Saturday, February 7th – Late Night : Silves - Monchique

I got both the early start and the passage out of town right for a change, it was a rainy start, but that had moved on by ten o’ clock when I hit the hills. Monchique, Monchique, the name and rest ahead were seldom far from my mind all day.
It was more pretty hills and perfect pathways all morning, the only distraction being two scrambling motorbikes. They buzzed in and out of earshot on nearby hills like noisy gnats that needed a good swatting. It wasn’t long before either they moved on or I did, back to just me and the hills, the way I like it.
I was excited about the progress I had made, by two o’ clock in the afternoon I had already put in five hours of movement, without much of a break. I wasn’t entirely sure how far I had come, in that I hadn’t downloaded the relevant maps onto my phone, which meant my GPS was only useful for telling me which way I was going. This wasn’t helped when my laptop battery died, on which I had the only available copy of the day’s map.
I, however, was undaunted, I had gotten pretty good at locating and following the red and white signs, they had got me where I wanted to go before and I was in confident that I would be having dinner in Monchique before dark.
I moved out of the hills around three, the road sweeping into a longer vista. I foolishly sent a sliothar over a blind hill in my excitement and had only the faintest idea where it had landed. I spent a good half hour thrashing through some undergrowth trying to find it. I had only brought three sliothars, and had already lost in the darkness coming into Messines. My decision to give up on sliothar number two was hastened by the barking dog which appeared at the top of the ridge I was thrashing through. I had to climb my way up past him, I doubt it, but I really hope it was an as uncomfortable experience for him as it was for me. I moved on, feeling like I had just had my lunch money stolen, thinking I must not lose this last sliothar. Striking a tennis ball off the Fortaleze de San Vicente just won’t cut it.
I was only another couple of hundred meters down the road when I came to a river crossing. No problem I thought, at least there is a bridge. Well, there was most of a bridge. All but the part that leads you onto the bridge and the part that leads you off it. As it turned out, at it’s deepest point, the river was only up to my upper thigh, so I waded across, none too happy, but on the right side.
Wet up to my waist and with my shoes foaming out river bubbles, I proceeded a good kilometer in the wrong direction. I had taken instruction from a mature German couple who had watched me cross the river with great amusement. This thought me an important lesson, never take advice from people in matching his and hers jackets.
By the time I made it back to the “bridge” I was in quite a mood, I even said the unthinkable, said hurling is a stupid effin’ game. I cursed pretty much everything I could think of, the bridge, the river, my bag, the gps. The laptop got a pretty good going over too.
I hadn’t been aware that it was possible, but I then managed to get in a sulk with myself for the guts of an hour, first ignoring myself, then telling myself to shut up anytime I thought something.
I stole an orange from a tree in someone’s garden which seemed to make things a bit better, but it wasn’t long before I was spitting the pips out contemptuously, cursing them individually.
I had been sure when I’d passed the river, that Monchique could not be far, but the empty hills ahead told a different story. It was six o’clock and the dark was not far off, I was still on track, so at this stage something more primal took over. One thing I hadn’t previously known about Monchique was that it was the highest town in the Algarve. So the body took over, it switched off the mind and brought me steadily up the most arduous of hills. I climbed in this numbness until darkness fell, sure that, after eleven hours walking at a good clip, it must be around every next corner. It never came, so by half seven, thankful of the moonlight and a clear sky, having now lost the chance of spotting any red and white signs, I considered myself lost.
I later found that the route does not in fact go through Monchique, so I had for the last while been eating into the next day’s journey. This did not help.
I hadn’t heard or seen a person or car (I was lucky at this stage to be walking along a road) in over an hour, but was greatly pleased to see a vehicle coming towards me. I flagged him down, he pulled over and I asked if I was going in the right direction for Monchique (He didn’t have any English, so I asked by repeating “Monchique, Monchique”). He told me to go back the way I had come, and I was pretty sure he said it was 6 kilometers in that direction and that I just had to stay on this same road.
Although it wasn’t the best situation I’ve been in, it would be a little bit like being up the Wicklow mountains and being told to walk two hours in the dark in the hope of reaching Roundwood, not the end of the world. So I pointed myself in the right direction, set off, figuring each stride was about a meter and started counting down from six thousand.
Tiredness played it’s part, but I got a little boost of adrenaline every time a nearby dog barked out in the darkness. For some reason my mind was playing tricks on me, I was half imagining seeing dogs in the roadside foliage, but strangely it would imagine up small terrier like dogs. I would have thought that if I was trying to freak myself out, large dogs would have made a lot more sense.
By the time my countdown was finished, the lights of Monchique were in my sights, at I hit the outskirts, a large proportion of the canine community seemed to be there to welcome me. I had decided at this stage that I actually wanted a dog to bite me, just to get it over with, so I could move on with the rest of my life. I was even going to present the winning dog with a prize of both a hurley and sliother. I didn’t care much about anything at this stage except a bed.
It was nine o clock when I arrived, Saturday night and all the young and pretty things were making their way around town. I headed for the centre, asked in a bar about a room and got one.
I can tell you, when I hit that bed, after thirteen hours of walking, there was no showering, no washing of teeth, no eating, no taking off of clothes, nothing. There was a falling, a curling, a covering and a great sleeping.

Friday, February 6th – Words/Pictures : Messines – Silves

I had the early start I promised myself, awakening in Ti Raquels, a place that would not have to splash out an awful lot on furnishings if it ever wanted to convert itself into a roadside knocking shop. But warmth and food is all I was looking for and both were in good supply.
The early start did not do me much good; I spent two hours trying to make my way through Messiness, with a 30km trek ahead, it wasn’t what I needed.
Once out on the road, it broke into the mountains, round a mud brown lake. I decided to solo run the first 5k at a light jog to try and make up lost time. Almost all of it was on a ten meter wide path, which was unnaturally formed above a fifty meter drop into the lake. I thought it looked like a miniature grand canyon, filled with mud, but I’ve never been to the grand canyon, so I wouldn’t take my word for it.
Once past the lakes, I crossed a large dam, which brought me back up into the mountains. After a lot of steep climbs, I was once again overlooking a sea of mountains. The clouds above and the resultant intermittent rain drew rainbows over different hills, each hill taking its turns to colour itself into full illumination.
I was eager to move on and skipped through many ups and downs, with good tracks and not a soul in sight, the next few hours were tiring, but as much fun as I have had. As I came down into the valleys, I knew I was asking more of my body than it would gladly give, but that being part of the exercise, I will not complain.
In the foothills, late in the day, as the darkness approached (once again, not the band), I could do nothing but increase the pace, as I didn’t want a repeat of the previous day's unlit finish. When the sun did disappear, I could see the well lit castle of Silves on the hill ahead of me.
This was fine day, beautiful images that I will always have with me. Some people have asked for photos and I have taken some along the way. But I have done my best to describe how feels, rather than how it looks.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. The truth in that is pictures draw a sketch which we colour in with a thousand of our own words, with what we already know. There will come a time when we are all gone, and everyone that ever knew us is gone. At that point, one single page of our own words will describe us more than every photograph we take and every photograph that was ever taken of us. Good to get some words down.