We woke in the stupid Penguin shed. As I instinctively tidied up, ready for departure, picking up the towels off the floor, Jolien said ‘No!! – leave them. That is revenge to the evil Penguin for giving us a shed to sleep in!’ Oooooh, that girl is harsh! The Penguin should be shaking in his boots! We walked through the town of Sao Luis(distinctly average

though to be fair nowhere looks great in the rain, which had already started to fall) to the lovely, gruff Gabriela’s for coffee.

The forecast was rain all day, and sure enough it had begun. This time, we were ready. Some duct tape was holding Jolien’s raincoat together well and we headed off in to the muddy countryside, laughing in the rain. Through a valley, then up we climbed, through Eucalyptus forests. The rain grew increasingly heavy and the wind whipped the trees around us making us have to shout to be heard, but pushing us forward up the hills. It was extreme. We were in storm!

We forged ahead, high speed with the help of the hurricane, reaching the highest point in the white mist and then gradually made our way down to lower ground. The rain was now torrential, even my snow boots were soaked inside, the water having run off my waterproof trousers and trickled through the lace holes. Jolien’s trainers were of course drenched too. We could hear the sound of goat’s in the bushes all around, their tinkling bells ringing out. Suddenly they all appeared on the path behind us. Did they think we were shepards? We were both unnerved, whilst they were not exactly charging, they were picking up pace. Jolien took a video but it’s brief – that is because we were genuinely a bit scared.

A car, (the only one that day!) appeared and dispersed the flock and we continued, wet. Lunch was cake and bread with cheese, not our usual high end feast, but quick to eat in the drizzle.

Even in the rain, it had been a fantastic walk. The temperature was not too cold to chill our spirits and the scenery was fabulous, winding paths through forest and hills with not a person in site, only goats, cows and the odd pig…

On every walk we have seen trees with half their bark missing and numbers painted on the trunks and we had come up with various theories for this, but today we worked it out, and google confirms we are correct. They are cork trees and the bare trunks are from the harvest, the numbers indicating the year of the harvest. Apparently Portugal produces more than half of the world’s cork! 

Cercal do Alentejo came in to site and we found a bar, peeling off our wet layers and pulling off our wet boots, we ordered two big bottles of Super Bock and celebrated our arrival! 

We had booked a night at the Solar do Alentejo hostel on Booking.com for 30 euros. The hostel was lovely, clean and modern and we were delighted to be given a twin room that looked more hotel than hostel. Hot showers warmed us up and we made a delicious dinner of bean corn chilli with pasta rice before an early night in our cute little room, tired and content from the day’s hike.