Day 11 – EU – Portugal/Spain [Altura PT to Cartaya SP]

16/12/19

37.4km

  From Altura (Portugal) to Cartaya (Spain)

Europe

Crossing into Spain! On a wet wet wet day… 🙂

The wind was so strong last night, it woke me up a few times. I thought the air-con unit had broken down or something, the racket it made was quite deafening! On a side note: most houses in Portugal (and probably Spain too, I will check this) are not equipped with central heating. There are no radiators or any other means of heating the home… except the odd air-con unit. So I am guessing most folks are quite cold inside their homes, at winter time, unless they have a fireplace.

Anyway, as I left the beach resort in the morning, it was grey and cloudy, very windy, but overall okay. After about 11km, I reached the ferry port in Vila Real de Santo Antonio (VRS Antonio). I just got into the port office to buy my ticket, and all hell broke loose! The sky opened and what it let out was torrential, it reminded me of the monsoon rains we get in Singapore at this time of year actually (except in Singapore it will still be around 30 degrees celsius… and here in Portugal it dipped below 10 celsius!).

With all these, the river became impracticable for a while, and we ended up waiting there, in the cold. I was sweaty from my 11km run, so I really really got super cold. I put my rain attire on, waterproof trousers and jacket, and it provided me a warm-ish isolation for a while.

Once on the other side of the Guadiana river, the torrential downpour was still on, and I decided to run through. The truth is I was cold, and if I’d elected to take shelter in a cafe, I would have ended up getting colder from the sweaty wet clothes I was wearing. So being on the move and getting warmer by running sounded wiser. And it worked!

A few kilometers into Spain, the rain eventually stopped. Then it was on and off till I reached my final destination in Cartaya.

I wish I had some more photos to share, but my phone was in a ziplock bag, neatly kept dry in the upper compartment of BoB. This is the view from the little cafe where I’m having lunch… the sky has a lot to say today!

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: