Just after leaving Lisbon I noticed I had almost run out of gas so I pulled over at the next gas station. Upon opening my wallet I realized that I had almost run out of cash also and I knew my prepaid credit card which I got just for the trip wasn’t topped up either. The annoying procedure that in Portugal you have to pay at the gas station before getting gas finally came in handy as I had the chance to decided to only fill up my tank enough to get me out of the city.
I used my remaining cash to pay for some food for the next day at a supermarket and wasn’t really sure how to continue from there. But I now had enough fuel and supplies to push the problem away from me for at least another day.
So I kept going North enjoying the beautifully multicolored sky that promised rain ahead of me.
To add to this unfortunate situation while driving on the highway an insect flew into my helmet and got wedged between my head and the helmet. I was driving with the visor up but was still wearing my sun glasses to protect myself from situations like these. As soon as I noticed the bug shooting into my helmet I ripped off my brand new glasses (5 Euros) smashing them in the process trying to use a temple as a hook to fish out the bug. I must have gotten it out but it hurt and I wasn’t sure if it was from the insect stinging me or simply the fact that a bug hit my head at 70km/h.
When I stopped though I couldn’t see any sting or bite mark so I continued, visor down – naturally…
Along the way I kept my eye out for places that might offer WiFi. But this was not the most populated area and most buildings were residential ones. I knew I could top up my prepaid card online but didn’t really know how and didn’t want to use expensive roaming on my phone to google how. Unfortunately the charging process can only be done in 100 Pound increments. I hadn’t gone through that process in case the card wasn’t going to work in Euro-Land and I didn’t want to get 100 Pounds stuck on the card.
However after checking another restaurant for WiFi I remembered that I had installed an app from my prepaid credit card company on my phone before leaving London.
Never having opened it before I was relieved to find out that it was also for topping up the card. All I needed now as a few bytes of roaming on my phone and a minute later my day was saved and everything was looking up again. Even the clouds were moving away.
It was also getting late and I started looking for a spot to set up camp. I had changed my GPS target to the only larger green patch on the map within reach.
Along the way ever so often I met fellow adventure rider. Many of them on BMW R1200GS’s. The mother of all adventure motorcycles like mine.
Upon getting closer to the green patch on my map I realized why it was standing out. It was a little mountain chain. Respectively the weather changed quite a bit. Luckily I had taken out my warm clothing and sleeping bag insulation just before leaving London to save a little more weight… Mentally I was preparing for a cold night.
I hadn’t found a single promising spot on my approach so far so I decided all or nothing and kept going. The temperature had fallen below 15 degrees.
I figured nobody would live directly below the face of the mountains so I tried to find a path to get as close to the foot of the mountain as I could.
Setting up the tent didn’t take very long.
Dinner consisted of bread, cheese, ham and half a kilo of strawberries.
