20 years ago today – Day 21

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Sunday, March 24 – Tavira to Ayamonte, Spain, 874 km

Mike and I did not bring camping equipment for this trip. In spite of the cost savings over paying for rooms in small inns, we did not want to carry the extra rate. When I think of cooking dinner over a Sterno can versus a hot shower and comfortable bed after a hard day of cycling, there really is no choice. Besides, camp grounds are usually in the outskirts of town and to see any attractions or visit a bar after we pitch our tents we would need to ride to the next town and likely ride back in the dark. We wouldn’t be able to drink much every night and we’d be leaving all our belongings unprotected.

Still, we do not plan to spend every night in pensions and other inns. They get a bit expensive. Youth hostels are cheaper, noisier and have more restrictions, and are they are often full, but from time to time they’re better options and better places to meet other travelers.

Several gay men and couples between Provence and Amsterdam have answered our ad in “Gai Pied”, inviting us to stay in their homes for free. We have also joined Servas, an organization for travelers to want to meet and be hosted by locals when they travel. I procured lists of hosts for several countries in western Europe.

There were no convenient hosts for Portugal but there are several in Spain. The first two are in Huelva and Sevilla in southern Spain, where we will be in half a week. Mike writes and speaks Spanish but I don’t, which is the source of my frustration this morning. He hasn’t written or spoken to the hosts we have selected to ask in those cities because it will be slightly cheap to do so once we are in Spain, only a day or so before we arrive. That probably means we are unlikely to find an available host on such short notice and we’ll have to pay for a hotel instead. He takes ludicrous risks and will walk the line of being rude just to save a few pennies. This is causing me lots of irritation this morning.


He also likes to sleep in when he can, which means we don’t have much time to tour the town before we leave. But he is finally up, donning his red and white Captain Canada cycling jersey, which he says will be to our advantage when we are crossing the border in to Spain this afternoon. If our passports are not enough I can’t see how his jersey will, but I am saying as little as I can to him while choking back my desire to wring his neck.


We have to miss seeing the churches and castle, but we do get out in time to see some things. Walk through the streets and alleys, we marvel at the bathroom tiles on the rear walls. We cross the ancient old bridge over the Gilao River, the last remnant of what was once a Roman port. It is now only a pedestrian bridge. The harbour is silted up now and the nearest beaches are a couple km from the town, which is probably why it hasn’t been redeveloped as tourist resort.


We find the Tourist Information Office and it is open on weekends. There is a note from Nick waiting for us. The women working there say he came in several times last night before we arrived anxious to connect with us. His note says he has found a place the three of us for only 1500 esc in someone’s home. He provided direction on how to find the street he is on, but no he forgot to leave us the house number. We leave a note for him in return, suggesting he meet us in a few days at 6pm on the steps of the great cathedral in Sevilla instead. I sure hope the cathedral has steps.

We are stopped and questioned by a 10-year old boy on a bike as we are set to roll out of town. He likes our bikes and Mike's Captain Canada jersey. He is excited to learn we are from Toronto. He and his family are moving there in four months and he's looking forward to it. We wish him the best and say we might see him there.


It’s early afternoon and we have left Tavira headed for Spain. We reach the border at 23 km at Vila Real. We use the river ferry across the Guadiana River to take us to Ayamonte on the Spanish side. There is no customs office of course, since both countries are part of the EU. Then we ride around to check out the town. Perhaps entering a new country on Sunday when everything is closed and without any local currency is not the best way to start off anew. But Mike manages to find one exchange office open where we exchange our remaining escudos into Spanish pesados. The commission rate is quite good.

The town feels very empty so I suppose there is not a lot to do on Sundays. There are also not many pensions. While we are looking, several children on bikes surround us and blast us with questions until Mike gets the bright idea of getting them to help us find a place to stay. That doesn’t work as well as it did in Tavira. They help us find a couple but Mike says they are too expensive. We even ride 7 km south along the river delta to the ocean and back looking for something cheaper, but we finally settle on a place for 2200 pesados (about 3000 esc). If this is an indication, Spain will be more expensive than Portugal.

For this price my bed sags terribly and I have to lay the mattress on the floor if I want to be able to walk tomorrow. Before bed Mike and I walk around the town and stop to watch a Semana Santa (Easter Holy Week) procession – regiments of youths in coloured robes with KKK-like pointed hoods strolling somberly with their faces turned down, carrying a giant cross and gaudily-painted statues of the various saints and virgins on large platforms on their shoulders. Not as festive as a Mexican procession I suspect. I wonder what percentage of these youths actually still believe in the Catholic Church.

