Day 38: Faro to Almodovar

April 8, 2023

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About two weeks ago I wrote here in the blog that Faro seemed rather plain until we figured out about the walled part of the city. This time around we rather forgot all that and the city again appeared rather plain. However this time our goal was not even to find the attractive bit. Rather, we were here for the start of the famous N2 highway, Since that is in the north part of the city, so were we.

It was rather fun to run into the km 738 marker for the N2, and then to set off north along it. Because this was still in a city, the route had the usual annoyances of too much traffic, a not wide enough shoulder, given the traffic, and not pretty surroundings. These conditions held up for about 10 km, by which time the traffic volume was a bit less, but the shoulder also disappeared.

Our hotel, not exactly in a high rent district.

What Faro looked like to us as we headed for the N2.

KM 738 of the N2. The N2 is a heavily marketed route that runs the entire length of Portugal, up the centre. Our plan is to follow it north, deviating a bit to circle in the Allentejo region, and finally to hang a left on the Douro River to return to Porto.

Here you see the extent of the shoulder in the early going on the N2.

Although we were still close to the city, there were as always in Portugal, great plants and animals to appreciate.

Brugmansia is a common sight in southern Portugal

This was a weird one - a black Bird of Paradise .

Probably not a native bird, but still a bird!

He came an tried to peck my camera through the fence!

A worthy addition to all the unique chimneys that can be seen in this region.

Dodie developed a clicking around her crank, so we dropped in to Sao Bras de Alportel, where the GPS showed a bike shop. This photo shows the town main square.

We made our way to the "bike" shop and found a motorcycle shop. This reminds us of a time in Florida when a town had a lot of "Bikers Welcome" signs. This made us feel good, until we realized they did not mean us!

Sao Bras also had a route N2 museum - closed - as was the Tourist Information. We realize we will have to stamp our route N2 passports for ourselves, as the local authorities are not on the ball.

One little thrill in Sao Blas was spotting this VW ID Buzz in the wild. The chance of our ever owning one is basically zero. This is the closest I may ever get to one.

This is where we began to realize how much we had been climbing, how the citrus was less and the eucalyptus more, and the general appearance of the land wilder.

We found ourselves in a conservation area for a rare eagle.

Another new thing, naturalized white Iris.

Probably the main landscape feature in the first half of the ride today was the cork oak forest. We later learned that this region is known for its particularly high quality cork.

Here we see that the road has no shoulder, but in this shot at least, no traffic either. An important traffic item was a large number of motorcyclists, with one or two zooming noisily by every few minutes. Hopefully this will be mainly a thing for the weekend, but we have read that marketing of N2 has caused it to be overrun with motorcycles.

There was no denying now that we had really climbed up into serious hills. This quickly became the dominant theme for the day. For starters, Dodie will generally not try to pedal up a hill that is at all long or steep. In such cases, I will pass her and wait at the top. To go to the top, I'll use the e-assist, unless the hill is long enough or steep enough that the motor overheats. This day, I was finding that the battery remaining was dropping fast, just due to so much uphill riding. So I quit using the assist, and just cranked up the slopes in a low gear. Meanwhile, Dodie's battery was falling fast too. She also had to quit using the assist, but that in turn meant a lot more walking. Last night, we knew we were heading into hills, and we knew the ride would be long. But from the comfort of our bed we were brave about it. Now we were out on the road and mostly getting nowhere. Oh well!

That's the road we came up. This is a quite typical shot!

Dodie walked a fair bit of today's 77 km!

Towns were few, and did not pop up with a lot of speed.

This place had a restaurant! As far as I can make out, they recommend BBQ kid and wild boar, in addition to the standard cod.

In Cortelha, we found this all cork statue.

Somewhere near Besteiros there was a lookout from which presumably one could look back on the Algarve for the last time. We were by then too beat to even go look at the lookout!

However a fellow came down from the lookout and greeted us. This turned out to be Guilherme, who lives in Lisbon but who is on vacation here with his family. Guilherme was able to reassure us that our road would be a little less hilly as we headed on to Almodovar. Later Guilherme caught and passed us, as he was returning to Almodovar. Almodovar to Besteiros (and back) is just a quick day ride for him - he does it every second day.

This did not exactly look less hilly to us.

And there again is the road we are coming from.

My phone rang in my handlebar bag, and I managed to answer it. It was the hotel in Almodovar. When did we expect to arrive? Well let's see, we are currently about 15 km out and we are trudging up a hill at 3 kph. So that'll be 5 hours, and it's 5 p.m. now. Hmmm.

I recommended to Dodie that we swap my battery over to her bike. But she felt she was beyond help now, even from battery power, and would just have to trudge on in to Almodovar on her own steam. This turned out to be sort of true, but we also got a big boost from several kms of our road going downhill. A lot of this had to do with it going down to a river crossing. In such cases, you have to climb out the other side, but it still helped.

During this rather tough day, I found that I was getting trembly, and that my heart was at times going pretty fast. Cookies and oranges helped a lot with this, and Dodie kept reminding to keep drinking. I was really impressed with the way she kept on, with the ride running to almost 12 hours, and me hogging most of the cookies.

Of course, Dodie is now fast asleep and I am here writing the blog, so it takes all types of stamina to do these trips!

They say tomorrow will be flatter, and we see a shortcut to our Booking in Mertola, so it could be an easier one coming up! Better stock up on cookies anyway.

Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 1,616 km (1,004 miles)

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Kelly IniguezThere's nothing like the sleep of exhaustion! Well done!
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1 year ago

Laurie MarczakOh dear, I hope tomorrow is easier!
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Kelly IniguezThank you. It was not a planned marathon, but we did it!
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Laurie MarczakThe worst of the hills are now behind us, and we have a much shorter day planned so it should be easier from now on.
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1 year ago

Suzanne GibsonThat certainly was an extreme day! But you made it! I hope today is easier on you.
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1 year ago

Larry MitchellRemind me of your electric setup … do remember you used Grin but not which motor and batteries.
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Larry MitchellThe batteries are the ones GRIN calls LiGo. We have six each. Each LiGo is 98 wH, making it legal for transport on the plane. At the destination we wire them together, yielding 600 wH. They live in a bag behind the seat. There is a little silver controller strapped to the seat post. Usually these are hidden and integrated in factory ebikes.

The bikes then have quite weak Bafang rear hub motors, torque sensing bottom bracket, and a nice colour Bafang display on the handlebar. The battery bags quite readily unstrap from the bikes, to come into a hotel room, unless the whole bike came in as well. Our chargers are just 2A, so we rely on having all night to charge in. One charger died early, causing a lot of inconvenience, but we had a replacement shipped out from Vancouver to Vilmoura, and it is working well right now.
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1 year ago

Joni MillerTo Laurie MarczakMe too
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Joni MillerNice road today as well. A few too many cars heading into Mertola. But I am writing this from Mina de S. Domingos where we found a small grocery.
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1 year ago