hunt this morning while Ryley made oatmeal, then we ate, packed up and rode 35km to the next town and also stopped there for the night.

I was very intrigued riding through the logging section, where land prep involves mini terraces for pine. There is very little undergrowth so it looks very manicured, beautiful and green but also very weird compared to the messy cut blocks and forests in BC. The deciduous trees are qll💩😉😉that grow up in the cleared blocks are mainly eucalyptus – the mature ones were wafting eucalyptus smell at us for most of our morning ride today which I found quite delightful (but also a hit like you have a cold, since that’s the main thing I associate with the smell of eucalyptus). Also, a nice change from the cow and pig smells of the farmlands. We climbed up to our highest point today and really did get a stunning view of the surroundings.

We lunched up near the top in the shade of a pine, and happened to have stopped just in sight of a clearing machine that was sawing and de-branching trees. Axel was incredibly into it. He also found a stone monument he thought was cool which he made sure to pee right next to.

Ryley had looked up a hotel with a pool in the next town, Aroche, and asked if we wanted to do showers and laundry tonight. I said yes, probably. Then it started to rain lightly, we stopped for Axel to go to the bathroom and he also wanted to walk. We wanted to make some progress but are trying to balance that with his requests. As we started our Axel walk, Ryley rode 10 feet forward and realized that despite several adjustments tightening his brake cables, he had essentially no brakes, front or rear, so as it continued to rain he changed out his front brake pads with the non-help of Axel being an assistant mechanic plus rain and dirt getting into everything. But, success! Brake pads changed and braking power for our last two long and steep descents to Aroche. We were soaked by the time we got to town and very sold on a hotel stop for the night.

We had a hard time winding our way to the top of town to find the hotel in the rain and we were so wet it was hard to navigate using our phones. Hotel Casa Palacio is a restored 18th century Palace House and it was beautiful, quiet, dry and warm when we stepped in, with very much a feeling of entering a spa. We were welcomed warmly despite being soaking wet and filthy, and the only hotel staff who spoke some English acted as our hoat/guide/server and all things helpful for the evening. They had a room for us and assured us we could walk our wet bikes through the hotel and into the courtyard of the second floor for safe storage (which did take a bit of doing). We checked in at 5pm and were informed the kitchen opens for dinner at 9pm and breakfast at 8:30am. We asked if there was somewhere in town we could find food earlier than 9pm for Axel and they said “umm, no, we’ll try to make you some toast”.

We went and showered and came back to the restaurant for 6pm coffees, toast, a muffin and a piece of carrot cake – dinner for Axel. We did Axel’s bedtime then left a phone in the room on a one-way call as a monitor and went and had dinner at 10pm. We hadn’t seen anyone all day but the restaurant was full at 10pm. This is giving us a lot of insight into Selena’s inborn schedule 

We were recommended an excellent dinner and wine by our server and had a great meal, ending in chocolate lava cake around 11pm, and bed. We decided to stay a second night and have a day off tomorrow as we’re feeling pretty tired, and to give Axel a break day, too.

https://strava.app.link/h8Uj8H6CeNb

Poop story (at the end so skip if you want! It’s funny not gross): as we’ve already pointed out Axel is much more comfortable having nature poops then using toilets. We have a trowel for digging holes if it’s that kind of ground and if we’re pretty far out, we also have a roll of doggie bags so we just scoop it up if it’s not a very appropriate place to dig a hole and bury it. Today he picked a spot beside the trial way out but it was very Rocky and raining, so we bagged it. But, it was also the first time we put the rain cover on the trailer, and we’d previously been stashing any bagged poops in the rolled up rain cover above his trailer until we found a garbage bag. We tucked it in in the usual spot and part way down the hill Axel was clquite upset saying “Poop fall on Axel! Poop fall on Axel!” we didn’t really get it but his poop had indeed fallen on him in his trailer (it stayed bagged, not to worry!).  Fairly, he wasn’t that into it.

