Into Portugal

Sunday 1^st November, A Caniza to Moncau (Portugal) – 53 km

During the night we had heard rain, but we didn’t realize quite how bad it was until we looked out of the window at mist and pouring rain. Our shoes which, because of their appalling smell, had been banished to the balcony outside where now soaking wet.

We didn’t rush to get up, hoping that the rain would pass. We then went for breakfast, hoping that the rain would pass. We packed out things hoping that the rain would pass. Needless to say it didn’t, so we put on our waterproofs and set off. The ride was down the valley just about all downhill, 14km to Arbo and the Minho river which forms the border between Spain and Portugal. It had rained most of the way, but it was warm rain. We stopped briefly to look at the river and crossed over into Portugal heading west towards our planned destination, the town of Moncau, which was reputed to be very attractive.

At this point the rain became torrential, but we had no choice but to continue as there was no shelter at all along the main road which by passed all of the villages. The rain never stopped for the whole 22km. We were washed down into Moncau and we fell into the first bar that we saw, soaked from head to foot. The proprietor welcomed us in and was not at all perturbed about the liters of water that spilled onto his floor. We struggled, not speaking any Portugese and pointed to what another table was eating. We had a lovely meal of Bacalau (salted fish), fries and vegetables accompanied by a bottle of the local red wine, which has a slight secondary fermentation.

We stayed for a couple of hours before asking about accommodation. The barman’s in laws helped as they spoke French and we could manage to converse sufficiently well to get our message across. They man walked with us through the town in the lighter rain to find us a lovely room in a private home for 30 euros. Still more than we wanted to pay, but we just needed somewhere dry and warm. It was so kind of him. Luckily, the house owner’s son spoke very good English and could interpret.

We deposited ourselves and all of our wet gear in the room and hung stuff to dry as best we could. After a warm bath we went out for a quick look around, in the rain and to find an internet café.

We had a light tea in our room and tried to understand Portugese TV. The main thing of concern was that the weather looks appalling for the next seven days. With snow in the mountains, lots of wind and rain and unseasonably cold. Merde!!!

Saturday 31^st October Random road side place to A Caniza – 43km

We didn’t sleep very well for several reasons. Firstly we had to stop sliding down the slope. Second the road was busier than we had thought it would be and a number of cars, obviously surprised by seeing a tent at the side of the road, stopped and reversed back to have a second look. This was a little worrying, but nobody bothered us.

So at first light we got up and made breakfast (porridge) and packed our stuff. It had rained during the night and there was now a slight drizzle. We set off and after a while the rain stopped. We kept climbing up the lovely valley to the first pass at about 500 meters. Traffic was light and the ride was enjoyable. We dropped down into the valley and started to climb again. As we climbed the villages became more traditional and the poverty level seemed to increase somewhat. There were a lot more dogs. It is amazing how they can hear you from such a long way off. We came around a corner and there was a gated cemetery. There was a dog at the steps to the cemetery, which started barking at us as we approached. As we drew parallel, Steve barked back at him and he must have decided that we were his best pals so he tagged along for the ride. He was desperately in need of a good meal, was mangy and just wanted a pack to be part of. He could run fast and going up hill we couldn’t shake him off. We were just discussing how we could afford the vet and feeding bills, when we got close to habitation and he must have decided that was as far as he could go for fear of being persecuted by the villagers.

We went on for at least another 4km before we reached the second pass and started our descent down the other side. It started to rain so we stopped to shelter in an oak wood and brewed up for second breakfast. There was a hunting party going on across the valley with a pack of baying dogs and lots of shouting. As we drank our tea acorns kept falling from the trees all around us. Fortunately none hit us. All of a sudden all hell let loose across the valley as the hunters found their quarry. There was rapid succession of rifle shots followed by a whooping and hollering of young hunters having killed their prey. Then all went quite.

We started our third climb of the day and were conducting our own hunt, for a shop. We came into the village of O Covelo and Karen’s keen nose picked up the aroma of baking bread, but we couldn’t see the Panadaria. In the center of the village we stopped at a bar for coffee and asked where the Panadaria was. We were pointed back down the hill a couple of hundred meters and found an old tatty shed in a rough yard. There was a young lady making the bread. The smell made our mouths water. She had just taken some things out of the oven that were made of pastry, about 15” in diameter and looked tantalizing. They were filled with minced meat and onions. Sort of like a Cornish pasty but flat. We bought bread and one of these things that we think were called “Panadilla”. She cut it into quarters and still warm, we packed it into our panniers.

We recommenced our climb, which went on and on and on, above the tree line and above the clouds. The best way to get away from the rain in Spain is to get above it for as you know it usually falls on the plain (in the words of the famous musical. )We still hadn’t reached the pass and both of us could stand the thought of the Panadilla any longer, so we stopped, brewed up and ate the whole lot. It was fab.

It certainly put some power into Karen’s legs, because she was off up the hill like a rocket, leaving Steve struggling to catch his breath after the weighty meal.

Finally after four hours of toil we reached the Puerto de Moncelas pass at 800 meters. We had only covered 28 km, but we had climbed a total of about 1600 meters. As we started our descent, Karen had to negotiate the rush hour traffic. The descent was much easier than the climb, but the ride had been hard so we decided that we would stop at the next sizable town, A Caniza.

