9 - 13 April 2017

I was supposed to write this while I was sitting in the train to Lisbon, but at that moment I preferred to have dinner and rest from the long day of cycling.

On Sunday I left Santiago de Compostela and had to say goodbye to Sheldon. I liked the time we had spent together, but I had to move on to Portugal. It was very strange to ignore the signs that point the way to Santiago and to go exactly the opposite way. My legs were still tired of the 170 km, but I made it to Pontevedra. The albergue where I planned to stay was full of touristic pelgrims, so I had to go to the more expensive one, where I met two Dutch women. That had never happened before! It was strange to speak Dutch again, there were only English words in my head, but we had some nice conversations.

There seem to be a lot of people with the same alarm as mine, so I woke up early the next day. The sun was very hot, but today I reached Portugal and on the other side of the river I found a nice surprise: a bicycle path! I followed it a very long time and when I reached Venade, Sergio picked me up and he drove us to his former watermill. Very cute! He is trying to have a live without needing to work for it, so for example, I took a shower with water that was warmed up by the sun.

Tuesday started better with bread with cheese and marmelade. In the beginning I used a bicycle path, but soon it disappeared. It was a hot day and around two o'clock I went up a hill that seemed to be of a former knight. In the shadow I did a siësta, what was pretty nice actually. After that I had some new energy and I cycled on to Vila do Conde. I tried to find a suitable spot for my tent, but that's pretty difficult in a city. In the end I found a little bit of forest, which was closed of by a fence. But surprise: behind the fence, there was a boy sitting with some stuff to camp, waiting for his friend. They seemed to have slept in the forest for four nights. He showed me where and since his friend still wasn't there, we shared dinner and some stories. It was fun!

I slept very well under the leafs and in my tent. The cycling was a little but worse today. It seemed like I did half the distance in double time, in comparison to other days. In Porto I got some information about the trainstations and which trains accept bikes. I didn't stay long and went back to the ocean, where I followed a bicycle path again. After a little town (from which I already forgot the name) I found a little bit of forest and pitched my tent. I cooked something and in the meanwhile there were a lot of mosquitoes. I thought I had used enough Deet, but they had stung me through my pants. Thirty times!

The next morning I packed my stuff quickly, to avoid the mosquitoes. I decided to cycle on to Coimbra, because the other train station in Aveiro was 'only' 27 km away. Cycling went well. I really looked forward to meet Daan again. Around 7 PM I arrived at Coimbra, but the train that accepted bikes did depart the earliest on 9 PM. So I went to the centre and got myself some salad and bananas for dinner. The train trip was fine and when I arrived in Lisbon, it was already dark. It was difficult to find the hostel in the dark and later it would seem I shouldn't have taken the roads through the centre, because they were to steep to cycle. But after almost an hour I found the hostel and the owner helped me to bring everything upstairs. When I lifted my bike up the stairs my handpalm got stuck inbetween my handlebar and the rest of the bike and that did hurt a lot. After a shower I went tired to bed.

Sunday I cycled 59 km, Monday 84,1, Tuesday I did 89,8 km, Wednesday 85,1 km and Thursday I cycled 107,1 km.