This morning I’m lying in bed all peaceful in the Grey Gardens place when I hear Gabriel say from the other room “We got a problem.” Apparently the back brakes on my bike had gone kaput. So we scrambled to find a bike shop. Our hostess was somewhat helpful, although I’d like to submit here that Portuguese sounds nothing like Spanish. I mean, when you read signs you can see that quite a few words are the same or similar. But for me when its spoken, I’m out. I get nothing. Gabriel gets more of it, but not really. Often its just best to go with English cos the young ones especially speak pretty well. It wasn’t a good day to not have brakes because we had a 75 km ride ahead of us. But we found the bike shop, replaced my brakes, got on our way, then got in a big ole argument about a bridge. I mean yelling argument. We were in a big intersection in Viana. There was a bridge. We had to cross that bridge. But first we had to figure out how to get on that bridge. Lots of one-ways and overpasses and a railroad track all there. And all kinds of traffic swirling around us. Gabriel: “Follow me, I’m gonna ask someone.” He asks someone who points us down to the water but in the meantime I’m like. “Its right there. I can see the entrance right there. We have to get to the other side of this giant median.” Gabriel, taking off on his bike: “No no! The guy said! We have to go down here!” Me following him: “But I can see the entrance, look! Its over there!” Gabriel: “But the guy said!” Me: “I don’t care what the guy said in a language we don’t speak! The entrance is RIGHT THERE!” And finally Gabriel looks and sees what I’m pointing at. So I lead us on and over the bridge and I was riding all hard in my angry victory–being right for once–and I rode so hard that eventually I had to pull over and wait for him and as he caught up and passed me I cackled in his face. (He laughed too). You just can’t stay mad. There’s no extra energy for that.

Porto

We rode about 75 flat kilometers through mostly countryside and farms. Passed lots of fruit stands – spilling over with cherries and potatoes particularly. Sometimes you’ll just see a sack of potatoes sitting on the side of the road. I guess they have extra. Lots of fields of corn and sunflowers.The riding weather was perfect. Warm sun, cool breeze. Saw my daily German Shepard. Also passed 3 ecstatic puppies trying to wriggle out of their enclosure. My totems. They had found a loose spot and they were eventually going to break through, free to roam their yard, but also in possible danger of getting into the street. That was how I interpreted the situation in just the few seconds I had riding by. I stopped my bike to consider whether I should intervene somehow, but I knew if I got anywhere near those puppies, they would wriggle harder to get out and that might not be safe for them. So I rode on, thinking about how every being has a deep inner unstoppable urge for freedom.

We stopped for lunch around 2pm because we knew if we didn’t, we’d get into Porto and be starving at the wrong time. So we had fish at little roadside restaurant, then continued on. Another hour, and then something happened. As we neared Porto, without warning, our lovely road merged into a freeway. I mean, for real we were literally riding on the shoulder of a freeway. Oh…this is not OK, I thought. We gotta get off this. We did. We found the fucking exit ramp, but you know, none too soon. So then we’re on this feeder road, trying to figure out what to do because the feeder road is just kind of a dead end thing that ends in some cobblestone and weeds. I’m thinking: its Call Taxi Time cos we are screwed. Suddenly, 2 Spirit Guides arrived in the form of 2 teenage boys. They were maybe 15, one kinda buff like a wrestler, the other gangly with braces. They were taking a shortcut to their bus stop and would show us how to cut across the freeway and get to the side streets that would take us into Porto. But not before I went ahead and fell off my bike in front of them. All I can say for myself is I was still stressed out about being on that freeway. So if you can picture the hillsides of unkempt grass that lead up to freeway overpasses, that is what the 4 of us were traversing. Pushing the bikes, and then heaving them over guardrails. That alone is a two-man job. They were lifting and carrying and leading us. Then back down a steep hillside and over another guardrail. They were so sweet. I don’t know what we would have done without them. They got us safely across the freeway and then ran to catch their bus, which I saw them just miss by seconds because they had taken the time to help us.

We got into Porto and now not wasting any time to get to our hotel cos I’m ready for this day to be done. But we’ve got to find our way to the city center. Fortunately in these Catholic countries usually all you have to do is look up for the Cathedral and starting pedaling toward it. We easily found the Grand Hotel. Which is very Grand Hotel Budapest in a way if you want to picture it. The Dalai Lama stayed here! (They love to remind us). And Porto is a beautiful city. I mean the architecture is stunning and colorful. You walk down all these tiny stairs that weave down to the riverfront which is all restaurants and vendors and people swimming. We walked down there for dinner and I did have a moment of: I don’t think I can walk back up these stairs. But you don’t have to cos there’s another way. (There’s always another way!) We met a couple of American women in our hotel that told us that its all about the jewelry shops here.”I know you probably can’t carry souvenirs on your bikes, but you can carry jewelry.” Right you are, sister. We have a rest day here. A day off. I think its just in time. My legs feel like jello and I gotta do some online bill paying.

Arrival time in Porto: 4:30pm ish.