May 11, 2013

Brrr….this morning it’s cold. Well, to be more precise it’s been cold all night. We’ve had to sleep with not just our clothes on inside our sleeping bags, but our jackets as well. As well as keep waking up because I was cold I’ve also had one of those nights where I just couldn’t get my legs comfortable – they hurt no matter where I put them.

All in all, I’m not at my best this morning. Never mind, I cheer up at the thought of a visit to MacDonalds; we spied it last night on our way to the camp-site – the first we have seen this trip. Not only a chance to get on the internet at a civilized hour but also to pack some calories in at the start of the day. It looks suspiciously quiet when we pull up outside – it appears that in Portugal MacDonalds don’t open until 11am and we have to make do with a croissant and coffee from the supermarket next door. The first disappointment of the day. Quickly followed by the second. As we turn onto the road north towards Spain, we are hit in the face by a strong headwind. The road is uninteresting but flat and normally we would be along it in no time at all, but not today. Nevertheless, we get our heads down, cross the border and get 30 kilometres under our belts relatively quickly. We’re back on home territory – no more struggling with the menu and the language. Then we hit the first climb of the day, 15 kilometres upwards in bottom gear straight into the wind. Two hours later we reach the pass at the top.

One of Ken’s favourite occupations whilst cycling along is developing his theories on the meaning of life – completely crazy most of the time, but his latest does appear sometimes to be faintly possible. Unfortunate really, ‘cos it just encourages him.  He is developing the idea that everything is being controlled (by aliens?) on some sort of film set – like in the film ‘The Truman Show’.  It all started during our last cycle tour when he became convinced that there were insufficient ‘extras’ to populate France, when we cycled through village after village without seeing a soul.  We have come across the same phenomenon in Portugal too.  Sometimes I start to think there might be something in the theory, like when you’ve been cycling along the road for about half-an-hour without seeing a single vehicle and then, right on the horizon you see a small dot appear on the road, at the same time behind you, you hear the faint sound of an engine and, without fail, the two vehicles travelling in opposite directions coincide exactly at the point on the road where you’re cycling, passing so close that they nearly pull your shorts off.  Or just as you pull off the road into a gateway or farm track to stop for a breather a tractor appears and wants to be on the one bit of Portugal you want to stand on. It happens all the time – can it really just be chance?

We were originally thinking of aiming for a camp-site shown on the map but, instead, we decide that a night in a hotel is a better idea. Not so cold, the possibility of both electricity and WiFi at the same time and a comfortable bed – yes, definitely a better idea.