We biked 2km into a wee town (São Miguel) for 8:30am coffee and pastel de nata…and a second coffee to allow the mini-mercado to open for lunch fortifications. Then we headed out of town and into a steep and loose rollercoaster section with some very punchy hike-a-biking and steep descents.
We lunched a bit early today (ie at lunch time) on the side of the trail – definitely our best DIY lunch of meat, cheese and red pepper sandwiches.
We’d made it under 20km by ~2pm – not for lack of trying, just very slow going today. We made a quick stop for a coke and refilled water then headed onwards on mostly paved road to Sabóia where we tried to blend with the locals (we can’t but we can try!), drinking Sagres beers under the bar awning on the side of the narrow cobblestone street, watching the town and its people come and go. They had rollerskating hockey on tv inside the bar which looked pretty sporty and the locals seemed to be quite into. 4 beers, a bag of chips and a snickers bar, (and milk for Axel on the house) cost 7€ (~$11CAD). Things aren’t typically cheaper here but the beer sure is!
We toodled along a short ways to Santa Clara-a-Velha where we found pad Thai and pizza, charged up devices and found a playground for Axel. The next decision was whether to camp before or after the next 150m climb – we didn’t the like camping options pre so we opted to crush it as our last objective of the day, and found a nice camp spot as the sun was setting above our first lake – Albufeira de Santa Clara – which we’ll descend down to tomorrow morning and cross a Dam.
Today was hard! We were very glad it was cloudy most of the day, it made a huge difference to the effort level needed!
https://strava.app.link/kO5kQNZp3Mb
Beauty of a sunset!