Fisherman's Trail - Day 4 - A Long Walk and Camping in the Dunes

Walking in the morning after the last two days were spent recovering in bed from the stomach flu I had caught felt wonderful. I woke up early because I knew that I wanted to walk a long way today. The sun just rose above the dunes and cliffs of the way and tinted everything in a mesmerizing golden glow.

The local harbor in Porto Covo is sheltered from the Atlantic, situated beautifully in a little lagoon, going into the land, it almost looked like a river opening. But there was only a small rivulet stream running over some pebbles.

I have to walk all the way to the horizon and then further.

Looking back, how far I've come already.

My jaw dropped when I saw the reason why this trail, the Rota Vicentina, is also often referred to as the Fisherman's Trail. From afar, I could already see them perched high atop the waves, fishing rods dangling in their old hands. Thirty, forty meters, right at the edge of the cliff, looking down, trying to catch something in the wash below. A fall would be almost certainly lethal, seeing the waves coming in, crushing and eroding the rocks, with a violence that sprayed water all the way up to the cliffs. And yet here they were, fishermen, with old wrinkled hands and faces, standing there as if they have always done this since the beginning of time as if there is nothing much else to do in life. Some were even sitting on their own little spots, along narrow ledges, on sharp and spiky stones.

The Portuguese coast is among the most beautiful high-cliff coasts I have seen in my life. The way that the dunes and sand sit atop gargantuan rocks and that you can walk the entire coast along these ancient paths, crisscrossing in the sand, blows my mind somehow. Every once in a while, I needed to stop and admire the Atlantic Ocean washing in. It's a sight to behold the power of water in action, the ocean eating away, slowly, at the land.

But every once in a while, there would be a beach where one could go down, a beach where I could rest my tired feet in the salty water and go for a quick and refreshing swim. Around this time of the year (September), the Atlantic is already quite cold, and the waves are high enough to make swimming further out somewhat dangerous. But a quick dip, naked, to dry faster and then continue walking, had to be.

I looked back and knew, damn, I can't get my water bottle back from the hostel.

The plants along the path were beautiful, too. Because the whole area is a giant national park, the biodiversity was still largely intact. Seeing different species of plants blooming and blossoming and birds nesting along the cliffs.

I found a beautiful place in the dunes at night to set up my camp. It was sheltered from the view from the street, and yet I could see the sunset from my little tent. And what a sunset it was, magical colors, beautiful clouds, the sky ablaze with the sun's fading rays. Sitting there in the sand, eating a bunch of sardines from a can with a piece of bread, I had to smile because moments like these are what make life worth living. Somehow, I wish I could have shared this moment with somebody else right then and there, but traveling and hiking solo has its own merits.

Later at night, I woke up, and a look outside my tent revealed the beautiful night sky. I could see the Milky Way right outside my tent, and photographed it with my phone. The night in the dunes is cold and slightly damp, and I was walking around barefoot in the sand, freezing my toes off, but I needed my shoes as an improvised tripod so that my phone could take 5-minute long exposures in Astro mode. The result was worth it, though, and I love how a simple phone like a Google Pixel 6 these days can take incredible pictures like this. It's nuts.