PHOTO 1: Tavira alley
PHOTO 2: bathroom tiles
PHOTO 3: Tavira riverfront
PHOTO 4: approaching Spain, Mike with his Captain Canada jersey
PHOTO 5: Ayamonte street
PHOTO 6: Ayamonte sunset

20 years ago today – Day 20

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Saturday, March 23 – Albufeira to Tavira, 828 km

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning, pleasant and brilliantly sunny, but last night’s brisk north wind is still blowing. Albufeira is on a hill sloping down to the sea. We follow the road down to the shore and back again before breakfast, just to get a sense of the town before we move on. We are kept waiting 45 minutes in the restaurant for our breakfast.

Mike is anxious to make time so he torques up the hill out of town ahead of me. Seven km later his replacement freewheel that was installed in Evora falls apart and I catch up with him. He is once again scrounging ball bearings out of the dirt as though they are pearls from a broken necklace.

Once again the frozen freewheel is locked to the pedals and Mike is forced to keep his feet moving in circles without a rest. We return to downtown Albufeira only to learn that the nearest bike repair shop is located in an outer suburb called Ferreiras. By the time we get there, all the ball bearings Mike so carefully rescued have all been lost.


The bike shop in Ferreiras has no replacement freewheels suitable for Mike’s bike so we are off to Loule, 26 km east, fortunately in the direction we need to go anyway. On the way we climb a long, gradual hill that affords us great views over the Algarve coastline. But Mike is straining his best to get to Loule so I don’t have much chance to linger over the spectacular scenery.

We reach Loule at 12:20. The streets are practically dead. We find out that all stores close for the weekend at noon on Saturdays in Portugal. How is it that we don’t know this already? I find it comical after that we did all that running around for nothing, and that Mike will serve a longer penance for being too cheap to have his bike overhauled before we left, but I bite my lip because Mike is in no mood for joking.

Outside of Loule we start onto a series of back roads that take away from the busy highway traffic. The route we choose though, is torn up for sewer and road repairs and we are forced to detour. The signage for the detour is missing after the first couple turns and we get hopelessly lost for half an hour or so, but it is fun this time because we are in it together. We find the correct way eventually, and push on towards Tavira through rolling scrub-covered hills with cultivated farms sprinkled here and there. The surfaces on the side roads are generally rough, which slows us down.


We arrive in Tavira at 6pm, but we cannot find the Tourist Office anywhere. It certainly isn’t where the Michelin Guide says it is, so I suppose our planned rendezvous with Nick won’t happen tonight. We have no idea where to look first to find a room. Suddenly an angel appears – a boy dressed totally in pink on a bright yellow bike (OK, perhaps a fairy, not an angel). He steps up to us boldly and in broken English he asks if he can help. We tell him we need a place to stay for tonight and he leads us to several small hotels, where we found a room in “The Imperial” for 2500 esc.

It is a mild, inviting evening so Mike and I stroll through the town. A friend in Toronto once told me about this town. He raved about it. At first glance it is a disappointment. Many buildings look shabby and in need of repair with moss and dirt around their lower edges. The sides and back of most of the houses are decorated with gaudy, larger-sized ceramic bathroom tiles. As hideous as this sounds (and looks) it is distinctly Portuguese and not put there by some time-share development corporation.

Tavira’s quaint charm does get through to us after an hour or so. It is laid-back, unpretentious and built lovingly along opposing banks of the Gilao River. It feels natural and warm-hearted. And those bathroom tiles do help to make it feel more ‘intimate’.


PHOTO 1: Praia de Sao Rafael
PHOTO 2: entering Tavira
PHOTO 3: Tavira at dusk
PHOTO 4: Tavira harbour sunset

20 years ago today - Day 19

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Friday, March 22 – Sagres to Albufeira, 745 km

After five days in Sagres, our first long lay-over, it is time to move on and put my diarrhea behind me. Mike and I made the executive decision to leave yesterday, regardless of my health, so I gave my body strict orders to shape up because we are shipping out. And sure enough, this morning it has its shit together. Thankfully.

I am ready early and as usual Mike keeps me waiting until 10:30 while he returns bottles, etc. Everyone’s leaving. Nick and the girls leave town on the 10am bus, after we say our tearful goodbyes. Nick is full of affection and makes plans to meet up with us at Tourist Information in Tavira. In case that doesn’t work out, we arrange to meet at Tourist Information in Seville.

