We woke up at 6 today to make sure we could get to the station for our train at 7.40. We only pitched the outer tent let night, and it was so good to be cool all night, I think we both slept really well for the first time in days! We got on the cycle track that we’d been told about last night and zipped along by the river as the sun came up over the trees and startled ducks flapped away from us across the water.

River at daybreak

We came to a crossroads and were a bit stuck as the GPS wasn’t working, but of course, within 20 seconds a car pulled up and offered us directions to the station. Aaaah, Spain!

We got to the station in good time and spent a leisurely 15 minutes loading the bikes. Now I’m not a train geek, but I am starting to be a bike geek, and the bike rack on this train got me a bit excited!

Genius!

We had been mocking the Spanish system where you can only put three bikes on a train, but once we’d settled down into the roomy comfy seats and plugged our devices into the handy armrest plug sockets it all started to make sense. As long as you book early you’re guaranteed space for your bike and you can chill out about the whole thing. Compare the UK where you never know whether you’ll be fighting for space with pushchairs and other cyclists, or having to constantly apologise while wrestling your bike past 20 standing passengers to park it unsupported near the toilet!

Our train was going from Salamanca to Madrid, which takes about 3 hours on the Media Distancia train. Anna took the chance to have a snooze while I enjoyed a bit of Don Quixote – never read it before and thought it would be a topical time! I’m really enjoying it – I always assumed it would be inaccessible to an ignoramus such as myself, but like Candide, it’s really easy to read, and is still funny several hundred years after it was written.

When we arrived in Madrid we checked our onward travel options. We wanted to end up in Lleida in Catalonia, but we assumed it would take a few journeys to get there. It turned out that there was one direct train from Madrid per day, but it left at 3.45 pm and arrived at 10.40 pm. We decided to go for it and booked our tickets (luckily there were bike spaces available), then we retired to a cafe to try and find accommodation for the evening in Lleida. It seemed there was nothing available, even the Hostelling International hostel was full – we suspected correctly that it was ANOTHER festival day. Eventually we found a cheap hotel, but with no booking options available I had to phone up and do my best in very token Spanish to book a room for the night. Even though the guy spoke little English eventually he got tired of listening to me coming out with sentences such as “Dos personas, hoy….eleven pm….Si, hoy……” and asked me to tell him in English. I was a bit unsure by the end of the conversation whether we’d booked a room or not, but we decided to hope for the best!

We went out to explore Madrid and get some food for the day. Once again we hadn’t really researched the city, so we were just biking around hoping to find somewhere nice. In the end we bought lunch from Lidl and ate it in a small park surrounded by roads. Oh well… After that we rode off and found another park to have a rest in the shade.

Madrid!

Madrid lunch

Madrid posing

It was soon time to head back for the train and start the next leg of the journey. We turned up expecting more space age bike racks, but this time we were on a Regoinal train, which I think is basically a stopping service. The bike car here was just a normal carriage with fold down seats along each side. I stacked the bikes as best I could, but within five minutes of setting off I could see they were moving around a lot. I went back to check it our and realised Anna’s pannier rack had made a deep scratch into my frame. What an idiot. So I ignored the conductors previous instructions and re-arranged them separately, taking up more space but hopefully saving further paint damage.

So we spent 7 hours on a train. It was fun, we ate a lot of messy food, played cards and enjoyed the landscape. There were loads of weird hills, valleys and castles, and we occasionally had vague envy that we weren’t riding. When we saw the GPS dot eating up the miles to Catalonia though we felt justified in our choice!

Train Dave (thanks Anna!)

View from train window. Looked nice!

We popped out into Lleida in the darkness and prepared for a ride through the city. As it turned out though the road we needed was pretty much straight, with a bus lane and went along beside the beautiful river. There were people wandering the streets and sitting at cafes and the air was cool and refreshing. The hotel was also super easy to find. It was lovely after the predicted stress!

