As we were walking to the restaurant in Carrapateira we noticed the ominous sight of smoke in the sky to the north, never a good thing!
Smoke in the sky was how we started this entire adventure, as a fire burned 1,000 houses just a few miles from our house. We also experienced fire in our last trip to Spain, which required us to re-route our tour.
And so, we wondered if this was going to be a serious fire, and figured that we would listen for what the locals said at the restaurant and hotel. But there was no conversation about it, and so we walked back to our hotel, now in the dark, and did not see any smoke in the sky.
The next morning, the skies were blue and we took to our route as normal, only to run into fire fighters and equipment just a few scant miles along the road. “Was it safe to go on?”, we asked, and got waved forward. Crews were on the ground dousing some hot spots and smoke still rose from the ground.
Planes circled close overhead looking for hot spots to hit with fire suppressants.
The rest of our day was uneventful, at least from the fire perspective. We rode about 44 miles and it was a pretty hard day. The hills were steep, and we pushed more than once with grades of 20% or more.
One of those steep grades was when we went up to a town called Aljezur that sported a castle at the top. Then it was a very steep downhill to the town, and then more steepness as we descended carefully down roads snaking through the village.
We stopped for the night in a town called Zambujeira do Mar, again descending steeply to its spectacular namesake beach before climbing equally sharply into the town perched on the top of a cliff. It’s a beautiful town and we enjoyed both the campsite as found there and the dinner we had in town.
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