26 October 2022 - A walk on the wild side

Miles driven today = 0

Total Miles to date = 2,673

Sometimes we just need 48 hours away from civilisation and today has been perfect for recharging the batteries.

Helena, the proprietor here at Shamwari Hilltop Retreat, gave us a couple of photocopied maps last night on which she drew a few suggested walking routes, so this morning we headed a few hundred yards up to the tiny hamlet of Monte Vasco, where the only obvious inhabitants were an elderly lady, who we exchanged "Bom Dia"s with, and a couple of very snarly dogs, which we gave a very wide berth.

Once we started following the downhill track northwards out of the village we didn't see a single soul until we returned to Shamwari 2 1/2 hours later.  

Even here in the very south of Portugal we are still seeing the same Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail signs we have been spotting ever since we were in France.

The countryside here is predominantly scrubland with a few olive trees.  There are also quite a lot of stunted pine trees which, we are told, were planted to reduce soil erosion.

After walking for a couple of miles the path reached a point where we could look out over the Guadiana River across to Spain and the clocks on our phones prematurely pushed themselves forward an hour.  This is also the point where the Rio Vascao below us converges with its much bigger brother.

The track continued downhill to the Vascao's river bank, where we stopped for our packed lunch, sat on a rock under an olive tree.  There were also promegranate trees and a few small puffballs, which we took back to the van to pop into our teatime omelettes.  The sky was filled with swifts of some sort.  Not the common ones we get in the UK, these were much paler in colour.  We also saw the vivid blue flash of a kingfisher as it flew along the riverbank.

Another Camino sign sent us along a rough path following the river upstream to meet up with a wider track, which took us back to Monte Vasco.  There is of course one major inconvenience with walking from a hilltop retreat to a riverbank.  The return journey is all uphill, and bloody steep at times too.

We did see a few things to take our minds off the uphill slog.  I loved the way the lichen on some of the trees was so thick that it almost looked like blossom.  We also saw some small frogs in the puddles which had formed as a result of recent rainfall and grasshoppers which had bright blue wings.

We also spotted several wells.  This one was a good 10 feet deep and only covered by a few loose branches to stop walkers and animals falling in.

This afternoon has been spent mostly chilling back at Shamwari.  We really are quite taken by it.  It has an African Safari Camp feel to it, which I guess is no surprise given Helena's Zimbabwean heritage.  We paid €47 for our two nights here, so it's not cheap by any means but €10 of that was for hook up so if we had stayed off grid and relied on our solar panel it would have been less than €20 a night.

It was nudging 30 degrees this afternoon, which even in these southern parts is pretty toasty for late October, but with a strong wind to keep things bareable.  We took a stroll down the hill to a new glamping area which Helena and her team have set up so if camping in the wilderness just a stones throw from all that the Algarve has to offer is your thing, I can certainly recommend this place.

This evening we went to join Helena and couple of ex-pat Brits who live locally at the bar for sundowners.  She does home baked pizzas too but we declined.  We have puffballs to consume.  

27 October 2022 - Alcoutim, then back into Spain