March 7 - all quiet except the sea

No airplanes ever. No road noise. No annoying music in restaurants and cafes. No boom boxes. No young men vrooom vrooming their engines. We can't remember any trip that is so consistently quiet. The sea provides a steady state background noise.

Camped at route mile 175. Just seven miles from the southwest tip of Europe. Tomorrow we round the bend and start walking east. We moved 25 route miles today because we were able to wade an easy small knee deep stream at low tide, instead of walking all the way around the estuary via a road bridge.

Perfect weather. -25 hikers today.

Great stop mid-morning at a little town. The Clube Cultural e Recreativo Os Amigos da Carrapateira was hopping on a Saturday morning. A perfect village third space. Unpretentious, no decor, cheap prices, Formica tables. The old guys drinking bear at 9:30. The really old couple with coffee and toast with olive oil. 3 calm ever-hopeful dogs ambling table to table. The 20-something gender-ambiguous couple with good tattoos. Fifteen Lycra-clad 50-60-something cycling dudes with their 5k Euro bikes stopping in for espressos. A young woman with her toddler. The tattoo-covered 40-something surfer dude with the long ratted hair who came in and made the rounds saying hello and shaking hands with all the really old guys. And us, eating cheese and tomato toastas with coffee lattes. Everyone fit in.

We are happy and healthy but still suffering all the normal aches of aging bodies.