Rota Vicentina – day 1

Porto Covo – Almograve

Friday, 22nd December 2023

35,83 km

We set the alarm for 6:30 AM. Jozef gets up and makes coffee, while I still lie in the warm sleeping bag. It’s 13°C in the room. For breakfast we have bread, cheese, olives, and tomatoes, followed by a Madeiran banana. We pack up and set out at 7:45 AM. The sun is just rising. It’s a nice clear day. We start off bundled up in our down jackets. We’re surprised how lively it is for such an early hour, even a café is already open, but we just had a good strong coffee, so we don’t stop.

The trail is marked with blue-green signs. Two horizontal stripes indicate the path, and if they’re crossed out, you shouldn’t go there.

We begin by descending into a small fishing port and then immediately climb back up to a cliff. I pull out my trekking poles. The path is all sand, so at first, we try to walk carefully, but after a few minutes, we give up, realizing it’s pointless. We’re going to have sand everywhere anyway. We walk along the edge of cliff with views on the ocean.

The path then leads along the beach. At this point, we take off our down jackets. The beach is fun for a while, but I can’t imagine walking like this all day, like on the Te Araroa trail.

By 10 AM, it’s already a pleasant 20°C, and we change into shorts. The trail now goes a bit inland. There’s lots of sand, many succulents, and no views. But you have to get through sections like this too.

We try to keep a good pace since the elevation is minimal, but walking in sand is a whole other challenge. We continue until we reach a huge parking lot, where there’s just one car. In season, this place must be packed.

We eat what’s left from breakfast, and I switch into sandals, with socks, because my shoes are still full of sand. We walk along beautiful cliffs where fishermen are catching fish.

To my surprise, it’s Jozef who starts complaining that he wants food, sleep, and coffee. He jokes, asking why we didn’t stay home to decorate the Christmas tree. I start singing “Feliz Navidad” to get the song stuck in his head, but I didn’t have to—he already had it.

We arrive in Vila Nova de Milfontes at 1:30 PM with 22 km behind us. First, we grab coffee, pastel de nata, and some other pastries at a café, and then we head to a local spot for lunch. We order plato del día, a mix of pork with fries and vegetables, along with a small beer. Afterward, we quickly stop by the store for some drinks and snacks. We buy Limon water, lemon-flavored, and it’s pretty disgusting. The plan is to walk another 13 km to a spring before the village of Almograve. However, it’s getting late, and the sun sets in three hours. We first walk on the road out of town, then on a path by a field and through a cork oak forest. We had never seen cork oaks before or how their bark is cut off.

We continue along dirt roads. We’re moving at a decent pace, and it looks like we’ll make it by sunset. After a fence with fluffy cows, we turn onto a path.

Once again, we wade through the sand and, where there is some water, through a thick growth of trees and bamboos..

We watch the sunset from the cliffs, and then we still have 1.5 km to the beach where we plan to camp.

By 6 PM, we’ve set up the tent. It’s cooling down quickly. Jozef prepares sleeping things while I go to wash my feet in a stream that flows into the ocean. Then I edit some photos and try to upload the blog, but the signal here is terrible. It takes forever. In the meantime, Jozef cooks mashed potatoes with tuna, olives, and dried tomatoes. I wanted to write about today’s events too, but I’m too tired. Jozef is already asleep, and I’m trying to sleep as well, but the waves crashing against the cliffs are so loud, and I get paranoid that the waves might wash away our tent. I check online to see when high tide is. It’s in an hour. I look out of the tent and see that the water is still far away, and in an hour, the tide won’t rise that much. Jozef also reassured me, saying that a tsunami would have to come for the waves to reach us since there are even plants growing near the water, but that wasn’t enough for me. I finally fall asleep after 10 PM.