The only road out of Sagres is the one we came in on. It leads north-east to Vila do Bispa, then east just north of the cities of Lagos and Portimao. This route avoids much of the seaside traffic congestion in tourist land. It is along this stretch, not far past Logoa, that Mike and I have our first real spat.


Mike has super-powers, you see. He can save money like a super squirrel. From the monies he saved from age 8 to 20 delivering newspapers door-to-door, he bought himself a three level condo with three rental units in downtown Toronto at age 26. He now works in top end international money trading, taking calls from banks and stock and bond traders. He has to know how to change marks into dollars into yens faster than a calculator. He can determine the best exchange rates amongst competitive banks as we glide into a new town, while looking for a place to stay and trying to negotiate unknown streets and unpredictable traffic hazards. He can spot a bargain in a grocery store half an hour after the price tag has fallen off. He is scary sometimes.

But too often the art of making the best choice can become an obsession, as it is with Mike. For instance, he is too cheap to buy his own maps, which I have paid a lot for, so he takes my map with the justification that he is “leading”. That would be fine, except that he doesn’t care to wait for me and is soon out of sight. And so it is today. It had never been a problem when he rode further ahead before, because we were often on the same road for long stretches or else he would wait for me when there was a fork in the road.

At 1:30 in the afternoon, around the 60 km mark, it begins to rain steadily, and fairly hard. I can see Mike in the distance. He continues on as though the sun was still shining, but I pull off to the side under a bus shelter. I put on my sweater and waited 10 minutes for the shower to pass. There is no let up in sight, so I throw my leg over the saddle and push off. I don’t want Mike to get too far away.

A couple km later I come to a Wizard of Oz-type fork in the road. Mike isn’t waiting there for me and I cannot determine which one to take without my map. Of course, I choose the wrong one. It leads me 8 km under dripping trees to the sea, to a circus like beach town with many blocks of colourful, weirdly-designed medium-density condos that cater to elderly sun worshiping Brits. It is a creepy human horror show compared to the relaxed architecture and marvelous setting of Sagres. Thank gawd for the winds of Sagres that blow middle class tourists away.

The road is a dead end and I return the way I came. I meet Mike at the fork in the road, but only because he happens to be passing at just that moment. ‘I guess we got separated,” he surmises, as he circles around to pull up beside me.
“I guess you decided not to wait for me at the fork in the road,” I hiss.
“Well, I thought the choice was obvious…” he says.
“THIS choice is obvious,” I pull my map out of the clear plastic map case on the top of his handlebar bag. “Now if you want to ride ahead out of sight you had better have your own map because you’re never using one of mine again.”

He takes it all in a very relaxed manner. It’s inspiring and relaxes me a bit too, but the whole thing is too unsettling. What if we hadn’t been able to find another after being separated? If he had passed the fork a minute before I returned I would not have seen him and would have probably taken the other fork in the opposite direction. This whole arrangement feels suddenly too frail. Then there is his performance when I was sick in Sagres. One of the biggest advantages of having a cycling partner is so that he will be there to help you if anything bad happens. That obviously does not describe Mike.

Travel is like marriage. Other than perhaps being trapped in a coal mine tunnel with a stranger for a couple weeks, those are best two ways to really get to know someone, good side and bad. Even better than being roommates. And especially when the travel involves a lot of physical effort, like backpacking, canoeing, rock climbing or cycling. Having the right partner is as important as choosing the right gear.

Mike stays with me from that point. Not far along from there I have a problem with my bike’s front derailleur. Neither he or I can figure out why my it is seizing up and messing up my gears. We spend half an hour trying to make it work, and in the end only manage a temporary adjustment to keep it running until I reach a bike shop.

The rain begins to fall steadily again as the afternoon wanes. We are an hour past Logos. The next town is Albufeira, still an hour away. We are relieved once we reach it. The accommodation costs more here, 3000 esc. My bowels are still behaving so we share a restaurant meal. The rain has stopped for now. I often spend this time after dinner alone in the room catching up on my journaling while Mike takes a walk around the town. I ask to walk with him tonight and he welcomes me. After today’s spat this is healing, even though the dampness from the rain is chilling and there’s a brisk north wind.

