September 6 - Other than dogs, roosters, and garbage trucks, we got a pretty good night's sleep. The joys of camping in town. We had hoped to get going early, but it just didn't happen and we were on the go by 8:15 after a nice breakfast of mango and granola that we purchased at a mercado yesterday.

A short road walk to get us out of town and the rest of the morning was spent on trail running along the coast. There was much less deep sand on the trail than yesterday and we got to walk barefoot on the beach for awhile.

One stretch of trail was a Hobbit tunnel cut through a very thick manzanita and cane jungle. Very strange to be practically crawling to squeeze through the low, narrow passages. Even stranger was to catch up to two bicyclists struggling their way through and then still needing to walk their bikes in the deep sand once they got out.

Our beach walking included a couple of rope-assisted climbs back up to the plateau on the cliffs above which gave us a little challenge.

We're staying in a youth hostel in Almograve tonight, in a private room, since there are no campgrounds. You can't just wild camp in Portugal.

Since we reached town in the early afternoon and could not check in until 6pm, we spent a few hours on the local beach having lunch at a beach cafe/bar. We actually returned there for a light dinner and to watch the sunset at about 8pm after taking showers at the hostel.

We saw our Scottish friends again on the trail and then at lunch so they joined us and it was nice to chat a bit. There have been maybe a dozen or so people on the trail each day. Not nearly as many as the previous two trails.

A final note: Portugal is a big producer of cork. We walked by our first cork trees today! They strip the bark off the lower 6 feet or so of the trunk every few years and it grows back.

Check out my current location on the map.