Ola!
As of today it has been a week since we left Ottawa. So far, no homesickness, although we have called both our sets of parents while trying to clear up my banking problems with ING this week.
We landed in Portugal and spent our first three days in Porto. The city runs over the hills on the North side of the Douro River and then up along the ocean coast for a few kilometres. Mostly, for three days, we walked and walked and walked. On our last day we took the metro out to the ocean beaches - which are actually pretty ugly, but I loved them anyway because it was our first ocean encounter so far - and we walked allllllll the way back to the hotel. It took six hours. And it was so HOT. Which I know everyone back in Canada hates me for complaining about, but yeeesh what a walk.
The thing I found the most interesting about Porto was the dichotomy of old and new, and rich and poor. The ancient city wall, dating back to the twelfth century, is right next to the metro system´s fancy new funicular. The biggest, oldest, most beautiful cathedral was flanked by a broken down (although colourful and still lived in) set of apartment buildings. The monuments are all preserved and beautiful, but they are also integrated into the real city of Porto.
As far as food goes, we tried a few exciting new things. We had francesinhas, a sandwich with a bunch of different meats (including hot dogs, seriously) topped with egg, tons of cheese and smothered in gravy. Then when we went out for our nice meal in Porto, we had my favourite meal so far, bacahlau. Bacahlau means salted cod, and can be prepared hundreds of different ways. We took the one our waiter recommended - baked with bread crumbs, sausage bits and a LOT of garlic. It was amaaaaazing. I´m drooling a little right now just thinking about it.
On Wednesday, we grabbed a train out of Porto to Braga, where after some effort we found the bus station to catch a bus into the mountains. We spent the afternoon in Braga, which looked nice. It´s the most religious city in a rather Roman Catholic country, so it there were quite a few beautiful old churches. I was glad to spend the afternoon, but I think we managed to see most of what the old city section had to offer.
We spent Wednesday and Thursday nights camping near the town of Geres in northern Portugal. We used our brand new ultra-light MSR backpacker tent. It was fantastic. It was easy to set up (I think, anyway, I opened the wine and Dan really did most of the tent setting up. We like to split up the important tasks. But it looked easy.) It's a two-person, which is tiny, but we managed to make it work. It was much colder than we thought it would be so we had to pull out the emergency blanket (basically wrapping ourselves in tinfoil), wear lots of layers and snuggle up. But for camping in April, it was pretty decent.
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| This is how we camp! |
We got to the campground too late on Wednesday to do any hiking, so after we set up the tent and polished off our wine (two bottles...) we wandered to the campground bar (Yes, there was a bar. I am now of the opinion that every campground should have a bar.) where we got into the beer and our new favourite food - tosta mistos. (Pronounced "toshta mishto." Everything has a shhhh sound in Portugese.) They´re ham and cheese sandwiches thrown in a sandwich press. We are basically eating them for every meal because they are delicious and only cost a euro or so.
Thursday, after a chilly sleep, we got up for our big hike. With a map from the campground and a bit of advice, we ventured out to the longest of the five recommended trails.
At first we wandered along near a lake, then onto an old Roman road through a lush forest. Then, as the trail broke away from the water and up into the mountains, we began to climb.
And climb.
And climb.
I cannot belive I was bitching about the walk along the flat seaside in Porto.
We got lost at one point while descending a part of one of the peaks and we were so excited about the fact that we were going down instead of up that we missed the stone markers for our turnoff to go up some more and we went all the way down to the road, where we realized our mistake. So we climbed back up. Sigh.
We climbed all over several of the peaks, following the stone piles that laid out our trail. Eventually, we lost the stone markers entirely (I think some jerk laid out some extras, actually. But maybe we were just dumb and exhausted... this is near hour six and a half) and wandered around freestyle climbing boulders to try to get a view of the mountain to find the damn trail. Also we were running out of water and had forgotten our trusty steri-pen.
Eventually, after scrutinizing the contour map and squinting at the landscape to find our elusive rock piles, we managed to relocate the trail, and so we soldiered on (hoping desperately that it was the correct trail and would take us home.)
It did turn out to be the right trail, and we descended the mountain a final time through a massive valley. As we´d been walking all day, we had seen hundreds of cow patties littering the mountainside, and we´d been pretty confused as to how the cows managed to get up there.
Don´t underestimate a Portuguese Mountain Cow!
As we walked around a corner in our final valley, we heard a bell. We were both grumpy and thirsty and tired, so we ignored it until we looked down and saw a cow, perched on a tiny ledge on the side of what was pretty much a cliff. And then I turned around and saw another, not twenty feet from us, and a few more below us. Turns out cows are graceful, mountain-climbing machines, which made us feel like sissies. We were incredible happy to have finally found them, after avoiding their dung all day, and it lifted our spirits for our push home. Where we lifted our spirits some more with tosta mistos and beer. In all, our hike took 8 hours.
We packed up and caught the early bus back to Braga on Friday morning, and from there got a train to Coimbra, home of one of Europe´s earliest universities. Or THE oldest university if you listen to the old man Dan sat next to on the plane. I keep forgetting to look it up. Anyway, it is very old and very beautiful, although starting to crumble, so there are a few reconstruction projects on the go. The old section of Coimbra has the narrow cobblestone streets and high, straight walls that disorient you and let you lose yourself among the ancient buildings. Our hotel is just outside the old section.
Last night we went for dinner. Dan had goat meat stewed in wine ( a regional specialty) and I had bacahlau again, this time a very greasy version that was apparently the house specialty. Again, delicious, as was the goat.
Today we wandered a little through the university but we will probably just have a slow night - we got pretty sloppy last night on house wine and beers. And then tried to order Irish carbombs (why wouldn't you?!) and ended up with a triple shot monstrosity. Oops.
Tomorrow we head to Lisbon for a night, and Monday morning we fly out to Madeira, where we will be hiking some more, and hopefully not getting lost.
Hope everyone back home is well and that the weather is getting warmer.
Cheers!
Sarah
The path eventually parted from the levada and descended down the mountain by way of dirt and rock steps, reinforced by disintegrating logs, through a gorgeous forest. As we clumped down the steps, the little tiny lizards that are all over Portugal and Madeira darted from under our feet - these lizards seem to be so terrified of getting stepped on or eaten that although they might be several feet from you, they will scramble for cover, even if it involves chucking themselves three feet down into the levada. Lizards are hilarious.
