We left Cadiz on the first of 2 trains to get to Huelva, though Seville. There was no space for “bikes” on the trains (the limit is 3) but there was unlimited room for bikes in bags, as long as the bags conformed to the size requirements. We learn something every trip about how to travel with bikes, and this journey was no different.
We changed in Seville, carting our bike bags and gear to the main hall accessing all platforms, only to find that our connecting train to Huelva was coming in right across the platform that we had just moved all our stuff from. This is all part of our fitness program, I guess, to move bags from place to place. 🙂
We arrived in Huelva and took a cab to our apartment and put the bikes back together again for our departure the following day.
We have plans to meet up with Chris’ old friends Toni and Gary in Albufeira, Portugal, 100 miles distant, in a couple days. And so we took off from Huelva towards the west. There was a nice bike path out of Huelva but we got into some challenging dirt/sand roads for a couple miles before joining up with a nice path next to a canal.
Near Lepe, Chris spotted some cute cats on the side of the path and stopped to pet them, and all of a sudden there were many.
A couple ladies approached and some friendly chat ensued and I wondered if we were going to make it to Portugal at all or if Chris had found a new calling in Lepe.
These ladies are really crazy cat ladies and take care of dozens of cats in their makeshift building. To both our minds, it’s time for some spay and neuter, but instead we donated a few euros to the cause and headed towards Portugal. We crossed from Spain to Portugal on a ferry across the Rio Guadiana, from Ayamonte, Spain to Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Portugal. It’s our last country of this trip!
The ferry goes once an hour and so we took the short wait time to eat something and then motored over to Portugal!
We camped that night in Fuseta, getting a space in a “full” campground. In Spain at this time, it seems there is always room for a tent and bike tourists.
The camping was nice, as was the local restaurant where we had a stellar grilled fish dinner.
We met up with a bike touring couple from Durango, Colorado on a 3-month bike trip while we were there and enjoyed swapping stories over coffee the next morning. They even knew some of our friends from Boulder! What a small world.
We’ve seen a lot more bike tourists since re-joining the EV1 on the south coast of Portugal.
The terrain was pretty flat but we heard from the Durango couple that the bike path going through Faro was right next to the crowded beach and so we decided to take a detour a bit north to avoid the congestion and also because our bike route abruptly ended and so we had to re-route anyway.
We started going by quite a number of large salt operations, with evaporating ponds of sea water and giant piles of salt. The path was quite variable, from nice bike paths to very bumpy rutted dirt roads and we also had one pretty sketchy bridge to cross, with a failing cross member bridged with a metal fence gate.
We crossed the last bridge into Albufeira around 3PM and got to our nice hotel right on the beach. It seems like we’ve entered a part of Britain instead of Portugal, since the dominate language we heard was British English. Brits love the beaches of Portugal!
Our place is very nice, overlooking the beach and pool. We’re going to stay 3 nights before going back to the camping life towards Lisbon. .
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