Somewhere Slowly

The night before I had heard from my camigo David that it was indeed possible to walk all the way from Viana along the shore, so we did. There were areas of soft sand, but manageable, some adventurous route choices, and most of all beautiful views.

The only problem with this stage was that facilities were few and far beteween, so no food unless you go off route. We had lunch in Afife, aiming for the Moodz café bar, which was advertised along the trail, but ended up in a regular one a bit further along that had a truly excellent cheesy toastie. Well worth the detour.

At irregular intervals there are maps showing which sections of the Ecovia are actually completed and which aren’t. It’s marked with concrete signs, mostly like the one below.

At Carreço – recognisable by the red frame provided for your coastal snapshots, or indeed your walking buddy – we checked the Wise Pilgrim app for alternatives to the road and took a chance on the path less travelled, staying close to the coast. The trail was rocky and winding and overgrown at the beginning, and there were big stones there with ancient carvings, though we couldn’t pinpoint any markings on our way past.

Then we came up on a totally unexpected and incredible carpet of heather, moss, and flowers stretching out in front of us – after so much sand, rock and sea, this was a fabulously refreshing sight, and I must have taken forty photos of it for posterity. Such a treat and absolutely worth the initial worry if it was a viable path. More people came after us as well and seemed to stop, stare and wonder as much as we did.

We came across another field of petroglyphs as well, and I love old stone, so this time we stopped to really study them, but couldn’t even match the large rocks to the outlines … our theory is that they have put the wrong map on the wrong rocks, but we may well be bad at looking. Either way it was an unexpected and glorious landscape.

As we got closer to Ancora, the rain clouds gathered and the boardwalks seemed to go in the wrong direction. With the help of our good friends Mr Google and Mr Wise Pilgrim, we decided that the only way straight to the bridge into town was to head off into the sand dunes for a bit, and they were right. There may well be a detour where you can follow the boardwalk all the way in, but if we wanted to avoid the rain, we needed to get into town ASAP, and a bit of sand walking was a small price to pay. Soon we could see the bridge and it was easy to get across. We ducked into a waterfront bar, and the minute we sat down, the rain came down in buckets.

We had booked a flat/house with two bedrooms, mainly because it also had a washing machine – but though there were 5 different kinds of hand soap and 3 kinds of shampoo available, there was no laundry soap what so ever! Most wanderers surely pack shampoo, but not laundry liquid. We still put a machine on with some shampoo, but it wasn’t great. After hanging the clothes out, which immediately made it rain, and quickly bringing them back in again, we also discovered that there was no indoor drying rack. Luckily we both had our elastic lines, so we stretched them across the warmest room. After this domestic success, we went to the nearest hot food place for our meal. And they had piri piri chicken! A wonderful treat after a beautiful day, our last in Portugal.