A rebel without a clue.

Punjabi vegetable jalfrezi - no comment. Two chapatis for 5€! What... OK. 10€ for the meal, but the mental distortion for the flat breads. Leeds's finest from Abul Bakr £1? I don't know how The Algarve does it - supply and therefore damned? Certainly it filled a hole. Pilau rice slightly damp too ... And a small bottle of water 2€60¢. Don't go to Mehfil if you don't want to leave feeling Meh and not very happily filled! Time for a siesta and that's it? I made my bed prior to the late lunch. It's all good. It's in my belly. But the upper bunk squeaked every movement. The sour faced woman on reception said they have no lower bunks left so I accepted the upper bunk in 102, but everything was bouncing around loosely when I moved. Luckily the unhelpful woman had ended her shift and a more helpful man moved me to a lower bunk (which was a available in 104!!!) so I moved my stuff and took 102 key back. Now I have Samuel from Recife Brasil opposite: he was already h...

What now? Where now? One more day would take me further than my original destination - Beja - and further from Seville, where I return from on Wednesday. As there are a lot of connections from Faro, Tavira and the Algarve to Seville, by bus, that must be 'the' option... I've booked a Rede Expressos to Faro at 1020am. And will stay in Tavira. Indeed I could stay until Tuesday as I don't need to be in Seville except for one night. There is the Via de la Plata obviously, but that's in the future... This was just a short one. And I felt the Camino spirit the day before yesterday with António, in Alcoutim with the dogs and Sam and when I crossed the stream Vascão with my feet finding the none green stones and sandy spaces. So that's sorted. One night in Tavira too. Then forward to Seville and then back to Leeds, via Stansted, and my broken relationship with my mum... What's around the corner? Downstairs for breakfast and it's raining. It's grey on Beja. H...

A battled against the sinking mud, But I didn't fight. Slowing to a gentle, yet ploughing/sucking, pace as I reached the (disused) railway lines. Skirting Beja to the east and carrying the mud of (olive) war everywhere. Beja vu... Déjà vu. Don't I know this bar from before? I tried to stop, but I was called. A shower and a Saturday. A Prancinho and a Super Bock Preta. No, I've never been here before. But similar (somewhere) - I stumbled into - on another Way in another Time. A bit middle class hipster-ish, but it's not Portuguese? It's alright as I am being torn apart by New Wave and a lady in butterfly wings. Her son a stoned wizard, but not a True star. Polkadot stepple- hat: Reprehensible! 1979 is a broken glass Heart, which is still amongst them? *** Gosh I am tired as a man converts himself. A man becomes a sheikh. Another time was in Palma Mallorca. But I was only there for a coffee and cake as it closed. Middle class and simply out of ...

Slept until the dawn was crawling upon my eyelids. The first. So quiet up here, but cold. Blue skies, mainly. It was blowing a gale as I fell away from puddles, voices and fears. Then I grabbed the additional blanket in a half waking moment. Things are still damp which I washed last night so I wear them to use body heat to dry. I've four layers on: we're not in The Algarve now, for sure? But these layers won't last once António deposits me the other side of the river/stream/brook. The roads come up here, but they don't go on. A dead end, cul-de-sac, rural idyll: Amendoeira da Serra - off-roading. Home baked bread in the taverna de Maria overlooking the hamlet, without igreja. António bought his Citroen from a padre, as he departed these lands on the edge of Portugal... This was the end of getting into the feeling of being el Camino. From Castro Marim the feeling of being with spirit has grown as the number of cars, traffic, people has faded into a trickle. This toast is...

It happens infrequently, but just as I stumbled ankle deep into a newly formed puddle, after a 40 minute downpour from 10am as I felt the wind change and the temperature drop and put my deteriorating Páramo Halkon to cover me a little from the onslaught along the tarmaced road I'd followed from the turn off along the main Mértola/Beja route(single lane and plenty of articulated lorries), I deleted all of this morning. Which was just the usual. The café supplied me with two empanada and a good café grande. I am using the cost as a cape so it dries and I dry. I've somewhere ahead to stay this evening. And the proprietor of the café promised me nice food in 9 kilometres. Suddenly I am out of The Algarve and into the plains of Alentejo where oak trees dominate and sheep bleet in the pastures all around me. There are still a few Rock Roses but much fewer. Before that village Corto Gafo de Cima on my right I saw the plains pop into existence. Slowly, very slowly, I am beginning to un...

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 ...

Second pit stop at Pastelaria A Prova for more mineral water and a very delicious cheesecake. A takeaway cheese and ham sandwich - which was lovely! And I ate it leaving the village and heading off on the Caminho Nascente and leaving the GR15 as the option up ahead may be fully booked, or closed or on vacation... Casa de Paz Anne on a meeting. The casa is only available during July and August which is simply no fun in February. Nice dog. Busy lady. Carry on.  Fate. If I hadn't walked off piste, across a wheat field and alongside the river, missing both the yellow arrows and the GR signs, as they disappeared somewhere, the bus which came around the corner, just as I arrived at Foz de Odeleite, wouldn't have had me on it. And it's only 2€. Trust the Camino to open up? HI Hostel at the end of town Pousada Juventude de Alcoutim 17€ with a French cyclist. He says the weather will be different tomorrow. Yes I saw rain in the forecast too. Had a long cleansing shower. Changed into...