October 2, 1997
To Praia de Santa Cruz
This was another long, very hot day. Fortunately much of it was spent on smooth, fairly quiet roads which promoted good mileage. We seem to have finally left behind the cobblestoned town-core standard, which was ubiquitous further north. We wheeled through the first leg of the day to Nazare in fine time, arriving at a out 11 after 35 km. Just as we arrived, Rachael received our first flat tire since Barcelona - leaving us a minor repair job to attend to after our break.
Nazare is a beautiful fishing town. Its streets are filled with old, black-dressed women; its waterfront is peppered with men tending their fishing gear. It has a lovely sandy beach, with the bay walled to the north and south by dramatic, steep sandstone cliffs. At the top of the cliff, fine houses extend out into space, cantilevered out over the sharply undercut cliff-face. The town's architectural style is strikingly different than we have seen before, marking the beginning of the third distinctive regional style we've come across in our brief tour of the country. Most of its house are whitewashed or light pastel, with many highlighted by azuelos (white tiles with fine azure patterns, somewhat like Spode china).
We enjoyed a picnic on the beach in the sun, dining on snacks from a nearby market. Afterwards I enjoyed an exhilarating spell of diving into the breakers in the warm Atlantic waters, and then returned to the bicycles to repair Rachael's flat. I was accompanied in this chore by a native passerby who was very interested in us, our experience, and our equipment; and who spoke about as much English as I did Portuguese. In spite of this severe language barrier we managed an extended, animated conversation primarily through mime. It is hard to imagine what he took away from this encounter, although he appeared to enjoy it as much as I did.
Almost immediately after resuming our ride, Rachael noticed symptoms of what we later discovered was the result of a judgment error on my part - her derailleur no longer functioned correctly, leaving her with a very limited gear range. I made a few unsuccessful attempts to improve it, but we finally gave up and pedaled on, planning to attend to it at a later break or in the evening. This was semi-successful for the neext 20 km or so, as we passed over a series of modest headlands and intermittent level stretches, and veered inland through Caldas de Rainha. In Caldas we were witness to one of the most striking sights I've seen anywhere - a woman lugging a large, leavily laden wagon (almost a small oxcart) through the middle of a traffic circle. This particular circle had about 6 spokes to it, two lanes, and fairly heavy traffic. She was in the inside lane, traveling about a mile an hour, signaling for a right-hand turn, with a string of cars and trucks waiting patiently behind her.
Rachael's bike broke down completely when we approached the striking town of Obidos, which is preceded by quite a steep climb, and too steep for the gears she had available - especially on a 90 degree day. As she steamed, I experimented further, cycling up and down the slope after performing varius ineffectual adjustments (an annoying, techically difficult thing to do on a too-small bicycle on a too-steep slope); until, finally, everything fell apart and sand fell out of the shifter. This was apparently the real problem, and all stemmed back to the flat tire, which I had repaired by flipping her bicycle upside down in the sand. Unfortunately, in the process of dismantling it I also broke it - leaving her with only a single rear gear for the remainder of our trip - nearly the same sorry situation that I had found myself in for three days south of Paris some years earlier.
With not much to be done but press on, we pressed on - after first stopping to visit Obidos, a wonderful but somewhat touristy town. Obidos, also known as the wedding cake city because it was given to his bride by a Portuguese king as a wedding present, is a small, walled town covering the crown of a hill. All of its buildings are whitewashed and have beautiful tile roofs. Many of its buildings are accented by a narrow turquoise or ochre strip along the roof line or a vertical edge. It was uniquely lovely to view it from the walkway atop the wall, looking down into the town or across the valley and distant hills.
Beginning shortly after we left Nazare, the countryside opened up into primarily pastureland and grassy dunes. This is obviously very windy country, and we saw many old windmills from here all the way into the oustkirts of Lisbon, though none that were still functional. Beyond Obidos lay another 20 km of this open country until we reached the coast again, follwed by another 20 km along the coast. We were unlucky enough to experience strong headwinds for the final stretch, sapping us of what little energy we had remaining by the time we finally arrived at our hotel in Praia de Santa Cruz just as the sun set. The final 10 km were especially unnerving, with the road degrading into sand for a brief stretch, causing us to fear that it would die out completely and leave us stranded at day's end. After we finally arrived, we had just about enough reserves left to settle into our room and stumble down to the nearest pizzaria to finish off the night.
Today's ride: 68 miles (109 km)
Total: 1,346 miles (2,166 km)
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