Pinofranqueado to Portugal

That night in Pinofranqueado (the locals just call it Pino), like every night we had camped in Spain thus far, it got very cold and a heavy dew covered the tent as if it had rained. I found this to be ideal camping weather. We slept great wrapped up in the heavy sleeping bags. We could buy orange juice and yogurt the night before and at breakfast they were cold like just out of the fridge. But everything had dried off and warmed up by the time we finished packing.

That morning we rode through a pretty valley full of olive trees and small untouristed agricultural towns. We received more than the usual number of waves, smiles, stares and thumbs up. Olive trees are somewhere between a tree and a bush. They look like small trees but the leaves are small and the branches are fairly dense. We had our usual lunch -- sandwiches with salami, cheese, and mustard -- sitting on the edge of an olive grove.

Every town and every bar seemed inviting so we stopped often in the afternoon. Usually we would sit at tables outside and Joan would send me inside to order and practice my Spanish. I didn't mind at all since just sitting in the bars was like watching a play sometimes.

At a bar in Vallasbuenas de Gata I got into a conversation with a man from Bilbao and an old man. It was a very slow conversation but they were very patient with me. I told them the gist of our trip. The old man told me about the drought going on. He said last year there were cows everywhere. He had 40 cows his said. But this year they're all gone. He was drowning his sorrows in a locally made pink liquor they just called "vino." I was about to leave when the man from Bilbao grabbed my left arm very firmly and said I had to try the vino. The bartender poured me a glass. It was good stuff, a little like the rice wine we had in Borneo but not quite as strong. Stronger than wine though. The old man said he had had ten of them.

I had had a great time chatting and drinking but I remembered Joan was outside waiting for me. I felt like the twenty-year-old American college student I had made fun of in Salamanca. I read her email over her shoulder at an internet cafes (it's a bad habit of mine). She was writing the letter complaining about her professors and classes just like any twenty year old. She said, "I feel like I'm almost fluent in Spanish but I'm supposed to stay home and study blah-blah-blah 101? Well the upshot is I go to any party I'm invited to."

Like her, I decided to have the extra glass of vino. It turned out that Joan was enjoying the weather outside and didn't mind waiting.

Shortly after leaving that town we started climbing a long hill. And for the first time this trip, after over 18 months on the bikes, my knee started to hurt. I had felt occasional twinges once or twice but nothing much really.

We stopped to rest a little roadside park beside the town of Hoyos, about half way up the hill. A middle aged woman carrying a basket stopped to talk to us briefly. She spoke French and German as well as Spanish. Joan spoke to her in French. It turned out she had lived in Switzerland. She told us about a natural pool down a short steep path nearby. It sounded great but we were too tired to go. About ten minutes later as we were preparing to leave, she came up the path and started unloading oranges from her basket on to the back of my bike. She gave us all she had - seven! Excellent oranges too.

The rest of the climb was painful for me. We stopped often to rest my knee. It felt fine just walking on it but it hurt to pedal. I went up the last bit of the hill just using my left leg. I was beginning to wonder of this would be the end of the bike trip.

Fortunately after crossing the summit we has a nice long down hill and only a few fairly small climbs the rest of the day.

The town of Valverde was a real trip. I spent about 45 minutes in a grocery store stocking up on noodles, tuna, bread, cheese, pears, etc. After that we went to a little bar. Instead of a door they just had thin chains hanging. We ordered beers then soon got into a conversation with the bartendress about our trip. She was very interested. She gave us some muffins, as a gift from Valverdes, she said.

Then it occurred to us that we would be entering Portugal in 20 kilometers and we didn't have a single penny of Portuguese currency. We didn't even know the name of the Portuguese currency (it's called the "Escudo" by the way). The banks were closed until the following Monday. I figured the hotel could change the money but the young man working sent me up the street to a place near the church. I went to the wrong place but another nice man pointed me to another store.

This store was the last place I would have expected to change money. It looked like a shop in Nepal. It was very dark inside and sold a little bit of everything: Barbie dolls, shoes, guns, dried fish, it was all hanging on the walls. Even funnier was the woman working there.

It was the kind of store where just about everything is behind the counter so the customers have to get the clerks attention then tell her what they want. In front of me was an old man buying an air rifle, a boy buying a pair of shoes, a middle-aged woman buying some dried fish, and an old woman buying God knows what. The old woman was very short, hunched over, wearing a long black dress like all the old ladies around there, and carefully counting something. She moved exceedingly slowly just like you would expect on seeing her. I didn't mind waiting for her.

The woman behind the counter though, she minded. She was yelling a mile a minute at the poor little old lady. I missed most of the light speed blur of Spanish words but the gist was, "I've got the man waiting, and this man, and this woman, I don't have all day, so let's go....." I was shocked. At least at first. Me and the other waiting customers exchanged smiles.

After a minute I noticed something playful in the voice of the woman behind the counter. She too slipped a smile between scoldings. She played around with all her customers including the old ladies. To treat them different would have been more condescension than politeness.

She certainly had her affect on me. I memorized what I was going to say to her in Spanish in advance. I wasn't ready for a tongue lashing. The exchange went smoothly.

The last 20 kilometers in Spain was very pretty, fairly easy riding. The sun was low and warm. The border to Portugal was a disappointment: nothing there, not even a sign. The road got a lot worse, that's all.

About five kilometers from the border, just passed the "town" of Senora do Bom Sucesso (just a few buildings), we found the campground we planned to stay at except it was closed. It opened for the season on April 1st. It was March 31st. We rode a few kilometers more and camped along side the road in some scrubby bushes.

Next: Portugal Chapter 1 - Castelo Branco

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