Our morning ride out of Ericeira was easy and pretty, wearing our freshly clean bike clothes. The beginning of the ride was right over the ocean, then cut into rural roads with small farms. Saw two German Shepherds and one guy singing while gardening in his underwear. As we got into Sintra, things got more complicated as they always do. Its a beautiful city with lots of monuments, so hello tourists. You know you’re approaching a touristy city when they start using english words in the restaurant and bar names, i.e. The Happy Grill” and “The Chill Out Zone”. Tensions got high as we started to navigate small winding roads in Sintra. The sidewalks were crowded with tourists and the streets were tour bus after tour bus. Neither a good option for us on bikes. For some reason, we had invested our trust in the GPS to get us to our hotel. Bad idea. She was all wrong as usual and sent us an extra 10 km on a wild cobblestoned goose chase. In the middle of all that, as I was finessing a precarious and bumpy street to sidewalk transition on my bike, I twisted my right bike shoe to disconnect it from the pedal, and well, this is hard to explain. My foot and my shoe came with me, but the sole of the shoe stayed locked into the pedal. Basically the shoe just peeled off its sole. So that was a problem. I rode on (awkwardly) until we had asked enough people directions to hit the mathematical probability of actually finding our hotel. Gabriel was highly frustrated by the time we got there, in part because of getting lost again, and in part because of my violent shoe tragedy. I was just very happy to not have gotten hit by one of the tour buses stacked up and driving 3 miles an hour, cos that’s would be an inelegant way to go.

After we showered, first order of business was finding a place to buy a new pair of bike shoes. The hotel called a taxi to take us to the outskirts where they have a sports mega-store called Decathlon. Sounded promising. So our perfect english speaking cab driver (learned it watching American movies he told us) drove us out and waited as we ran into Decathlon and found the bike section. Decathlon had everything, bike shoes included, just not for women. Men’s only. Huh, really? No comment. So then we thought, glue. We’ll repair the shoe with super strong glue. So our taxi driver zipped us over to another mega-store just down the freeway called Leroy Merlin. Its the Portuguese Home Depot. And it is exactly Home Depot except they’re all lime green instead of orange. So we ran in there (meter still running) and found the super duper glue. Then ran to the checkstand lines. Couldn’t tell which was gonna be shorter so we each got in one. Gabriel had the glue in hand, but my cashier got free first, so in a burst of adrenaline he throws me the glue. But I don’t know he’s going to do that, and I’m turning my body at the same time, so I get pegged in the face / shoulder with the glue in its big plastic packaging, to the concern of everyone around us. People who don’t understand that in America its normal for husbands to throw things at their wives’ face I guess. Anyway, got the glue, then got lunch restaurant recommendations from our cab driver who was very much growing on us, cos now we’re all feeling like we’re on a scavenger hunt together.

Ricardo (cab driver) takes us to his favorite restaurant, to be served by his friend and favorite waiter, Renan. Renan, upon our arrival, opens the cab door for us and ushers us in, basically orders for us. And we know we’re being (charmingly) hustled a little bit, be we submit cos why not. I had the grilled seabass and it was I think the best fish I’ve ever had so no complaints at all. After that, we walked over to the Quinta de Regaleira, which is one of the major sites here, a castle in the gothic style if not technically of the gothic era. The fun part is there are all these gardens and caves that lead up to towers. The caves are these long dark drippy passages that are rather arbitrarily lit. So some of them you literally step into absolute complete blackness and have to feel your way through. Its all wet and stony and uneven. I’m thinking, how can they not light this? Don’t people fall down and sue them? I don’t get it. Plus its super creepy. Gabriel pulled out his phone and turned the light on so we could make our way through one of them, and as we came upon a woman coming from the other direction the light hit her face and the look of terror she had trying to get through that passage made us almost pee in our pants laughing.

Back at the hotel, we glued the sole back onto the shoe and stuck it under the desk leg for pressure. The fumes were a little much so we had to leave the door and window open for a while. At least no one is sick or sunburned today. Tomorrow we’ll see if the glue actually holds my shoe together. It only has to make it through 2 more days of riding so I’m hopeful. Cross your fingers.