Night riding in Lleida

The receptionist at the hotel was super friendly. He helped us carry both bikes, fully laden, up the stairs. I think he got more than he bargained for, he was breathing quite heavily for a few minutes after! We found out that today is s festival day, and we had booked the last available room. We saw another couple arrive just after us and get turned away. I was suddenly very glad of the nightmare phone conversation earlier on! The Receptionist said he was off for dinner, and gave us both a free can of beer! What a hero. The hotel was pretty basic but it was clean and quiet, and when we got into bed we were both out like lights after a non-active but somehow very exhausting day!

– Dave

It turned out to be a good one, but it was touch and go for a time!  Last night it was really warm and we were both tired and grumpy.  At midnight I changed the alarm time from 5am to 5:30am but it was still horrible to have to get up then, and it was still dark!

Happily we were efficient though and packed up quickly and quietly, had a delicious breakfast of fruit and yoghurt and hit the road as the sky was turning red in the east.  Over the river we went, the dawn light making the river and reed beds look particularly beautiful.  The castle had a pink glow and as we rode around the town the red sun came up straight ahead of us.

Dave rides into the morning sun

It was lovely and cool and we rode up and down the gentle inclines past fields and orchards.  The blonde grasses were shining beautifully in the early light and the roadsides were scattered with delicate flowers in purple, poppy red and lemon yellow.

After 20km we stopped for a quick snack in a town square then pushed on for another 15km before we found a petrol station with public toilets.  I was starting to feel the fatigue in my legs and felt that 5 hours of disturbed sleep is not enough to repair a day of hard riding.  Dave suggested we do another 10km before stopping again so that we’d be halfway done for the day when we had lunch.  I thought I could probably make it so off we went again.

Lots of cow-nibbled trees!

We were in prairie land now, surrounded by miles and miles of fields of crops, trees and cows with only very gently rolling hills.  It was nice for an hour but it wasn’t particularly inspiring!  The storks still seem to be thriving though and they love the tractors, following them around when they’re ploughing or bailing.  (Imagine, making hay bails in May!  It’s very dry here.)

Storking the bailer

With another 10km under our belts we started looking around for a suitable lunch spot, but no spot was forthcoming.  After a minor tiff about the suitability of one spot, we continued towards the next village, which I said was only 200m off the road.  We got to the sign for the village and started heading down the road, 500m, 1km, 1.5km… oh, there it is, at the top of that hill!  We rode up to the church in search of salvation in the form of a bench and a fountain, but all we found were closed up windows and doors.  Oh dear.  This not a happy Dave did make.

So we ate and argued a bit in front of a nice view then got back on the road.  I was feeling tired and unrejuvenated after the disappointing lunch stop and Dave was getting annoyed that I’d slowed down.  I dropped back a bit and we chugged along quietly.  Then… what’s this in my rear view mirror?  A fellow touring cyclist?!

Bruce caught up with me and we had a chat and I cheered up a lot and we caught up with Dave and the kilometres flew by as we shared tales of our travels.  He’s from New Zealand taking time off post-university to do some travelling in Europe.

Dave and Bruce

Into Salamanca (spot the giant cathedral)

We arrived into Salamanca around 1pm with 92km done (a full 4 of those were unnecessary lunchtime kilometres).  Bruce guided us to the library via a pastry shop and we sat outside eating and chatting until the sun encroached on our bench.  Then we were parting ways and we waved Bruce off with a cheery Bon Voyage!

Dave and I set off to find a supermarket and the train station to get tickets for tomorrow.   The only train to Madrid with room for 2 bikes tomorrow is at 7:40am, damn!  Another early start then.  Then 5km out of town to our campsite where we had the evening to set up, do chores and chill out, ahhh.  We made friends with our English neighbours who told us there’s a cycle route to the station, hurrah!  So we’ll take that in tomorrow.

– Anna

We got up at 6 this morning and had sleepy breakfast with Johanna, packed the bikes and were on the road by 7. Amazing. We rode with Johanna to Figueira, Anna and I loaded down with our panniers once again, and she with a massive rucksack for work. We have cycled the route a few times now, so it was nice to be able to relax and just roll along enjoying the cool morning chatting and thinking about the fun times we’ve had in Faia Brava.

