. . . since it feels good here, I took another day, to wander, write, rest . . .
. . . and use the hostel desk top to clear some of the emails and unsubscribe from others, since they eat my data allowance and I am not reading them anyway . . .
. . . and sitting at the computer, spot Chris, walking down the hill, arrange to meet him for coffee later . . . with his wife of forty years, Jenny . . . lovely couple, renting a house in the centre of town from a local woman . . . trying to learn the language and finding the locals hospitable . . . the expats from the nearby "urbanisation", they say, don't integrate . . . at the charity shop later I meet two English women from the urbanisation, who say the Portuguese are rather stand-offish . . . you get back what you give out . . .
After lunch at the hostel, I go for a stroll to the beach, along the wrong side of the river . . . wondering whether it may be crossed at the sea . . . Mark and Brita come past on bikes . . . Mark says he was told it's possible, the water is just below the knees . . . arriving at a likely spot, where the river outflow hits the waves coming in, assess available info . . . and my children's request not to drown myself . . . Chris and Jenny told me of several cases of huge waves sweeping even local fishermen out to their deaths . . . the waves are quite big today . . . opposite a likely spot, some steps carved into the rock . . . removing shoes, socks and trousers I give it a go, only five metres or so of fast flow . . . over the knees, but below the boxers, mostly . . .and up the other side . . . elated . . . feel the fear and do it anyway . . . maybe it wasn't so dangerous, just overthought . . .
. . . back along the other side, through the aforementioned urbanisation, soulless . . . and eventually to town . . . nearly 15 km on a rest day . . .
At the hostel it gets convivial . . . Mark and I cook, Brita joins us . . . then Nastasia, French student of European Studies in Holland . . . walking the Vicentina Way, camping wild . . . Vince from Scotland, wandering . . .
. . . late to bed, unblogged, wondering about a real rest day tomorrow . . . which is now today . . .
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