PHOTO 1: church in Villa do Bispo
PHOTO 2: near Lagos
PHOTO 3: the wrong road
PHOTO 4: seaside condos on the dead end road
PHOTO 5: Albufeira

20 years ago today – Day 18

Thursday, March 21 – a regression of sorts

Getting back to normal digestion after my food poisoning isn’t going as smoothly as I had hoped. I am afraid Mike and Nick’s wonderful pasta dinner last night has met a sorry end – my sorry end, that is. No solid food for me today.

The three of us had discussed a lot of options of what we could do today last night, but this morning it’s raining and windy. It’s definitely neither a beach nor sight-seeing day, or cycling for that matter. I am staying in, writing postcards and letters and reading my book. Before I know it, it is 4 o’clock.
While it was still light, I take a stroll to the beach hoping to meet some locals or other travelers, but there is no one but me. Perhaps because the last rain shower was less than an hour ago. I’m definitely taking my chances on the weather. I waited for Nick and Mike at the Forteleza and to meet any lone backpackers who might want to share our flat. There are no other backpackers tonight either. Keeping up our idyllic set up in our “villa” is beginning to feel like work, or worse, being unemployed.


The boys both brought their cameras tonight but the sunset fizzled out behind a distant bank of clouds. Back at the villa, they make another pasta extravaganza but I have to decline it. My rectum needs to heal. I have plain yogurt instead – God’s food, for it teaches the body forgiveness. The German girls arrive and start making their meal, and then we sit, drink and talk for the rest of the evening. I start telling stories of my past Arctic adventures and various movie plots. Everyone went to bed. I hope they forgive me.

Anyway, we are leaving for points east tomorrow, so I suppose it doesn’t matter.


PHOTO 1: Sagres Beach with surfer
PHOTO 2: more cliffs, time to move on....

20 years ago today – Day 17

Wednesday, March 20 - still in Sagres

My bowels are improving, but was still making trips to the toilet until 11am.

Late morning I begin to repair my bike. Since the day of our arrival here I have had a broken bolt in my front left carrier rack that I secure my front panniers onto. I am not mechanical but I am trying to fix it myself. I have half stripped the threading in the eyelets on my bike frame (in the forks) and I am choked with frustration. I have secured the carrier into the wrong eyelets which is preventing me from reattaching the front wheel.

Nick, who is mechanically minded, starts to help me but then says I’d learn better trying on my own. Frustration does not make me gracious, more usually childish and stupid, like I am today. My upset interior isn’t helping either. But Nick doesn’t let me get away with my little tantrum. He sits me down and methodically teaches me a lot about lock nuts, bolts, lock washers and qualities of metal. He teaches me how to keep the carrier bolt tight even after I have damaged the threading. Now my bike is fixed, I am educated, but feeling very embarrassed about my outburst. He is a great guy and I let him know that. Hell, I’d marry him if he let me, but I don’t think he’s gay.

After lunch, I am ready to take a walk and clear my head. I find a spot and strip naked on the beach. I have seen other naked bathers here on other days, but today I am the only one. That is until a beautiful youth, about 17 or 18, strips off his wet bathing suit to change into his dry shorts, part way up the stairs that lead to the road, about ten metres in front of me. He bends low, his butt facing the beach, as he slips off the wet suit, but then he just stands there naked, sideways with his horse cock swinging, for about five minutes while he chats with his friends, occasionally stretching or flexing his muscles for effect.

He knows he’s an almost perfect body. He knows he has a handsome face and a great tan. He knows he has a large cock and knows that everyone on the beach is staring at it. He knows he is showing off and that his friends he is talking to also know he’s showing off. He feels the heat of everyone’s eyes and realizes that it feels better than sunbathing itself. Then, when his balls have fully finished air drying, he casually slips on his white cotton shorts as if he’d just been absent-mindedly been distracted for the last five minutes, and walks away with his friends.

I love Portugal. If this keeps up I might just stay here. But if I do I’ll probably end up in Xeque-Mate every Saturday night.



This evening, just before sunset, the three of us go to the forteleza looking for a fourth roommate once again. We have no luck this time but we walk along the knee-weakening, vertical cliffs and stop to watch the fishermen sitting along the edges with their fishing lines hanging a hundred metres down to the surging sea below. The cliffs are looking molten and dramatic in the red-orange sunset and the waves are reasonably calm. Both Nick and Mike are cursing the fact that they didn’t bring their cameras.