Rolling out

Anna and Johanna having a lovely time

As we got into Figueira we saw the Reserve’s two rural workers, Abel and Jose coming the other way. They gave us a toot and a wave, it was nice to see them once more as we were heading off for good. Once in Figueira we went to the famous (locally) Cafe Rosinho. Johanna got a coffee and sat down to wait for the office to open (it was only 8 am), and we bought our last genuinely Portuguese tarts (we crossed into Spain today). We said goodbye to Johanna and headed out onto the open road. It felt great to be exploring new territory again! Especially when the new territory turned out to be gentle rolling hills with a helpful tailwind thrown in!

We had 80 km to cover today in order to get to Ciudad Rodrigo in Spain. That’s equal to our longest day so far! Anna was confident we could do it, but I was a bit sceptical given our previous performances, and the fact we’ve just had 2 weeks off. Never let it be said however that I’m not up for a challenge, we pushed on in tight drafting formation, and apart for a quick stop to pick some wild cherries we had covered 20 km before having second breakfast (which was leftover tortilla, perfect cycling food) at 8.30.

We only stopped for 5 minutes before thrusting onwards once again, and blow me down if we didn’t find ourselves in Almeida, a tiny village with an improbably massive fortified wall around it 20 km down the road less than an hour later. Almeida has an interesting history, it is near the Spanish / Portuguese border, and when it was captured from the Moors in the 12th century by the second king of Portugal (brilliantly named Sancho the 1st), it was heavily fortified. Even though it’s a tiny place it was then re-fortified several times over the centuries – the current town wall is a massive 16-point star which could probably fit the village inside it about 10 times. We didn’t have any problems getting in though, and once we’d breached the defences we stopped there for a quick first lunch. We were delighted to see from our hilltop position that the next few kilometres looked gloriously downhill!

We were in such great form that we were soon at Vilar Formosa where we found the unguarded border with Spain. At least we thought it was unguarded, but as we shot through we saw the one guard chatting with a woman and her young daughter. We gave him a cheery “Viva Espana” as we went through and he gave us a wave back so presumably he was happy everything was in order.

After this we headed onto a main road that looked suspiciously like a motorway. We didn’t see any prohibitory signs though so we trusted to Google maps (you’d have thought we would have learned by now) and carried on. This time we were in luck, our road split off just before the actual motorway started. Once again we found our road ran parallel to the motorway at a distance of about 20 m for the next 30 km. It was glorious, if a waste of tarmac. Almost immediately we started seeing white storks by the side of the road again, these have been almost absent on the Portuguese side, we missed them! There was one we saw today that had built a huge nest on top of a small building. There was a chick in it, but the funny thing was there were also about 15 smaller birds who had moved in to the lower storeys of the nest. They all shot out as we rode past, it was a bit of a shock!

The afternoon was getting hot, and after another 17 km we pulled into Carpio de Azaba for a break. We managed to shelter from the sun on the steps of the village church. Good old God Delusion, it has a lot to answer for, but it did us a favour today! Obviously the pace was starting to tell, I wolfed down a cheese sandwich and was halfway through a mango jelly when Anna caught me at a low ebb.

The gritty reality of cycle touring

A few minutes later I was back in the game and we set out to do our last 11 km to Ciudad Rodrigo. It was still very warm, but we had the nice fuzzy feeling of knowing there was an open campsite waiting for us so we were happy enough. As we rolled up to the turnoff for town we noticed a bit of fly-tipping by the roundabout. As we got higher we realised this was actually just the edge of a massive rubbish dump, which I think might be bigger than the actual town. There are strata that have started to become re-forested, but you can tell they are there by the way they rise from the rest of the landscape. A great introduction! Things improved as we got closer though, and spotted the grand old castle on the hill, nestling behind the huge town walls. Very impressive!

We found the campsite and got set up before heading up that steep steep hill into the old fortified town. We had just showered but we were wearing again by the time we got there! The old town was really cool, narrow cobbled streets winding between spacious plazas brimming with cafes and little shops. We went to the cathedral and found they have turned part of it into a museum. It looked interesting but we baulked at the €3 entry fee. Sucks being on a budget! The outside of the cathedral was really cool, there were loads of holes in the front wall which I think are from cannonballs coming over the fortifications. We’d probably know if we’d gone inside!