Sep 25

We made it to Spain! Ryley has read some ride reports of cyclists doing the whole European Divide Trail or sections of it (Norway to Portugal) North to South who said Portugal took them about 3 days to bike through and they don’t really remember it. Here we are getting close to 2 weeks in, I think we’ll remember it!

We woke up to a very light rain (a spit, really) packed up and rode out around 8:30.

It was about 5km into Corte do Pinto for coffee and some breakfast (no food at the cafe so pastries and snacks were procured from the minimercado). Somehow it is always up into town, descend from town then climb up immediately afterwards. It’s hilly and everyone has built their town on top of a hill, too! After a long climb away from town we biked along a park on one side of the trail, before a long descent to cross a (dry) river which was also the Portugal/Spain border. This feat was slightly overshadowed by Axel setting some kind of record on asking for poop stops with no evidence of the big show. He did a big section of walking up a hill and seemed to forget about it for a bit. We biked through a massive orange orchard, maybe for 5km or so with the orchard stretching a ways on both sides of the road, it seemed massive. It also felt weirdly quiet – we didn’t notice a single person working anywhere for such a big production, but maybe it’s just not orange tending season. We’re near Seville so I was wondering if these are Seville oranges? We didn’t pick one to find out how bitter or sweet they are…

We rolled into our first Spanish town (Paymogo) and also the end of the EDT Alternate route made by the 4B’s owners that we’ve been following for 360km from Sagres – so that felt like an accomplishment!. We realized we bumped forward an hour in time, which also put us into town at mid-siesta time and very little was open. We didn’t find any public bathrooms which we’ve gotten used to finding and using for water fill ups from the tap. We’re thankful all the water is potable here, although apparently most locals choose to drink bottled water because of the taste.

We found a playground, picked up lunch items from a mercado (shortly before it closed) and made sandwiches while Axel had a good play session.

The afternoon was spent rolling over a mixed bag of gravel quality through mostly farmland again. Axel fell asleep right before we went from decent gravel to very rough gravel and so only had a 13-minute nap. There were lots of animals to see and big sections smelled strongly of pigs (not in a good way). “Axel saw lots of horses, Mama!” Axel yells at me from the trailer when we go by horses. We made it to Santa Bárbara for dinner (around 5:30pm) but again struck out – nothing was open except the bar and when I asked if any restaurants would open the answer was “la mañana”.

And again, no public restroom to refill water but the bar obliged. We tucked around the corner to a playground – we were originally the only ones there but soon many local families with kids arrived. Axel was mesmerized by 2 toy strollers and all the kids and mostly just walked around as close to the strollers as they’d let him get. He also did lots of laps of the slide, came over and slurped up some ramen for dinner, then headed back to play. He was reluctant to leave but we got him into the trailer and singing us a tune up our last (big) climb of the day to another beautiful camp spot at the top of a big cut block.

As Ryley tried to get the 6 ground wasps out of our semi-erected tent, Axel was very intent on playing rock-stick (a delightful game you can ask Roger about if you’re intrigued) and stick-stick (a slight variation). He announced finding rocks for this game as “going on a big bear hunt, mama”. I said – oh, are we looking for bears? “Big ones!” Did we find any? “Lots!” How many? “One, two, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen.” and as we walked back towards the tent: “DADA! Axel and Mama went on a big bear hunt!”

Buenas noches!

https://strava.app.link/G6yvUy5NbNb

General musing on camping with Axel: he is VERY excited to help select the tent spot (inevitably not the same criteria Ryley and I use) and where our heads should go, rolling out the tent, and putting the poles together. We have one short top pole that is “Axel’s pole” when we pull the tent out, for “on top of the mountain” (it hooks lover the top and holds up the fly). 

From blowing up air mattresses and mama’s pillow, rolling out all our sleeping bags, setting up Axel’s spot and getting out his books – the whole show is a hit end to end. Ryley came up with a great game of “find what’s in Axel’s teeth” one day when Axel didn’t really want to brush, and now teeth brushing is a mix of drool and giggles as we “find” all the food he ate that day. 

