DAY 5 - ZAMBUJEIRA DO MAR TO ODEXEICE - 25km
Our hotel has a sweet little central courtyard, just enough room for a few deck chairs and a low, modest fountain in the middle. The day before, I’d clocked that the fountain had some odd ramps leading up to it. Since it was about a meter squared, I was pretty sure they didn’t intend it as a wading pool.
This morning the mystery is solved: turtles! A family of European pond turtles have used the ramps to leave their fountain-home and are crawling freely about the courtyard.
EUROPEAN POND TURTLES
Used to be much more widespread but they are declining significantly. Country to country they may have more or less stable populations. For example, in France, they are the most endangered reptile in the country.
This does a good deal to smooth things over after the unpleasant encounter with the woman at reception the day before. And since we need to wait for the complementary breakfast to open (our only one on the trip) there’s nothing to do but hang out with the turtles as they try and fail to barge into our room via the impossibly high two steps out of the courtyard.
Whatever resentment we retain is completely obliterated by breakfast. It’s in a cramped little kitchenette area but that’s the only thing to criticize. Amazing spread, good coffee, by the time we waddle out all is forgiven.
Heading out of town, the trail puts us immediately on a beach with too many rocks for swimming, followed by a lot of steep ups and downs as we hug tight along the coast.
Eventually we arrive at a long, narrow beach, sand a deep V hundreds of meters inland with the surf a distant white speck. We poke around the rock formations and at the closed snack bar at the inland entrance.
A grungy black-and-white mas-cat sits on the abandoned veranda, a piece with the roughly boarded up building.
The day is defined by much more aggressive wave action and roiling water than we’d seen before. Is it the weather? Was the sprinkle of rain we felt yesterday the edge of some ocean storm that we’re seeing the aftermath of? Or does the coastal geography just focus the currents in such a way that this stretch is always more dramatic?
Whatever the case, every clear view off the sea cliffs now comes with fireworks of white spray and crashing waves. Which in turn bathes the coast in a beautiful haze.
We once again get stuck behind a big tour group and play the game of constantly getting ahead of and falling behind them.
But this is conveniently ended by a split in the path. There’s a detour down a dirt road and a sign warning that the usual trail has been closed due to threat of landslides. The tour group heads down the detour, but it looks as though there’s a beach still accessible before the closed part of the trail so we continue on.
Down an overgrown path and winding stone stairs, we descend to one of the most picturesque beaches yet. A wide arc of sand bordered on either side by sheer cliffs, it even has a small waterfall near where we arrive. And naturally, almost no one else in sight. Even the surfers are leaving this one to us.
The surf here looks deadly, a constant roar of breakers two meters high, but they’re breaking far enough out that there’s still a safe zone to, if not swim, sit. Which we do. Even in the shallows a rogue wave here and there almost bowls me over.
I take a stroll up and down the beach and catch another stork nest on a pinnacle at the far end - still no stork.
(Correction: stork. It actually took me until I could look at the blurry, zoomed-in photo back home on a desktop monitor to realize that there was in fact a bird sitting in there the whole time. But at the time I had no idea.)
After an extended luxuriation, it’s time to move on.
With the warning signs about the landslides, I opt to head back up to where the path diverted and take the detour. Antoaneta decides to continue on the official route. We agree to meet back up at Café Palhinhas in Azenha Do Mar on the other side.
The detour runs along a road for a hundred meters or so before diverting through a farm on a dirt track. Where it splits, I meet an American tour group under a big spreading canopy and chat for a bit as we collectively admire a swarthy farm dog running his paces.
The dirt track aims me immediately back at the coast through lines of fruit trees. Within ten or fifteen minutes I’m back on the sea cliffs which continue all the way into Azenha Do Mar.
Here the timing works out perfectly - Antoaneta arrives less than five minutes before me, no landslides reported. We settle in at a crowded cafe with a server who seems to despise the fact that we’re there. After trying three or four times, Antoaneta never gets the coke she ordered. I get mine, but the server refuses to acknowledge us when I need to pay for it, so I have to go inside and basically block someone’s way to force them to let me give them money.
It’s not all bad though. In the middle of dealing with all that nonsense, what should soar overhead but a real, honest-to-god stork. The first one. Hopefully not the last.
Azenha Do Mar marks the end of the coast for the day. We had been warned about this next section. All of the blogs and guide books were united in their disdain for the last stretch into Odexeice. A miserable, thankless trudge along a punishing road.
We find the opposite. The road is non-punishing. The late afternoon sun bathes the whole lush river valley to our right in a warm glow. Just adjacent to the road are verdant fields of clover. A nice change of scenery and a bucolic finale all the way into town.
Odexeice is yet another charming village. It spreads into the river valley but is centred around a core of bright white buildings and a maze of steep streets up a big hill to a windmill perched on top. In between are little courtyards and with conglomerations of restaurants, their outdoor seating spilling into the squares and giving it all a welcoming, communal vibe.
In an absolute contrast to the reception we got the day before (and the service at the cafe that afternoon), the woman who greets us at our guest house is a wonder. Not only does she give us a warm welcome and text us bus schedules for the next morning, she takes our drink orders and brings over complementary wine and beer which we take on the patio.
Feeling pampered, we head out for our usual tour of the town. This time we’ve left it a little later so the sun has fully gone down.
We go up to check out the windmill, which is also completely shrouded in darkness - not one street light or helpful line of LEDs on the ground, we have to navigate and avoid falling via our phone flashlights. It helps the atmosphere, gives the whole place a slightly more mysterious, secretive air.
From there we wind back down the descending streets and choose a restaurant just off one of the hub squares near the bottom.
PORTUGAL AND SEAFOOD
This area of Portugal, the Algarve, is especially good for fishing. It’s where the warmer waters of the Mediterranean meet the cold water of the Atlantic. The two get churned and mixed about in a way that is, apparently, irresistible for sea life. More than 200 species of fish can be found here.
But we hadn’t actually partaken, plus or minus a disappointing octopus salad for Antoaneta. This seemed like a perfect place to right that wrong - they have an outdoor grill and a fresh seafood counter on display and we both get a delicious whole grilled fish (fussy as I am about the lil bones). Not to mention two other Portuguese specialties, pickled carrots and sweet potatoes, also delicious.
And naturally we also meet the restaurant’s mas-cat, a charmer with distinctive black facial markings who has no compunctions hopping up on the tables if he senses a generous patron.
As he makes his rounds we get to watch a very funny dynamic between him and the restaurant staff. They explain that he belongs to someone who used to work there, which is what started him coming back over and over, to their apparent vexation. They shoo him away and hurl insults at him, but always in a delicate and careful way that shows that for both sides, this is all a bit of a performance. When the cat is shooed, the cat comes back the very next minute. When they shoo him, their hearts are clearly not in it.
It’s all a nice enough atmosphere that we lounge there for a long time watching the show and nursing glasses of wine before we give in to the need for a decent sleep before an early bus in the morning.
