Goodbye Portugal, hello Spain. 

 Our day started with an early walk to the port to hire a “taxi” to cross the river from Portugal to Spain. We found out that we could not cross by small boat until we were a party of three, so we waited. A short time later we were embarking on our “8 minute boat ride” across the river with a young 22 year old girl from Como, Italy. She had beautiful long voluminous hair like mine and physique like Madeline. She was traveling alone. I sized her up and waited to hear her name… longing to hear Maddy, Madeline, Magdalena… but it was Fabiola. 

 Our ride was fun and exciting but Portuguese certainly do not know what 8 minutes is – the ride was more like 5 minutes. We frowned and begged for more but no such luck. As Fabiola disembarked she called her mom to check in. I smiled and thought that is what it would have been like. Lisa and I set out on the boardwalk. We had decided we would walk until we had enough. Lisa’s foot was swollen and I was dealing with blisters and shin splints. 

 We were greeted in Spain with different terraine and no more cobblestones!!! If I was not so sore I would have danced a jig…NOT. We walked until Oia and then took our first taxi ride. It was great getting out of the sun and watching the blue dot speed on the map because moments sooner we were averaging only 1.5 miles per hour. Basically, what wasn’t sore was burnt.

 As many know, I do not like the heat, I do not like to sweat and I do not like being in the sun. In addition, I am sunscreen challenged. My application skills are severely lacking. I was so busy “trying” to apply sunscreen that I forgot the tops of my hands which are now bright red and the back of my legs look like a science experiment gone wrong.

We settled into our hotel and begun our washing regime. The European no-screen windows were perfect for hanging our freshly hand washed clothes to dry. Lisa found great humor in taking pictures of our gypsy lifestyle. We enjoyed some tapas and talked about our days ahead.