When we pack up in the morning, he’s varies from happy to sit in my lap to stay warm and cozy while I do nothing and Ryley’s makes breakfast or packs up to jumping out of bed, saying “time to wake up, mama!” and wanting to go outside to play. He LOVES helping deflate our air mattresses by jumping on us and lying on us lengthwise to add his weight to ours to let out all the air . He also wants to help roll up everything and put it in its stuff sacks and bags. Not particularly helpful but very cute and we love the stoke!

Sep 23

A climb to start the day…so, same as most days. Our goal was 25ish km into Mertola and we knew it would be on mostly paved roads. We were serenaded to baa baa black sheep, the wheels on the bus, just the ‘put on your boots’ part of Looking for Dracula, and a new one that went “put on Axel’s mountain shoes” (out of his Nike Velcro shoes). I think we stopped for 6 false alarm poop requests over the course of the day plus a few at actual bathrooms. The highs and lows 

The first few big climbs were on gravel but the switch to pavement was quite welcome. We did opt to stick on route despite an avoidable 4km side trip that we knew from the map was a huge descent to the river by Mertola then a massive climb back up to the city, probably for a questionable gravel experience and view. But, I think it was worth the view!

We are on a birding route so have been going by lots of birds signage for it and keeping our eyes peeled for interesting birds. We’ve seen some but aren’t savvy enough to identify anything interesting, just to point out birds we aren’t familiar with that look neat.

Mértola was indeed very cool, with a narrow bridge entrance and exit, city wall and mideival castle. Typical narrow streets and compact infrastructure – although some light googling tells me that Mértola is less denser than most. We found a Café for late morning coffee and pastel de nata, then decided it was lunch time so found a vegetarian restaurant that could’ve been a spot in Victoria. We had a local draft beer, ménu lunch whose main was beet pancakes with some delightful sauce and baked chick peas. It was a great combo of nourishing and tasty. Axel loved the beet pancake and chick peas so that was also a win (he hasn’t had the most vegetables this trip!).

As we do, we headed out of town in the blazing heat of day, promptly opted out of what looked like a black Diamond mtn bike descent trail (our intended track) for a wind around ride on the road (a plus of riding in the heat during siesta time is that the roads are pretty quiet). Axel had been a bit of a bear at the restaurant but was asleep within about 10min of leaving town.

We looped back to our trail for a bit, had another nice rolling (big rolls, nothing is flat around here!) section of very quiet paved road, then bumped onto a rocky rough trail that took us to some scenic ruins but also had these very old destroyed rock bridges that were disconnected and had horrible walk-arounds. The road woke Axel up, we breaked in the shade of the ruins then kicked back into a detour of smooth road to our next destination – a lake with a beach!

It was amazing to have a swim in fresh water and Axel definitely loves a sandy beach. He also was running into the lake up to his chest and did a face plant at one point but wasn’t too fussed. They had pizza and beer at the lake so we did that for dinner then carried on a few km out of town to camp for the night just out of Mina da São Domingas (a mine town – we went by a full size wall art of a miner holding a rat, it was weird).

https://strava.app.link/VP54kGh9aNb

Axel quotes today:

Me telling Axel Auntie JJ’s birthday is in two days. “My birthday is in two days”. No, your birthday is in a little while. How old are you going to be? You’re two right now. One, two… what comes after two? “Big!”

Axel playing in the ruins at our break today: “I need to have another bath!” (he’d already had one pretend bath). Are you dirty? “Yes!” What are you dirty from? “From biking!”

Sep 23

Ryley woke Axel and I up in our black out room at 7:45am as we’d asked for breakfast at 8. Axel is a delight in the morning – he always wakes up with a smile on his face, proclaims loudly some random fact “Axel’s sleeping bag is in his bed!” then rolls around in bed giving us a string of kisses.