Before it fully dark, we find two holes in the ground a few metres in from the top of the cliffs. They are holes in the roofs of huge sea caves beneath us. They gasp and inhale with the invisible movement of the sea beneath us, as if the ground itself has come alive. Perhaps instead, it’s a monster or vampire awakening at sunset. I manage to spook myself and I am suddenly worried that the ground beneath me will give way, or that I might fall into a hole in the dark on the way home, so I suggest to the others that we leave.

PHOTO 1: more cliffs
PHOTO 2: the beach
PHOTO 3: Nick Tulloch
PHOTO 4: chapel by Forteleza at sunset

20 years ago today – Day 16

March 19 - a slow recovery

My energy is getter today but at least until mid-day I still have my diarrhea. I spend much of the morning reading “My Traitor’s Heart”, a story of a son of a Boer’s struggle against South African apartheid. It is a more pleasant distraction than my present predicament.

By noon the house begins to hop. Mike and Nick are in the kitchen fixing themselves sandwiches, real Dagwood specials. Andrew leaves for Lagoa to catch a train and continue on with his Euro-rail adventure. Silke, seeing that the boys aren’t doing much to help me, brings me more yogurt and a banana. The she too leaves for other pastures. I get up, get dressed and shave to celebrate my return to life, although I cannot stray far from the toilet.


My intestines seem to have settled down so I take a stroll out to the cape to get some exercise. Mike and Nick pass me on bicycles – Nick is riding mine. I find a small beach a third of the way to the cape, but the tide is too high to access it. I walk the edge of the precipitous cliffs watching the fishermen with their lines dropping 100m to the sea. I return to the main beach near town to read.

When I return to the flat, Ule and Heike, two German girls, have replaced Silke, and Nick come back with Bodo, a young, blond, weak-chinned German biology student who reminds me so much of some of the guys I used to go to school with. Bodo boils some potatoes for dinner while Mike makes an elaborate pasta, which I help make and eat. It is my first meal in two days and it goes down well.

PHOTO 1: cliff fisherman
PHOTO 2: more cliffs near Sagres

20 years ago today – Day 15

March 18 – my worst day so far

I wake up at 2am feeling queasy. I get out of bed and head for the washroom, but two steps later I wretch, fall to my knees and vomit on the bedroom floor. I am shaking from weakness and sweating at the same time. Mike leaps out of bed and runs out of the room. I suppose he is getting me a towel or something but he doesn’t return.

For the moment, I don’t dare try to stand up. I call to Mike, asking him to bring me something to help me clean up the mess. He returns with a garbage pail a few seconds later, handing it to me in a hurried gesture and then quickly leaving again. It is one of those pails operated by a foot pedal that is quite useless in this situation. I slowly pull myself up and stagger into the kitchen to find a towel and a bowl. I am still shaking and dizzy but Mike is no help. He’s hiding around the corner in the hallway like a small boy seeking safety from domestic violence.

I do the best I can to scoop up the mess I have made. I rinse the bowl and cloth in the toilet and go back to give the floor a second wiping. I sprinkle foot power over the wet floor to soak up the dampness and deodorize the room. The whole process takes me half an hour in my present state of weakness. Mike remains outside of the room, around the corner with his back pressed to the wall. I am not sure if he is disgusted, afraid or even angry, but he is not offering any help. I just want to get the nightmare over with.

I call to him, saying everything was fine now. He scurries back into his bed and pulls the covers over himself, turning his back to me. I feel better for the moment, although my mouth tastes rancid. I manage to get some sleep but I am up again at dawn and again at 10 am vomiting in the toilet. Then the diarrhea starts. It continues every hour or so for the next 27 hours.

It doesn’t take me long to figure out that I have food poisoning, probably from a pastry that has been in the sun much of the weekend. It might have been the one before dinner because I ate that alone, while the other pastries I had shared with others and I am the only one who is sick.

I am weak and tired the rest of the day, and as empty as a tin can in the desert, but I don’t dare try to eat anything. I try to sit up and read in the afternoon but I need my sweater on. Perhaps I have a bit of a fever.

Neither Mike or Nick have shown much concern, except to get out of my way – not that I was going anywhere. Mike disappears all morning and only brings me some juice and yogurt on my request. Nicks disappears on a ‘brief’ hitch-hiking trip to Lagoa to do some banking. He returns four hours later full of horror stories about his ordeal, but like Mike, he doesn’t ask how I am faring. I got out of bed for a brief time while the others were out, but I was back in bed by 10 pm. The only sight I have seen today is the toilet.