Day 4 - Carrapateira to Bordeiro to Aljezur

So today would be a wonderful walk filled with lots of different scenery but we would find it exhausting and long.
This stage calls for you to end in Arrifana . I had not pre-booked a place here. I forgot why, but knew there was a reason. I think the limited accommodation was full. I did have an excellent hostel booked for the next leg though in Aljezur. .

Upon studying the map there were two circuits of the Fisherman’s trail to do today. Not having my maps on me at the moment I can’t fully describe the details but they made for a long day. So we thought outside of the box a bit, made reservations for two nights at tomorrow’s hostel and thus today walked past Arrifana and on in to Aljezur .

This wasn’t really two stages because it was almost like walking on the hypotenuse of a triangle. This left us sitting pretty to then actually do the circuit (a circular route) from Aljezur back to Arrifana and return back to our hostel tomorrow.

A common situation...

 

 Our apartment/house that we stayed at last night was located where we got to pass by our dear Alice and Wonderland location and kiss on Gigi one more time.  

Gigi acting like she never knew us, a love ‘em and leave ‘em kinda cat!!!

Then it was up a hill filled with cork trees and lunch in a gorgeous shady spot.
Note: the cork trees in the images. We have been told the cork can be harvested every five years and grow back.

 


 I have a friend who has walked with me twice from Bilbao when I have hiked there and this last time (I think I blogged about this) he proudly sported a small cheese board made just for his backpack. My son, Karsh (who hand makes everything), made me one for Christmas with wood from last year's Christmas tree. It is beautiful, the little handle is from the natural branch. I love it so much, and when we use it it gets so much respect as we place the food on it. 

 

My treasured cutting board from Karsh!!!

 

more nature pics...

We then went on to a cute cafe where we met an awesome couple from Amsterdam and enjoyed small conversations mid day as we met the opposite direction rush.

A halo over my head, our friend, Jordi and I joked there might be a pilgrimage to my old bones one day- lol!!!!
That was a light fixture of sorts, and I took advantage of its shadow.

 
 We got to Aljezur exhausted, but I immediately took off my backpack and headed back out to the supermarket.

 We love our hostel, it’s called Amazigh and the staff, the location, and the crowd is wonderful!

Day 3 - Carrapateira and its Fisherman’s Circuit

We woke up today motivated to hike the Fisherman’s Fisherman Circuit near Carrapateira but not motivated to do much else. 
Waking up at our beautiful hostel was such a treat! Gigi the cat started off sleeping with Bronwyn and made her way to me. She curled up with me more than any cat I have ever been around, she found any nook and cranny (I have more than I guess I hoped to have) and rolled up to find comfort in my chubby spots.

Gigi

Today’s my birthday and Steve had told the girls to make sure to take us somewhere special.

Since we agreed to stay one more night our wonderful host had to change us to an apartment (an actual house but she used the term “apartment”). How I missed our Alice and Wonderland themed room and the move meant saying bye to Gigi, but it was wonderful!

My birthday lunch would be about three doors down at a beach bar. You could imagine it was probably crazy busy in Summer, for now it was busy with older European tourist. The table next to us had three German couples, one of the men came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said,” did I over hear it is your birthday?”. When I said ,”yes” he let out this full voiced baritone HAPPY BIRTHDAY song and the whole restaurant sang along! It actually brought tears to my eyes. Then the waiter as I was about to walk out the door when done caught me with a shot. Two shot glasses and a cheers , one for him and one for me. I’m never too interested in liquor and had no idea what I was consuming (great example for my girls, I know).... BUT it was fun!!!!

The girls devoured lunch with specially made French Fries, I had shrimp in garlic which might become my go to meal...yummy!!!!

All meals seem to last hours here, no complaints!!! About two hours later we started walking our circuit path that I think was about 3 hours. It was stunning! Not to be missed! The rocks at the beach were like pastel colored and simply beautiful.

In our “off road” detour yesterday we actually, unknowingly, covered about 20 minutes of this circuit route. Not the part on the water but from a distance I was able to get pictures of our “slides”from the night before.

We finished up with fresh squeezed orange juice back at our restaurant and then walked a good mile to a mini market in town.

The girls and I had a wonderful day together!



Images from our next door neighbors apartment, each room was special!

Since the circuit is just a loop that started and ended in our town we were able to venture out without our packs!
This was our beautiful walk!