We passed one dodgy looking hotel on the way in, passed an even dodgier looking place calling itself a hospedaria and drew to a halt at a bar in the middle of the town. We drank a cold beer and asked about accommodation. Basically there were the places we had passed and another hotel on the road out of the town in the other direction. We went to look for it but gave up after a kilometer and turned back. We went to the hospederia and a young, pleasant lady took Steve up the first floor to see the room. As he went in the girl shouted to someone that we were entering. It turned out it was an old lady who seemed to live there. The place stank of urine. One quick look was enough and Steve politely told the girl “thanks, but no thanks”. We went to the first hotel. The charge 43 euros + tax + breakfast. We felt like we were being ripped off, so left and cycled back through the town to look for the other hotel, which we duly found. This one was better, but still cost 46 euros including tax and breakfast. It was the only choice we had, so we booked in. That night we ate in the hotel restaurant and have to say the food was good.

Friday, 30^th October – A Estrada to random roadside wild camp at Entidad Ponte on the PO-255 - 45km

We had a really good night’s sleep in the comfortable hotel beds and were up about 8-00 for breakfast. We asked the waitress if there were any shops in the direction that we were planning to go. “No, only single shops, nothing much”. Going back into A Estrada was uphill and besides, backtracking is not in our plan. So, fortunately we ignored her and decided to continue in our travel direction. There was a Carcineria next to the hotel. We bought some chicken (real chicken not the watered down stuff we get in the UK), chorizo and Piri Piri sauce with, which to cook our dinner.

We set off along the main road, PO-2003, which was fairly busy. There was a lengthy climb up gentle gradients. We stopped in the village of Codeseda to do some shopping and managed to get everything that we needed for a night wild camping. We continued climbing and reached the top of the hill. Steve said "this is the sort of place you would expect them to put a picnic place.... sort of like that," and pointed across the road. It was one of those "meant to be" sort of moments.

Complete with granite setting area and table and a full size granite cross. Was it faith, fate or what? We sat and ate our lunch.

A couple of kilometers further on we turned right off the main road to take the lesser PO-7101, mountain road to Cerdedo.

This was a delightful road through a wide valley with a lot of small scale farms still based on single strip type fields, single milking cows and a few sheep. Surprisingly there were still new born lambs at the end of October. The whole valley was irrigated through an intricate network of water channels and streams, which reminded us of the irrigation systems that we had seen in the Atlas mountains of Morocco. There seemed to plenty of opportunity to wild camp as there were a number of well covered places by the road. It gave us encouragement that we would easily be able to wild camp if the terrain continued like this.

Cerdedo is on the main N-541 that runs from Pontevedra to Ourense, but we only followed it for one kilometer towards Oursense before cutting off right and south on another mountain road along the valley to the west of the Serra De Conda, which rises to 1000 meters. Although the sky was overcast, it was warm and we got quite a sweat on as we cycled up the steep, granny gear hills.

We reached the watershed and a couple of kilometers further on we came to the village of Caroi. It was a nice little cross road village with a village square, sitting and barbeque area and from the tourist information it was also the center of several hill walks. It was absolutely deserted. There was a little bar with nobody in it. The guy running it couldn’t serve coffee as his machine had packed up. So we bought cans of coke and ate our muesli bars.

From there the ride was more was more downhill along the valley. About half way along, the road changed from the nice new surface that we had enjoyed till then to a rough, old, narrow tarmac road, more like we had expected to see. The dogs were also free running and we had a couple of threats, but nothing serious.

The farm buildings were old and decrepit and several of them were for sale. Eventually we came back onto good road surface and came down to a bridge of a the crystal clear river Verdugo. As we cycled further up out of the valley, we saw a brand new prison building in the middle of nowhere, with huge impenetrable walls and guard towers.

We arrived in a village and stopped for coffee and cake. We had a bit of trouble discerning exactly where we were and which road to take. A van driver told us we were in Caritel and sent us in the wrong direction. Fortunately we noticed the road number on the kilometer post and asked a lady. Whilst she was helping us the puppy she had with her nearly got ran over three times. Karen was more worried about the puppy than our direction. We turned around and this time set off the right way, passing the van driver who had realized his mistake and shrugged his shoulders apologetically.

We reached Caritel and turned left and south down the PO-255 towards A Caniza. It was now about 5-00pm and we needed to be finding a place to camp. The terrain had changed and was back to steep sided valleys with a bank on one side and drop off on the other, so there was no level place to pitch. We were getting anxious. After about 7km we took a turn to the left and found a place on the side of the road where we felt there would not be very much passing traffic.

Karen started to cook our meal whilst Steve pitched the tent on frankly, a bit of a slope. The road turned out to be a little busier than we had at first thought, but nobody seemed to bother us. After a good meal we felt a lot better and before we bedded down for the night we parked the bikes inside the tent awning. It worked out really well and we felt that they would be safer away from prying eyes.

The most remarkable thing was that we sat eating our dinner at 7-00pm in the moonlight, in shorts, T shirts and flip-flops and it was really warm. We hoped that it would stay that way and not rain overnight.

We zipped up the tent, wrote the blog and listened to music. The most challenging thing would be preventing sliding down the slope on our sleeping bags. See how we got on tomorrow.