April 25, 2013

We intended to get up and off early this morning, but we were woken earlier than intended when the Portuguese welcomed their national holiday to celebrate moving from a dictatorship to a democracy with copious fireworks at midnight. This caused every dog in Portugal to have a half-an-hour barking session. About an hour later two cats had a noisy fight outside our tent. We didn’t feel very energetic when we eventually got ourselves up, packed and on the road. Strangely it always feels harder work riding the bikes after a day off – somehow you lose the flow. The saddle sores did feel much better much to my relief.

The start of today’s ride is around the ancient walls of the town of Evora along cobbled streets that nearly bounce us off the bikes. As we leave the town we pass an impressive aqueduct which we follow for some kilometres at the side of the road. The road is much like that of the past two or three days or so – gentle ups and downs in open agricultural countryside. The sun is really strong today and we’re back to riding in very hot weather. We’ve planned to reach a camp-site about 70 kilometres away and so we know that we haven’t got too long a day on the bikes today. Tomorrow will be a different story as we will be moving into more remote terrain and there is no information either on the map or on the internet about anywhere to stay.

By the time we reach our destination the saddle sores don’t feel quite so good anymore – the hot day has not been beneficial. The main cause of the problem is that I bought new longer, cycling trousers to prevent heat rash on the tops of my legs as this was a real problem on our last tour. They have stopped the heat rash but the padding has ridges in all the wrong places. Typical!  Solve one problem and cause another.