On broad lines, we have a route to follow from Sagres to Tarifa. A few days before we walk a stage, we cut it up into sections that seem good to hike and the day before we review this. What does the route look like? Where can we expect difficulties? Is it a lot of asphalt, difficult terrain, or do we expect it to be easy to walk? A stage is rarely exactly as we expect it to be, but that keeps it fun. But once in a while it does deviate a lot. Like today's stage...
We pack up our tent, which is still a bit wet from this morning's rain, but fortunately it's completely dry when we leave the campsite. We walk through a dune forest area towards Vila Real de Santo António, among beautiful pine trees and tall bushes of flowering white gorse. The village lies on the Guadiana, an 818km river that forms the Spanish border here. To get across, we have to take a ferry. Yesterday, just to be sure, we checked whether it's operational and what time the first one leaves. The ticket office was already closed, but the neighbouring petrol station managed to tell us that the ferry sails from 9.30pm on Sundays. This gives us ample time to catch the next ferry on the route, which is 10 kilometres further and sails between Punta del Mural and Isla Cristina.
A little after nine o'clock we walk through the village to the port. Everything is still closed, and the ferry turns out not to sail until 10:15 a.m., so we have another hour. There is a restaurant open on the quay, and with a hot cup of coffee, waiting isn't that bad. The only downside of it, is this that once we've crossed the river, we only have two hours to reach the next ferry. Otherwise, it's on a lunch break and won't depart before 4pm.
We get on the first ferry and leave beautiful and friendly Portugal. We have come to love it a bit, after all, in recent weeks. The town on the other side looks pretty too, with little alleys and old buildings. But unfortunately, we need all the time we have and can't take a look around. We walk out of the built-up area fairly quickly and keep following a major road towards Punta del Mural. Over asphalt we step briskly and manage to arrive at the port 15 minutes before departure. We see a sign with a piece of printed paper that states: no ferry service this month.... Aww, that's a bummer. Our feet hurt and legs feel heavy from trudging across asphalt, so we seek out a bench to weigh some options. The other side of the water seems so close by! We could easily swim it, if we didn't have a backpack. First, we check if there isn't another boat going. Malou asks at the port, but out of season no ferries run. On Google we see that there's a bus connection to the port on the other side. To be honest, it feels a bit like cheating... And walking to the harbour on the other side would still be more than 20 kilometres. So we decide to take a hotel for the night and walk those kilometres tomorrow, we won't be able make it today. But while searching, we quickly see that everything open in this little port town, is fully booked, probably because of Carnival. So we should take the bus anyway, which leaves in 10 minutes. We wait, we wait, but... no bus. Half an hour later, we conclude that there is only one option left: walk all the 10 kilometers back to Ayamonte, the town where we arrived by ferry from Portugal this morning...
There's no campsite here but luckily we find a small hotel with a room available. Well, that went a little differently than planned... It does turn the prepared route for the next few days upside down. Besides the ferry that didn't leave today, we would have to take another one tomorrow. Today's one was on the internet with sailing times, tomorrow's is a bit of a risk. So we won't take that risk. Fortunately, we find a cycle route a bit off the coast: the Vias Verdas de Litoral. This runs via the town of Lepe also in the direction of Huelva. No campsites, unfortunately, but it's in the right direction.
This morning, after leaving the hotel, we walk through the quiet streets of Ayamonte. Crossing a park, we get to the cycle route fairly quickly. This turns out to be a dirt road, which is easy to hike. We walk between rivers, canals and swampy areas. Occasionally a group of tourists on bikes passes by, but it is nice and quiet, away from the main road. We pass some farms, riding stables and an occasional fish farm. Again, we feast our eyes on the many water birds! The landscape slowly changes into orchards and a lot of farmland is covered in plastic. At one point, plastic is stretched over everything. Especially over blueberries, persimmons and, oddly enough, almond trees with their pink blossom. It looks pretty messy, all that windblown plastic. But before we know it, we have walked about 12 kilometers and we take a break at the edge of an orange orchard. At last we can also dry the tent, which is still wet from yesterday morning!
After the break, the path is easy at first, but after a while it becomes completely overgrown with bamboo. Almost crawling, we pass under it. We see on the map that the trail just keeps going, but it doesn't look like we'll get any further. So we leave the biketrail and walk through an orchard into an industrial estate, where people are busy working and riding trucks. A bit awkward, as it must be private property, but the people greet us kindly. We walk fast to get to the other side of the area, crawl under a barrier, and are happy to get back on the mainroad. There's only another kilometer or two left to the city border of Lepe and our next hotel, and we can walk nicely along an old railway line. This brings us to the end of the stage. Thankfully, this one went a lot smoother than yesterday!