Anna and cathedral

We went and hid from the heat in the shade outside a cafe and had an ice lolly, then Anna settled down with a tea while I rode round the town exploring a bit more.

Mmmmm, lolly!

Castle and river

We tried together to get into the castle, but the only accessible bit appeared to be a hotel, and we were running out of time so we bailed and went to the shops. Then it was back to camp for tasty dinner, a sip of Mario’s  delicious wine, and bed. Having just equalled our best ever distance we ned to beat it by 10 km tomorrow, so we want to be up at 5 am to avoid the dreaded sweaty afternoon riding. Goodnight!

– Dave

Last night was our last night on the reserve!  We’re sad to be leaving such a great place but excited to see where the road will take us next.

Today was spent packing up at the campsite to head into the village.  We are going to spend the night at Johanna’s to allow us to get an early start tomorrow.

We had to wash the tent (so covered in pollen!) and some of the panniers (cheesy), sort out all our kit and pack everything away.  It is getting really warm again so we were pretty lethargic and it took us ages to sort ourselves out!  But everything is clean and dry and packed away now so that feels good.

Around 2pm we were rattling up the rocky, sandy track for the last time and took a farewell picture by a meadow on the way.

Leaving Faia Brava

We spent some time in the cafe using the internet and drinking tea, then we met Johanna and went to her house.  Dave made delicious tortilla, Johanna made salad using her neighbour’s freshly picked leaves and we had it with Johanna’s home made elderflower cordial – so tasty!  After dinner on the veranda at sunset, we took a little walk up to the chapel on the hill.

Cafe time

Checking out the view

Viewpoint

On the way back into town, we chatted to Mario the wine maker neighbour and asked to buy a litre of his wine.  He refused to sell us any but gave us 2 litres for free!  Then also poured us a glass each, brought out some home cured meats and we chatted and snacked as our eyelids began to feel heavy.  What a fabulous way to end our time in Algodres!  I’m so happy we met Johanna, she definitely enriched our Algodres experience.

Night sky

When we leave Algodres tomorrow morning, it will be 2 weeks since we arrived.  We’ve had a great time seeing the reserve, meeting the lovely people from ATN and helping out wherever we could.

Here’s to the road tomorrow, whoopee!

– Anna

Today we helped Tiago put in more of his tree regeneration survey plots. For once everything happened on time and we set off into the reserve in the relatively cool morning air. We already had the feeling it was going to be a very hot day though!

Lily?

Paul the Romanian ornithologist came with us, and almost immediately he saw a lizard hiding in a rock crevice. He wanted to wait for it to come out but we had a lot of plots do do, and no time for such frippery. We managed to drag him away eventually. Approaching the first plot Anna spotted a small snake, and this generated further excitement with Paul. He was convinced it was a type of adder that had never been recorded in the reserve before. He said it was venomous, so we had to be careful. The snake was long gone, so we went to get on with the plot. Fifteen minutes later we had just finished when Paul appeared, holding a small snake in his hand. So much for being careful! I didn’t really approve of his catching it, but I have to say I wasn’t shy about taking photos. Here is one. I await an update on the species and whether or not it is indeed a new record in the reserve.

Snake!

Eventually the snake was released. It appeared extremely irritated as you might imagine and we all gave it plenty of room as it pushed off into the brush.

We all cracked on with the plots, except Paul who was more interested in watching the birds. Fair enough I suppose, that’s why he’s here. Loads of the plots today were right by the road so we made good time and managed four before lunch. we saw the horses again, which is always nice!

Horses!

We had lunch in the shade of a big rock and chatted about Monty Python. Paul was playing birdsong from his phone and managed to attract a couple of warblers into the tree next to us where they sat for a while, probably quite confused!

After lunch we pushed on. We had three more plots to do in order to finish everything on our side of the river. These last three were much harder to get to and we sweated up and down ridges in the afternoon heat. Paul was becoming less and less enthusiastic about the whole walking thing and we just about managed to get him to the last plot where he sat in the shade while we marked it out.

The road

After the last plot we had an hour to get back to base so Paul and Tiago could get a ride back to Figueira where they live. Anna, Johanna and I had no such limits as we are local folk, so we split off and went to see some prehistoric rock art that was near the trail. It was really cool that we were able to just wander up and look at it, although I don’t know whether being in the open air is doing much good for the images, they are pretty hard to make out now!

