We are now half way through our stay at Albufeira, on the Portuguese Algarve. The weather has been exceptional, during the day it is warm with blue cloudless skies, just beginning to get cold about 4 00pm. It is a lot colder overnight and we have to get into our sleeping bags as well as having the duvet to keep us warm. The winter climate is much like that on the South African high veldt, which we are familiar with. The last time we were here with the Camping and Caravan Club Rally it was well attended but this time the rally section is only about half full. This is due partly to lots of rain they had during the previous two winters, as well as the introduction of a toll system on the motorways. Nobody can work out how the new system works as there aren’t any toll gates where you can pay, it is all electronic and the information on how to get the tags is vague or confusing or expensive. We kept to the minor coast roads to cover the short distance from to Albufeira after crossing the border from Spain.
I was hoping that the group I cycled with on our last visit here would be back, but they haven’t shown up as yet. I have had a few rides on my own but have mainly been running, and going to the gym in town to keep fit. I have been out every day for a run since we arrived here and have now done over 50 days in a row. I usually get out at 8: 00am and run for about an hour. When I get back Moira has my breakfast waiting for me and I relax until it is time to head for the gym. I workout with weights for 5 days each week, they close on a Sunday and I have another ‘rest’ day when we go walking on a Wednesday.
Walking is the only thing we take part in that is organized by the rally people. They have a gentle walk on Mondays around the lanes and tracks through the hamlets in the hills opposite the campsite. On Wednesdays the group venture further afield and we get a lift from the guide, Gordon. These walks are alright but the people are slow and more interested in where the nearest café or pub is for a stop. On Sundays when there is no gym we take the camper-van out to do a walk on our own. We have the Cicerone guide book, “Walking in the Algarve”, which has a collection of day walks; Moira had it sent here by Amazon having ordered it on the internet. We have managed a number of good routes, along the coast which is littered with rocky islets, arches, blowholes, inland through hamlets and orange groves, and another delightful one along irrigation canals to the confluence of two rivers with outstanding views. On our last walk we had a small river crossing to negotiate and Moira did her normal thing, she fell in. The water wasn’t deep but she landed flat on her back getting thoroughly soaked. Fortunately it wasn’t cold and I was carrying my fleece in the day pack so she was able to strip off and put that on. Another problem was that she was carrying the camera at the time and it got drenched. A few days later we bought a new camera but the other one become fully functional again, after a few days left in the sun to dry out. Now we have two cameras but the new one is small and will be much easier to carry when we walk the Via de la Plata in April. When we go on these walks we take lunch with us in our day pack, we don’t need much, a cheese roll, an orange and a flask of coffee. It’s at night when we eat well with the cost of food at the supermarkets being very reasonable, we dine a lot on nice seafood freshly caught off the coast here, like prawns, salmon and trout or have a seafood mixture for a delicious paella.
The fall Moira had in the river wasn’t the first she has had during our trip; she had a couple of mishaps when out walking in Spain. She hurt her wrist in one of these tumbles but some weeks later when in Portugal it was still causing her pain. She couldn’t lean on it and it didn’t seem to be getting better, so she paid a visit to the health centre which is close to the campsite. They x-rayed it and discovered a small bone was broken but fortunately had started to heal. They said that for any other treatment she would have to go to the large hospital in Faro about 50 km away. She decided that as it had begun to heal by itself, she would live with it. She bought a wrist strap for support, which helps, and it is slowly improving. Luckily there was no damage done to it on her latest disaster, no doubt the water helped to break her fall.
Our plans for walking Via de la Plata route of the Camino to Santiago are progressing. We have arranged to store our motorhome at the campsite we stayed in Conil. From there we will get a bus to Sevilla where the route begins. We got a Cicerone guide book for the pilgrimage, also sent out by Amazon, and we have worked out that if we walk 20kms each day it should take about 7 weeks. If we begin at the beginning of April we will be finished towards the end of May and be back to the UK for the birth of Margaret’s baby in June.
We have our big satellite dish up and are picking up the BBC TV channels from the UK and the radio stations. There is also free internet on the site but it is not very dependable, normally good enough for checking email and downloading the newspaper each day. On occasions when it is really efficient and I am able, with a proxy server that I linked up with from the net, to make use of the BBC iPlayer to download any programmes that we’ve missed.
Last Saturday with nothing much on the TV worth watching we decided to play whist that the rally wardens had organised. On the first few hands we didn’t do very well but my game picked up and by the end I had won the first and only prize, a box of Quality Street sweets. This week the whist is on today, Thursday, as they are having a Valentines dance on Saturday so we are getting ready to head up for the game. It is a quiet easy going life here and we have another five weeks of it before we move on. We don’t plan to be doing anything different than we have been doing up until now, its hard going!!
