Mar de Prata

Ruth: The good: We are staying in the lovely seaside town of Maia in a tiny little house called Mar de Prata (“Sea of Silver”). The house is perched over a little sand beach with views of the headlands to the east. It is just perfect! Sãozinha, our host, has filled our kitchen with food: fruit, wine, breads, cheese, meat, eggs, homemade fig jam and the list goes on. She insisted that if we needed anything just to call and she would bring it. 
In addition to the beach, the town also has natural rock swimming pools. For the first time in weeks we were able to end our day with some snorkelling. It turns out that the waters around Maia also have beautiful fish. 
We are well fed, rested and uninjured. 
The bad: Today’s ride was much harder than it should have been. Cyclists are not allowed on the new fast motorway heading east. We don’t like big roads anyway, so we choose a small road that looked like it meandered up and down and around the larger motorway on the map. Maps are unfortunately only a two-dimensional representation and the third dimension almost killed me. The pavement ended right before the road started to head up into the hills on a rough track. It was only 2 kms but it was a slow hard push with a bike and trailer. When we rejoined the road again and could ride on it for a stretch we were only about 200 meters away from where we had to take the track. Grrrrr! 
The ugly: Just after turning off the motorway Gord asked me if the minor road was paved. I stopped my bike to look and Gord, who was looking down as he changed gears, crashed into me. His bike and trailer stopped, hung up on mine and he went over me head over heels. 
The good: Gord learned judo as a teenager and this is the second crash he has rolled out of without injury. His bike and trailer also seem fine.

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