Chuck's News: Day 6 - Hiking the Fisherman Trail - Day 2 - Rainy Days and Wednesdays Don’t Get Us Down

We have been watching the weather of this part of Portugal for over a month, anticipating what it will be like when we get here. Mostly, it has been sunny with highs in the upper 50’s and lows in the mid 40’s. For the 14 days leading up to our departure it was nothing but sunny weather everyday. Even when in Lisbon the weather was perfect and the forecast was perfect. Then, two days before we were to leave for this hike, after we had made arrangements to bus here, the weather changed. Rain was variably forecast for 2 to 5 days, although the forecast altered hourly as we watched.

When we boarded the bus it had settled in to one day of rain. Today. But only a 30% chance all afternoon. Still, we have our rain gear and I am carrying my favorite rain defense, an umbrella.

We were up at our customary 7:00am with plans to be walking by 8:00am. We were out the door od the Blue Bamboo Hotel a few minutes after eight and walking the main street of Vila Nova de Milfontes. The first two miles today are on city streets, across the Mila River on a highway bridge and then on some trail next to a farmer’s fields to get back out to the ocean. There is a boat that will take you across the river, thereby shortening the day by 2 miles and we called last night to inquire about it, but it is closed for the low season, November to March. So we walked the two miles to use the highway bridge to cross the river.

Just after crossing the huge bridge the rain that was predicted for afternoon began. We slipped on our rain gear. Almost by the time we got it on the rain slackened and then stopped. We stayed in our gear for half an hour to be sure the sky was telling the truth, then took it off.

Today, we were not continuously on the shoreline like yesterday, but again, the route was beyond spectacular. We found ourselves gaping at staggering sea cliffs, the ocean pounding at their feet and then ducking under Wax Myrtle and Blackwood branches as we walked through thickets of shoreline groves.

We stopped for lunch on a sandy overlook, eyeing the darkening clouds thickening to the east. By 1:00pm it was a steady rain with light winds, not enough to disturb my umbrella. The sand, a nuisance yesterday was now wet and began clinging to our shoes, making our feet heavy. The surf continued to pound. The scenery was still mind blowing. Now I got to view it, snug and dry, from beneath my umbrella.

About 2:00pm the trail turned inland, away from the coast and toward our town for the night, Almograve, a very small burg. We walked into town on the main road, around the traffic circle and past a few of the residents on the street to the Almograve Beach Hostel. The owner sent us instructions on how to let ourselves in, so we opened the lock box with the provided code, retrieved our door key and room key and made ourselves at home.

The high temp for the day was about 61, which is great for walking, but when you sit down in your room to rest and relax, 61 is a little cool. Many houses in Portugal don’t have heat, and energy prices are very steep. Our room had a heater, but it did little to raise the temperature of the room.

Since we had access to the fully stocked kitchen at the hostel we decided to cook dinner tonight rather than eating out. We grabbed our black shoulder bag and headed for town. In our searching we found three hole-in-the-wall grocery stores. The first was an India grocery store. Here we bought spaghetti noodles, eggs and an onion. We tried the next store and bought carrots, zucchini, broccoli, tomato sauce, cheese and bread. The next store added wine, cokes, oregano, Oreo cookies and bananas to our bag, now overflowing. Lugging it back to the hostel I prayed we were going to eat this all tonight so I didn’t have to carry it tomorrow.

Sally cooked up an amazing vegetable laden spaghetti dinner. We downed all we had purchased for dinner, saving the eggs, cheese, bananas, Oreos and bread for tomorrow’s lunch.

A 30 year old German woman was also staying at the hostel. Sally had a long conversation with her while sharing her wine with her and eating dinner. I threw in a comment now and then, but generally vegged in a comfy chair in front of the fire I had built in the wood stove in the center of the room.

Back upon our room about 7:30pm we noticed that none of our damp clothing from today’s rain event had dried out. We employed the hairdryer to drive the water out of them and to add some warmth to our room.

The bed was kind of weird, sort of soft and made noise every time you rolled over. Still, it was good enough for a good nights sleep. We planned to sleep in until 8am tomorrow morning as we only have a 5 mile day tomorrow. All is good!!

Our Hotel, the river below