What a day. We left Evora on cobblestone streets until we reached the country. The entire route was on country roads, initially passing large pastures of cattle and sheep, but after we passed the first SAG stop, the landscape changed. The rest of the day we road through wooded fields of trees. In some places there were cattle grazing, but mostly we rode through forests of cork oak trees on both sides of the road. The cork is harvested from the bark of the tree, and all along the route bark had been removed from the trees. The trees were labeled with words and numbers that were meaningless to me. I read this evening that the process of removing the bark is called extraction. It is done by hand and a good extractor can remove the bark without damaging the tree. The first extraction is considered low quality and is used for floors and shoes. It is the second or third extraction that is used for wine and champagne stoppers. It takes nine to thirteen years between extractions on a tree. This area of Portugal produces nearly half of the cork produced world wide. In addition to the cork forests we rode by plots of bamboo and in a couple places the farmers were harvesting it by hand.
After the first SAG stop, I rode the rest of the day alone. Our ride ends tomorrow and I tried to take in as much of the Portuguese countryside into my memory photo book as I could. I stopped frequently for pictures, but I wanted to remember the emotions I was feeling today. I am really tired but also deeply happy to have had this experience. Again, today, we did a lot of climbing. The last 15 miles involved 13 miles of climbing to get to the town. I’m hoping that means tomorrow morning we will be going downhill at the start. Most of the hotels we have stayed in have been very nice and in the center of town to allow for sight seeing in the early evening. Today, my Garmin read “end of route” when I got to the edge of town. I made a left turn ( because that was my only option) and rode up a steep hill (one of many climbs today). At the top of the hill was a sign that read “Diolinda Restauranr” and in small print underneath “Rooms”. I parked my bike and walked through the beads that served as a door. What an amazing experience we are having here. The proprietor speaks no English and she does the cooking. After we had all arrived and got checked into our rooms (we occupy 5 of the 8 rooms she has) she made us a fabulous lunch served with cold beer. Such great fun to see this side of Portuguese life. Tomorrow we finish. 82 miles and 5,000 feet of hills to the southern tip of Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. The forecast is for sun and cooler temperatures as we get closer to the ocean.
No comments:
Post a Comment