More Cork

We're not in Portugal anymore but that doesn't mean we can't talk about cork. As you know, we were fascinated by the cork forests as we rode through the southwestern part of the Iberian Peninsula. After a few blog posts about our observations, we recieved a comment from a company called Wicanders Flooring. They are in the business of cork and were interested in acquiring any photos we had from our travels through the Montado forests. Wicanders has their own blog with a very good purpose:

"The Wicanders blog is about using cork oak to help benefit the world’s health, wellbeing, and socioeconomic development. As the industry leader in cork oak flooring, we are proud to actively participate in the exchange of ideas about health and sustainability, promote green building practices, and preserve the Montado cork oak forests."

We sent some shots their way and were excited to see that they've been posted on the Wicanders blog. You can view the post here. Scroll down below the "Wineopoly" graphic to see our photos.

LK

Presence

Day: 415
Cercal to Grândola
Time: 3:59:00
Distance: 54.7
Avg Speed: 14.7
Terrain: Hills
Location: N 38˚ 10’ 31.8”, 08˚ 34’ 4.1” W

Man, I’m getting tired. I don’t know if it’s the fact that we are on day 415 and 9,500+ kilometers into the trip or if my body just knows the end is near. Fatigue has been setting in around lunchtime and we usually have a couple of more hours to go before the day is done. Perhaps it has something to do with the weeklong break we took recently. Chris equated it to running a car for three months, turning it off, and now it doesn’t want to start again. With one or two more days to go, I think we can muster up the last little bit of energy. I just keep telling myself to be present and enjoy the last bit of pedaling. Soon enough we’ll be home facing the winter months and no regular rides to depend on.
We had another peaceful ride through the undulating cork groves today. I enjoyed examining all of the twisted branches of the trees with no leaves. I’ve become quite fascinated with these oaks. I also tried to soak up the atmosphere; blue skies, rural landscape, and smiling locals. Most people will give a wave if you give them a nod. I’ve had such a good feeling from most rural people across Europe, but the Portuguese are special. I don’t know what it is exactly, but they just have this quiet confidence about them.
And so we come to the eve of the last day riding. I’m sure it won’t be the last time we prepare for the last day of a big ride. I’d like to think that we have many more adventures with bicycles ahead of us. It will probably be a day of reflection and I’m sure we’ll share our thoughts here. You’ll probably get tired of us philosophizing in the next week or so. I’m finding that it’s hard not to think about what we’ve done, where we’ve been, and how life has changed. My mom shared a quote with me yesterday in an email. Apparently it was something that I wrote down when I was in college. Ironically it’s something that puts our trip into perspective.

"Presence: Success is a matter of desire, failure is a matter of excuses. Strength is building a road of dreams into the future, but still following it when weakness arises. And nothing happens unless the mind has presence."

Until tomorrow,
LK

Day 412: Sagres to Odeceixe

Time: 4:00
Distance: 62.46 km
Avg Speed: 15.6 kph
Terrain: Hilly
Location: N 37˚ 25’ 56.9” E 08˚ 46’ 11.1”

Our stay at the pousada last night was kind of a random splurge on our giant ocean of nights on the road. The room was nice and tidy, the dinner was worthy of writing home about and this mornings breakfast was a sight for hungry eyes. We both were happy to have voluntarily wanted to stay there and were quite cheery as we got on the road this morning. Leslie started the day off by posing a question (she has become more and more philosophical the closer we get to going home). She asked ‘where do you wish we had gone that had planned to go and didn’t end up going and where do you wish we had gone and didn’t plan on going’. She didn’t want my answer right then, she wanted me to think about it. The first part of the question is easy; Vietnam. I think it has to do with being so close to its border and deciding to head home with a broken wheel in tow. Leaving Vietnam untouched worked out and we were able to have a nice summer in Colorado. The second part of the question was a little tougher and I don’t think I have come up with a definitive answer. Right now I am wavering on South America and the far north of Europe. At least I have it narrowed down to a planet.
With fodder to chew on we rode out of Sagres and north to Odeceixe. The landscape changed from the dessert-scape of the southern coast to eucalyptus forest with agriculture and cork tree groves sprinkled here and there. I finally did some reading about the cork industry here and found out that a cork oak has about a 150 year life span of harvesting. The first harvest of a tree’s bark usually doesn’t occur until the tree is about 20 years old, but after that it is harvested every 9 years or so. The cork taken off of older, more harvested trees is of higher quality and gets better money. The plastic cork revolution has taken its toll on the cork industry in Portugal, but the industry is looking into making cork a fashionable wine stopper once again. Feel free to wow your friends around the water cooler.
Leslie set a new all time record for photos shot on a riding day. Her rest day record is set high at around 150 photos, but today she was able to squeeze in 81 shots even with riding for 4 hours. Nice to see that she hasn’t slowed down.
We were warned that Odeceixe is a pretty sleepy little town in the off season. I think that sleepy is an understatement. The first two guesthouses we went into were wide open, but totally unmanned. Usually there is a sign saying help yourself and catch up with me later, but here there was nothing. Finally we were about to just sit at a café and wait awhile, but when I looked back up the street I saw a little lady waiving to me. I quickly walked up to her and she got us in to her place. I guess a little old man on his walk saw us step into her place and then saw us head down to the café. Not wanting his friend to miss out on business he went and found her and got us all straight. Sometimes it is nice to stand out like sore thumbs.
Standing bigger and better,
CK

Dois not Douche

Day: 398
Rosal de la Frontera, Spain to Beja, Portugal
Time: 3:59
Distance: 65.3 km
Avg Speed: 16.3 kph
Terrain: Rolling
Location: N 38˚ 00’ 46.1”, E 07˚ 51’ 45.8”

Spain pretty much shuts down on Sundays and when we rolled into Rosal de la Frontera yesterday, we knew that we would have to track down brekkie in the morning. The new time change helped us get out of bed earlier so we had a head start on the day. After packing up and checking out of the hostal we headed down to the little local bar for some tostada and café con leche. We sat down with the locals and enjoyed our toast and coffee and remarked on how we were seemingly the only non-locals in town. You could have cued the other cycle tourists right then. Two French guys rolled up for some refreshments and we made some small chit chat in our newest language Frepanglish (French, Spanish, and English). They had two days to travel 230 km and were anxious to get on the road. We let them get on there way and decided that we needed another cup of coffee before getting ourselves on the road. After a little more fuel we headed to the store for some road provisions. I figured out where all the little old men and little old ladies hang out in town like that. The men were all in the bar/café to gossip and the ladies were all in the store gossiping waiting for the fresh bread delivery. The store crew was nice and let me cut in front of the line so I could get on my way. They all just laughed when I answered them that I was 2 meters tall. Some things never change. On the road we had a quick 3 km to the Portuguese border, where we hit our 9th country in Europe and our 9th new language as well. Portuguese is a Latin based language, and shares a lot of words with Spanish. The pronunciation is completely different though. We were warned not to speak Spanish in Portugal, because the ‘Portuguese are not Spanish!’ I was a little nervous about slipping up and had done really well most of the day. I got caught up when I was trying to order a couple of beers this evening. Two in Portuguese is Dois (pronounced Doy-sh) and I asked for Douche beers instead. Leslie just started laughing at me as the waiter (who spoke English) quickly slipped away to grab our beers. All is well and we were able to get our bill with no further slip ups.
Here is your food for thought: 50% of the worlds wine corks come from Portugal.
Cheers
CK