Episode 5. Faro at last

It's Wednesday, I had to tell myself that as its all blurring into one big adventure. So last night Colin and co made a long journey well into the night and camped wild. I hope they had better neighbours than mine when I tried that. Anyway a plan was hatched to meet up today at a small town called Camas. For some reason Colin wanted to meet at 7am, does he not know this is my holiday. Anyway using the age old barter skills we agreed on 10am. I am currently sat at Pomodoro Cafe inside the Carrefour at Camas, enjoying tosdados and coffee. The bike is fuelled and I'm ready to go.

Let's just rewind to yesterday.

 

 Did I mention getting caught up in a dust twister? I'm going to call it that because I don't know the real name. It was like a mini tornado of dust. I was filming it across the field as I rode along and it seemed to go behind me as our paths met, but the sudden wind really shook me and the bike. All very exciting. I saw another two but they missed me. Ahh I also forgot to mention the strip club. But let's just move that to one side for a second and talk about the weird set up of towns and rural industrial spaces. So towns seem to conform to what we would expect, all the houses and businesses in and around a central hub of shops and cafes etc. In stark contrast, out on the open road in the middle of nowhere appears to be huge strings of business premises. Not all are functional but all do appear to be miles from civilisation. I can see that it makes owning company buildings cheap, but just who works there? Everyone must have company cars and fuel cards for sure. Also who needs that many plant machinery places. At first I thought it was just me being a plant spotter but having met up with Colin he also shares my view that there are huge numbers of yards, some sporting very old and battered machinery. Does everyone in Europe play by the same rules, as I am sure our kit has to be safer. Anyway whilst pondering this and many other questions on this long stretch of very flat, very boring road I saw a strip club, right there a million miles from any town. So who, what, why etc. Anyway there wasn't a queue!! No I didn't.

Back to today. We did indeed all meet up and rode the last 100km to Portugal as a threesome. The road was as always a dual carriageway right up until the border where we were stopped. However, we were stopped for nothing more than a chat and given some nice directions to avoid the toll roads into Faro. The road we used was a rough track compared to the endless dual carriageway but it made a nice change and tested our skills at predicting what the locals were going to do as they went about there lives driving with various levels of skill. One guy behind me was filming us on his mobile so I obliged with a quick wheelie and then spent the next 15 minutes checking behind to see if he was in fact a cop.

Without to much issue Colin guided us to the hotel Realgarve and we booked in. I had intended to stay on a campsite but Colin got a great deal on 2 rooms so I stayed. We ate well and had a few beers before I came over all holiday maker and went to the pool for a swim. Followed by a reddening session in the sun. Then back to my room for a nap before dinner. Finally a decent cooked meal with beer obviously. We chatted and engaged each other with tales before walking into Faro town which was pretty much closed. Back to the hotel then for coffee, ice cream and bed.

That's pretty much it for today, no long miles just a nice ride in some lovely sunshine and arriving at our destination. Colin assures me there will be no sleep for the next three nights of the Faro bike rally and we are setting off early to get our pitch sorted out.

I can't guarantee any more posts for a few days as I am running out of battery again and the battery bank takes forever to charge on the bike which has to be running in order to charge. As we are not going anywhere for a while it may be an issue.

Just to leave you with my next quandary, I have to be in Oliana on Wednesday. Oliana is 800miles away and I could be here until Monday. It's a long ride and most of it is back the way I came. Next time I need to allow more time to see the areas I visit. But that is why we do shake down trips to test machine, equipment and set boundaries for what we want from a trip.