I’m writing this from my hostel in Almograve—on a hammock, no less! All showered with a full tummy. Life feels great and I don’t feel like dying which I usually feel after a walk. It was a short stage today; I only walked for about 14 km. I was thinking maybe I should have pushed further to the next town but hey, might as well enjoy this luxury.
Today I had some of the worst sleeps I’ve had in a while though. I stayed at a mixed gender bunk bed room and it was full. For some reason, people were making weird noises at weird hours—snacking at 4 am, packing… I got woken up every 2 hours. I was assigned to the top bunk, too, and the whole bed didn’t really feel sturdy, I wasn’t comfortable moving around. I have stayed in many hostels and this was definitely one of my least favorite experiences. Even I didn’t have issues sleeping when I did the camino, where I would stay in a room of 20 bunk beds!
By 6.30 I was wide awake, and I hauled all of my stuff downstairs so I could pack freely. I just couldn’t wait to get out of the hostel. To my surprise, my clothes weren’t dry yet at all; this didn’t happen to me in the Camino Portuguese, because usually I’d arrive by lunchtime so my clothes had plenty of time to dry out in the sun. Looks like I will need a new strategy for doing laundry in the Fisherman’s trail. I ended up hanging my wet clothes on my backpack so they could dry under the sun.
I was out of the door by 7.30 and headed to Pao cafe first thing first. There were hikers already, but mostly locals. I ordered a slice of marble cake, a coffee with milk, and some tuna sandwiches to go for lunch. I know I don’t come across a good bakery every day on the trail, so better seize it while I can!
And oh, what a marvelous marble cake it was. I remember my mom and grandma used to make a lot of marble cakes when I was a kid; at first I didn’t understand why, because isn’t it more fun to have red velvet cakes or rainbow cakes? But now that I’ve been doing some good amount of baking, I realized that there is something about delicious cakes with such simple ingredients. The cake and the coffee definitely lifted up my spirits after such a terrible night of sleeping!
To get out of town, you need to cross the Mira river, and there are two options: by crossing the bridge or by a small boat. I found out about this by overhearing the hostel folks offering tickets to other guests yesterday (not me, though! Huh). Taking the boat would shave 4 km from today’s already short stage; at first I thought I would just suck up the supposedly boring 4 km and cross the bridge, because taking the ferry seems like cheating. But hey, I’m here to see beautiful views! If I wanted to walk an ordinary bridge, I could just do it in Berlin.
The ferry port is located in the fortress; I was afraid I’d get lost, because all I know is it’s located in the fortress and there is no exact Google Maps pin. But I found it no problem. When I got there, there were already two hikers, and unexpectedly, a lot of cats.
I asked the hikers if they have got their tickets yet. They shook their head, one of them pointing at the guy over the sea. “He’s still opening up,” she said. “I was debating whether to take the ferry or to cross the bridge.”
“I read that you won’t be missing out much,” I said.
“Yes, and I heard it’s dangerous! It’s a highway,” she said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I totally made the right call by taking the boat.
Most people that I met on the trail are either in groups or in pairs; mostly older than me. I haven’t seen anyone my age who walks alone, maybe one or two that I see sporadically, but the ones I encounter multiple times on the road seem to be the older pairs or groups.
The boat ride was a quick one; the skipper dropped us on the opposite beach, and before I walked further I heard him mentioning something about “the beach way”. “Beach way, to the right!”
I decided to give my shoes a break so I took off my shoes, socks, gaiters and decided to walk the beach barefoot. The sand feels so good when it’s not trying to sneak into my shoes!
Before I knew it, I found the restaurant, and started walking up. Finally, no more sand for now as the trail went inland. There were some descents and ascents but not much. Although inland, I could still see the ocean; I enjoyed it so far, it provides a good alternative to walking on cliffs.
Two hours into my walk I came across a sprawling ocean view. I thought about sketching here; as I was thinking, two hikers who were hiking ahead of me asked me to take a picture of them together, and they asked if I’d like to have my picture taken too. Of course I said yes! Ha.
I decided to sit down and sketch and some hikers passed me by and a few of them asked me questions. One of them was a German who looked so excited even though my painting wasn’t even done yet.
And I’m so glad I decided to paint this view. This painting is honestly one of my favorites! At first I thought maybe I’ll come across this kind of view later, but then I started to notice all the details: the cliffs, hugging the shore; the harsh waves crashing the rocks.
About 3.5 km from Almograve, there were stairs descending to the beach and I decided to go down the beach again.
I continued to walk on the beach, looking for stairs that I could climb to get back to the official route. After about 1 km I eventually found it… that is, if I could actually call it stairs. It looks really muddy though and was a bit tough to climb especially with a backpack with me but I decided to power through and take it really really slowly.
