Mértola

At 8:30am Thursday I left to join The Way after calling back to the youth hostel to drop off my keys and pick up the picnic bag. It's not there! Oh I was meant to collect at 6pm the previous night? I was snoring around then (12 hours kip as the wind chopped through the valley). So I stopped for a yogurt and a short longo and to make a sandwich, pilfer some Madeleine and collect another piece of fruit but now my backpack is weighing me down once more...

... As I am followed by all the dogs a man hollers me: stop. He comes off his plot with six fresh tangerines and three fresh lemons. So I stopped at the exit to the village, Monte Vascão, schooed away another Black and sat eat the final navel orange which I have carried in the disintegrating 40l Lacuma since just on the edge of Tavira. Now I am weighing more on my back, but just about to repeat the frontier crossing into Alentejo further along the Vascão from back in January?

Every river has to be crossed... And every snake held off with sticks, or just it let be? Nasturtiums by the fork in the road. And I carried a staff until I didn't need it. Up a pass from the river. It was just lying their amidst the snakes. There was probably a bridge somewhere which the German pilgrims had surmounted, but like the good commando I took my boots off, stuffed them in the disintegrating sack and walked carefully through the crotch deep shallower area: at first I almost went in at the narrowest point with rushing water, but then thought nada!

Then after filling my flask from one of the numerous white and blue wells in Alentejo(built in the 1960s), I walked into Mesquita but it was closed ... Then I walked along the tedious stretch of road as the heavens were unfolding their sweet rain and I knew I just couldn't go no further! However, just as I was struggling with one foot in front of the other, Alex(Karlsruhe), driving the IVECO camper I'd waved at in Mesquita, comes along and I am delivered to a bath in Hotel Beira Rio - which has 'sand paper' to prevent slippage when having a shower, but also cuts up the bottom of the spine ... Oh the joys of 40€.

But I am quite exhausted. The recommended etape of 40kms is plain stupid. Without anything after the few clusters around Cortes Pereiras, where I heard delightful music, and afterwards when I was followed by a lovely mutt and was given a sack of tangerines, and silence around the mound behind those nasturtiums in Mesquita. That couple enjoying lunch in their IVECO...

Second vino. The first vinegar and the second nectar. The first was literally squeezed from the sack and the second was from the unopened bag. It's Alentejo, but the first was only for the chips?

Only the locals. Good Vinho. And a lot of laughter, but no British voices. Sam and his stories are back in Alcoutim. I guess he had a hangover with the 'snake-bite' he was a-mixing? No dogs fighting each other, yet!

But then to feel threatened by a 5ft nationalist; the dog! The world is larger, taller and more inclusive. Your attitude is the same I would get from any local in Leeds, but I am miles from there... It's odd. The world in Mértola feels exclusive, excluding. When I am seeing a slice of life? From the wheels on the bus in Portuguese to the wheels of the bus fall off... eu não falo português. Sorry.

Very early Friday.

Came back sorted my stuff out and slept until the breeze blew up the valley rattling the curtains as I'd left the window open. So I shut it. But then something indigestible came back to haunt me? As it was passing both ends I wonder if it was the cabbage in the stew in the locals bar? Sure feels odd having cold sweats from cabbage, but one can never tell? And the rain falls down.

Not that I am a fair weather pilgrim, but I usually hate setting off when it's already raining! I don't mind when it begins when I am already away, as it did when I'd retied my boots on the Alentejo side of the river, and until Alex allowed me a lift to the bus station stop in Mértola.

Funnily I was in Mértola as a tourist back in 2016 and it rained then too! And I didn't like it... I don't know why, but it's got something oppressive about the castle overlooking the ravine of the Guardiana - almost Gormangastian? To seek coffee and decide on the day ahead? Carry on North or something else? Coffee first!

I didn't know where to drop the key so I left it on the landing just as I unlocked the front door. It's not raining, but it's dark and satanic for 7am. That hooded castle looming over me? OK across the street from the Multibanco is a cafe just rolling up her shutters. Let's start again? I don't know what I am doing today... And there is another stream to cross, but after yesterday's downpour I don't think it is possible?