ART!

The last 40 minutes back to camp were hot and horrible. We had run out of water. I was trying to think of things to take our minds off being thirsty, but I’m pretty crap at small talk and the chat kept returning to ice cold water. Anna shot off in front and left me and Johanna to make a more leisurely journey. When we were five minutes from camp however, Anna came walking back down the track with two full water bottles for us. What a hero!

Back at camp we chugged more water from our plasticky-tasting filter and had apples and pears to get some sugar. So good! Then me and Johanna biked back to Algodres, she to her place for a shower, and me to the only cafe in the village to upload the blog. I’m hoping there is tasty dinner being prepared when I get back to camp, but what with emancipation, who knows. You have to roll with it! I think I’m still dehydrated….

– Dave

We planned to go into the ATN office in Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo today. It’s a 15 km ride from the campsite, and we wanted to visit the castle on the hill above the town, so we decided to head off early and avoid the heat. I fell off the bike again on the gravel track from the campsite to Algodres, which I was delighted with. Luckily nothing was damaged except pride. I’m very proud though so it was pretty bad.

It was better once we got on the road and started making distance towards Figueira. There were some gentle hills, but it was easy with the bikes unloaded, and we sped along enjoying the cool bright morning. We saw a couple of hawks drifting on the wind, presumably looking for breakfast. We had already had breakfast, but when we went past an actual working bakery with a man outside loading the fresh bread into a van for delivery it was too much to resist. Lack of sleep and a crash had robbed me of the wee bit of Portuguese I have, so I communicated by speaking English and pointing. I’m not proud of this but there we go, it worked.

Back on the road with a warm loaf and a couple of natas in the pannier it was just a few more km to Figueira. We got into town and went straight through to get to the castle. They built it in a good place, the hill was really steep! I was glad that we weren’t fully loaded as we cranked out way up. The view from the top was pretty cool though!

One day my son….

The castle is a ruin really, but some of the remaining walls are pretty high and you can get a good idea of the structure. The walls must be 8 ft thick in places, it was really impressive. It was closed when we arrived, but luckily the base of the walls is built into sloping rock, so we were able to climb up and get a look inside. Presumably it was a bit harder when the walls were full height and there were people shooting at you.

Siege breaking – easy

The ground outside the castle walls was covered in poppies enjoying the morning sunshine. Very poignant.

Poppies

Lots of poppies

We went round the village, but it was early in the morning so nothing was open really. Can’t say much except it was pretty!

Nice village

After that we tested our mettle going back down the hill as fast as possible and got into the office around 9.30. One of the good things about not getting paid or actually being employed is that no-one complains if you arrive late.

We haven’t had much proper work to do today. I proof read a sampling protocol for Tiago, but apart from that it’s been route planning and blogging. However, we did find out that we should be pretty busy for the next few days. There is a group of school kids visiting the reserve this week, and we are going to help the interns show them around the reserve, as well as doing some invasive algae removal and helping Tiago set up his  sampling sites. Should be a fun week!

– Dave

We slept pretty well in the end last night! This morning we had breakfast with Neik and Johanna, then we went to meet Pedro. Johanna decided to go to see the ruins near Figuera de Castelo de Rodrigo, which meant me and Anna could get back to Algodres in the van, hurrah! Still haven’t heard from Johanna, hope she hitchhiked ok…..

Once we got back to Algodres we dropped the van keys at Johanna’s got our bikes and headed back to the reserve. Our plan of doing a long hike today was scuppered by the late start, so instead we decided to just have a chilled out day near the campsite. We did some washing, Anna did yoga on the groundsheet of the tent (so dedicated), and I went for a short walk to the river to see if I could see some vultures. I did see some, but they nest on the opposite side of the valley, so they’re very hard to make out!

Laundry (never ends!)

Vulture

Bug

We’ve come back to Algodres this evening to shop for tomorrow’s food. We decided we will DEFINITELY go for that long walk tomorrow so we need everything sorted out tonight so we can get an early, cool start!

– Dave