When we last spoke, I was camping in the middle of nowhere, too tired after loads of sandy bits and rough terrain. I moved on and first this happened:There’s video of this, but it’s /r/killthecameraman material, and my internet is too bad to upload it at the moment, tooAfter that, I entered Alentejo, a Portuguese region with a reputation full of contradictions. It is known for scorching hot weather, fiery wines, and lovely food featuring bread, pork and coriander, but somehow the people who produce all this are lazy. It is also known for being flat, yet every other person owns a hill there.This brings us to Mora, the quaint little town where I had breakfast on Sunday.While inside that little café, I got to watch a live transmission from the outside. This Angelus TV channel was broadcasting the local mass, so I can now officially say this tour was on TV! 😎By this time, though, it became painfully\n obvious that I wasn’t going to catch up to my friends. Joana and José: I’m truly sorry not to be there after you set this time apart to ride with me.Fortunately, they tell me they had fun anyway and we left things on a positive note.A while later, I found a little gem.This is Parque Ecológico do Gameiro. A lovely little place with a river beach, a café, adventure park, campsite, walking trails and, importantly for this trip, Wi-Fi. It’s where I published the last post. It definitely looked like it was worth a weekend trip, someday. Right next to it, there is a river fish exhibit, Fluviário de Mora. It has a restaurant that, bewilderingly, does not serve any river fish. I’m not complaining too hard, though.

I had decided to stay at the campsite at Avis. This made the day’s ride relatively short, at little more than 50km, and that was a good thing, since the saddle sores had started to become nasty. This is also where I’ve decided to stay an extra day at Avis, to get my bum to toughen up. 😛After capturing a few scenes from the countryside, it was already nighttime when I’ve finally arrived at the campsite.Ah, campsites! Possibly the worst value for money out of any business! Who else gets you to pay to have to do everything yourself and bring your own toilet paper?This one in particular is weird, though. There’s lights everywhere! Despite setting up the tent in the darkest place I could find, I could still see somewhat well inside the tent without a light.The bright side (no pun intended) is that you get to wake up to this:This is also where I’ve explored a bit and the weirdness intensified. There’s not a single table anywhere on the campsite. There’s a municipal pool right behind a fence, but you need to go all the way around it and exit the campsite to go in, and lastly, they have this:Yet they put it behind this:Sigh. I don’t get it.Campsite explored, it was time to head to town.Avis has loads of history, having been the birthplace of the Order of Saint Benedict of Avis, in the 12th century, a military order founded to defend Évora from Moorish invasions. By the late 14th century, the master of this order would become king João I, his dynasty lasting for almost 200 years.It came as a surprise, then, that there was actually not a lot to do, here. While every public space is really well taken care of, you can see a small church,see a big church,visit a museum in the old convent, which unfortunately closes on Mondays,climb a tower,and eat a great meal for cheap at the one local restaurant which is set inside the castle wall.There was river fish at this one (shad), but the last of it went to the customer before me, so rabbit it was.After stocking up on groceries, it was time to head back to the campsite. I found a few friends along the way.That was a long one. Thanks for bearing with me, and I hope you’ll still be here next time. Peace.This morning packing things up again took quite a while so I reckon I won’t go very far, today.