A couple of ladies stood outside the post office door looking like they were waiting for it to open up. They congratulated me on my pink hair - "Naturale!" - we all laughed. They only spoke spanish to us and one remembered some school english. It was Monday, but as it turned out that day was another Fiesta, so the post office wouldn't open. (What were they queuing up outside the door for then?!?) The nearest postie was 12km back the way we came. I had seen it as we rode past, and it had looked distinctly closed. Oh well, off to Portugal then!

Stopped by the side of the road to make some fresh coffee. (Well, Aidan brewed the coffee while I was watching ants carry huge pieces of debris across the road. One ant carried a seed three times its size and kept veering off to the right until he got lost. Then some others started following him and also got lost! - Fascinating stuff! )


The road was sweeping in relaxed bends along the mountain side and across rivers. This time we actually realised when we reached the border (we had totally missed the one between France & Spain). But our glorious look-where-we-are!-stand-under-the-road-sign picture was somewhat ruined by the graffiti someone had sprayed on the sign. The roads across the border immediately got much harder to ride, with tighter bends and everyone doing about twice the speed limit!


Stopped at a water fountain to replenish supplies. In this heat we were drinking several litres a day and then we needed a little bit for cooking and washing in the evenings too. So this time I filled up the second foldable water bag we had, and strapped it to the top of my pannier. Aidan had been carrying one most days already. I don't know how he hadn't complained about it yet - they are HORRIBLE!!! To ride with that is. The water sloshes around, tearing the soft bag this way and that. In turn this moves the whole bike and makes it really hard to handle, especially when you are swinging from tight bend to tight bend. Lesson learned! We are taking a hard water container on the big trip!

The roads carried on winding in tight bends along the mountain side and I was really struggling with the sloshing water bag. But hey, it was sunny, hot and beautiful riding through village after village so I just decided to make the best of it. My visor was slightly open to let the cool air in (but not open enough for all the bugs and mozzies to smash on my glasses) and I was busy trying to keep up with Aidan, who seemed unphased by his sloshy water bag.

BANG!! A bee flew into my visor and is now sitting all bedazzled on the chin guard of the helmet. And then it crawls into my helmet and starts flying around 1cm from my eyes!!! BEEEEEE! I mean BEND!!! Almost missed the bend in the road heading straight for someone's front gate. BRAKE! .... lean! LEAN some more! Phew..... pull over.... where is the bee? Its fallen down into my slightly open Jacket straight into my cleavage. Dirty bastard! Get OUT! I've finally come to a stop by the side of the road and the bee drunkenly crawls out of my jacket and flies off. That was lucky! Time to catch up with Aidan who's waiting round the next corner wondering what's taking me so long. (If this sounds familiar to you, yes, Lois Pryce also had a bee-moment too.)

In Braga we parked up the bikes outside a house where the residents had said it was ok to park. Being used to parking only in parking spaces, we had found some, but you had to pay and the free motorcycle ones had been taken up..... The walk into town revealed that most bikes are simply parked on the pavement. As long as its not ridiculously in the way, no-one seems to mind. So from then on we did the same

Braga is beautiful! Lots of old buildings, covered entirely with 70's wallpaper style patterned tiles, in various states of repair.

We headed for the somewhat touristy central square and splashed out on a huge and meal sitting outside at a restaurant. Aidan had portuguese style thinly battered cod with fried potato and I had yummy purple squid with potato and spinach. Feast! Not to forget the huge ice creams that followed of course We were sat next to a fountain and every time the wind blew our way, we had a light shower in the water mist. Real nice on such a hot day, except it diluted the ice cream!


Afterwards we decided to explore the town on foot to try and find a post office once again. Of course we misunderstood the spanish directions from the post card vendor's daughter and her mum's fingers pointing in all sorts of directions. Even the little drawing from another woman didn't help. We had left the helmets and the leather jackets on the bikes, but the bike boots and jeans had us getting hot and bothered. We soon got really irritated trying to find the damn post office and our exploration just wasn't much fun anymore. So we just gave up and headed back to the bikes.

We really wanted to just sit in the cool shade of a parasol and drink ice-cold . But we had to find a place to sleep, so we left town in search for a camping spot. Whoever had told Aidan that Portugal is sparsely populated, was seriously mistaken! Well, in this area anyways. Village after village popped up along the road, often merging into each other, making for miles and miles of roadside settlement with no lonely spots to pitch a tent in sight! Eventually Aidan spotted a small path next to someone's house, leading into a tiny square of forest. It split in two and the right hand one led to the perfect little camping spot under the trees.

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