The last few kilometers were sand and more sand—2 km felt more like 5 km, and it seemed like a never-ending journey to the town of Almograve. When I made it to the hostel, it was only 2 pm. The first thing that I did after I showered was to hang dry all my clothes and hoped that they will still be dry tomorrow.
I’m writing this on my hostel bunk now. It’s my bedtime and I’m about to go to sleep, but I don’t want to go to sleep until I write down what happened in the evening.
I was assigned to a bunk room with two Germans that I had met before, and then there was another woman that I haven’t seen on the trail before. “Hey,” she said as she entered the room. “I’m Sofia, nice to meet you!”
I figured that she was doing the opposite direction because I haven’t seen her before, and I was right. She had been walking from Sagres, skipping Lugos and Salema due to time constraints, and will be ending her hike in Porto Covo. Before I met her, I didn’t even realize that I could actually be walking from the south to north instead. The trails in Rota Vicentina are waymarked in both directions, so it should be straightforward to do so. It’s just that the website advertises the first day of the trail being Sines in the north, and the last day being Lagos in the south, so perhaps that’s why most people—yours truly included—do it from the north to south.
I asked how crowded the trail has been for her, and she said she had barely met anyone else. There was this one guy, she said, who did south to north as well but he wrapped up his trip a few days ago. “It’s just me, myself, and I!” she said. “It’s what I want because I want to be alone.”
I started thinking that maybe, maybe I should have done the opposite direction instead. There have been more people on the trail than I thought it would be; I did get my moments of solitude but usually it would take less than fifteen minutes until a group of people would catch up with me. I know I shouldn’t be bothered, it’s a selfish thought: this trail belongs to everyone! Nevertheless, I can’t push away the thought that I really, really just want to be alone, and I wish I had done the opposite direction instead.
All that being said, I also found it comforting to find someone else who actually went on the hike because they want to be alone, and is utterly excited about the prospect of being alone. I came across quite a lot of solo hikers on the camino, but I haven’t really spotted a lot of solo hikers here thus far.
We effortlessly got to chatting and we talked about my next days and her next days and exchanged recommendations; I recommended her the Pao cafe and she recommended me another bakery for Zambuljeira do Mar. I spontaneously asked her if she wants to go grab dinner together, since I was hungry anyway, and she excitedly agreed. When perusing Google Maps, we found that there was a Nepalese restaurant and we thought, why not!? She said she has had Portuguese food every day throughout the hike, so she would like to try something new. The restaurant was located in a quiet, quaint neighborhood and I truly felt like we had stumbled upon a hidden gem. We decided to share an appetizer and try out the Nepalese plate. It was so good and I really liked the soup with lentils and the lamb too.
We spent two hours in the restaurant just talking, mostly about our travels and favorite places that we have visited. She mentioned having been to Indonesia. “Bali?” I asked, but she shook her head and she told me she had a big trip to travel Sulawesi a few years ago. Definitely not an answer I expected! She works as a climate scientist so she talked about that too and shared recommendations on materials to read. I asked her if she finds the current state of the world depressing, but she said in an optimistic tone that she’s hopeful. It’s a long way to go, she said, and her job is by no means easy. But she acknowledged that at the very least, we’re already doing great in terms of awareness, and that’s a start.
“What do you think about when you’re hiking?” she asked as we made our way back to our hostel.
I remember my mom asking the same question before I left: “you’re hiking for 11 days? What are you going to do all those 11 days?”
“Well, hiking?”
It’s true, though: sometimes I would zone out, just putting my foot in front of the other, not really thinking about anything at all. But sometimes I would find myself deep in my thoughts, sometimes reminiscing the past, or unconsciously planning my next trip, or thinking about the plot of a book I had always wanted to write since 10 years ago.
“I think about the various dishes I would come up with if I were to open my own restaurant,” Sofia said.
When we got back to the hostel, we met yet another German (see? So many Germans) in our bunk room, so in total there were five people. Before we went to bed, we all shared our stories from each of our hikes, recounting the difficult moments and wondering what the next days will bring.
“Did you see a men’s boxer when you were walking past the bushes?” the German woman asked me out of the blue, and I nodded while bursting out laughing because I knew exactly what she was talking about. About 10 km into today’s trail, there was a men’s boxer hanging onto the bushes, and I swear that boxer was about to hit me in the face if I wasn’t quick enough to stop myself. I spent the next 30 minutes wondering how it ended up there.
Sofia quipped that she would be looking forward to seeing it. We all laughed, but then it quickly dawned on me that tomorrow, we will go on different paths—literally going opposite directions—and it made me think of all the people I’ve cross paths with during my travels, those I have laughed with and shared hearty dinners and moments with only to never see them again.