April 22, 2013

We have a bit of a ‘deja vu’ moment when we go downstairs this morning – the downstairs door out of the hostal is locked and there is absolutely nobody around.  The bikes are locked up in the bar and so we’re going nowhere for the time being.  This happened to us once before on our previous tour.  We hope we’re not going to be held up for as long this time as we were that time.

Luckily, the delay is fairly short.  It is a strange situation though because when the owner turns up we realise he lives somewhere else and we have spent the night entirely on our own in the hostal as there are no other guests.  More to the point, if there was a fire we had no means of escape as all the doors were locked. 

We finally emerge, ready to go.  To our surprise we find that today, although the sun is out, it is cold and for the first time on the trip we need to wear two tops.  The terrain and the weather are a bit of a repeat performance of yesterday, including the headwind in the afternoon.  The big moment of excitement is crossing into Portugal.  We also have a bit of an action replay at the end of the day trying to find somewhere to stay.  We really want to camp for a number of reasons – the bikes need cleaning and oiling, all the clothes need washing and we would like to take a rest day – all of these things are much easier to do on a camp-site.  We reach Moura, our intended destination, and ask several people about camp-sites in the area and receive several different and conflicting responses.  I get what seem to be fairly clear directions from a policeman and we cycle for about 8 kms before giving up looking for a camp-site, returning to Moura and checking into a hotel.  I’ve since looked on the internet and there are no camp-sites in this area.  Very strange.  We’re not sure whether to take a rest day tomorrow or not – we’ll see how we feel in the morning.