Our 4b’s hosts Suzanna and Ruí were lovely, breakfast was great (coffee, homemade oat muffins, bread with Pb and homemade veggie spreads). They had a bike pump and set of hex keys for any bike fixings, and a wealth of knowledge of biking in Portugal. They run a gravel bike race every spring – there’s 750km version and a 270km version (no, thanks!). Suzanna also runs a vegetarian restaurant out the opposite side of the BnB, lunch only.

We pumped up our tires (Woo!) and rode out at 11am. It is wild how quickly you are out of town here. The town residential is so dense and the surrounding area is almost immediately agriculture. We meandered through open farmland most of the day today, heading through 3 little towns along the way.

We stopped at a shady picnic area/bird habitat (ie teeny pond) for lunch before heading into Entradas for a cold drink stop and water refill. There were several locals at the Café Centro, as usual, and our Portuguese was poor, as usual. As I went to pay and leave, the Café owner asked if I spoke French. I said yes and proceeded to try to communicate in a jumble of French, Spanish, Portuguese and English. But after a few sentences my French won through and we had a fairly good chat about where we were from, our bike trip and appreciating the friendliness of the locals.

After lunch, we went through our first Olive orchard (Grove? It didn’t feel like a Grove, though). Ryley “choo-choo’d” before a big down hill and I asked Axel, “if dada is the train engine what does that make Axel?” and he answered, “the little red caboose!”. Then he gleefully started singing the little red caboose song on repeat and we dubbed him Little Red Caboose for the rest of the day.

Next up was a big climb up to a tiny church way up on a hill (Ermida de Nossa Senhora de Aracelis). It was hot and hard, and Axel was asleep so we didn’t stop, just huffed and puffed up and over. At least the climb on the ascent was paved, although the descent was not – a bit steep, loose and washboardy.

We got some beautiful clouds for our afternoon ride while Axel napped. We’ve gone through quite a few gates and cattle guards the last 2 days, too. I’m the gate opener as it’s not very doable for Ryley with the trailer. When Axel is asleep we try to get through a gate without Ryley ever really stopping so that Axel doesn’t wake up – a bit of a challenge!

We had a trail-side break in a patch of shade just before 5 when Axel woke up, and he walked a chunk of the trail, before riding up into Alcaria Ruíva to find a restaurant for a beer and maybe dinner.

While enjoying said beer, a woman walked up chatting to Axel in Portuguese. She switched to ok English for us and translated to the restaurant owner that we’d like to eat – he said he’d already offered but in Portuguese so we had no idea 路‍♀️. She was quite taken with Axel and asked me where we were staying tonight, I said camping and she offered to host us saying she used to run a guest house. I said maybe as I wasn’t sure if we were going to get some cool evening km’s in, but she gave me some rough instructions to her house “the white wall, the green gate” (almost every house has white walls and a green gate, for the record) and told me her name is Anna. A minute later she walked by saying she was going to pick up milk for breakfast (I assume for Axel/us).

We had our dinner at the restaurant and it felt very authentic in this tiny town. We sat and food was brought out, we didn’t really know what. Bread, cheese a sausage to start, then tomato & onion salad in Olive oil, a bowl of olives, a basket of fries and a plate of meat, mostly ribs. And, vinho tinto! We ate our fill but it was a lot of food for 2 adults and a toddler!

The sun was setting and we heading off in the direction of Anna’s house. We found it (we think) and knocked and buzzed, we even tried the gate despite the very barky dog on the other side but it was locked. At this point Axel is fired up and saying “want to stay in Anna’s house” on repeat. It did look very nice, with a beautiful courtyard and a pool. But, no one answered and we didn’t know how else to track down Anna, so we headed out of town to find a spot to camp before it got dark. The sunset was beautiful as we rode down from the town and Axel forgot about Anna’s house in the excitement of setting up the tent and winding down after another big day. I feel bad we didn’t connect with Anna, I think she was excited to host us. Ryley was all for staying with Anna, he said “oh yes, she reminds me of my mom, but with fewer teeth”.

https://strava.app.link/8UUCxr6m8Mb