Rio Sizandro

Odometer: 161553

Today we continued towards Lisbon. After three nights in Peniche, the toilet cassette was full, and we had truly seen everything we had set out to see.

On the country roads, it was so windy that we drove even slower in some places than usual. Gary, with his height of 2.8 meters, was indeed susceptible to gusty crosswinds, so we crawled along the narrow, winding roads.

We briefly stopped at a large supermarket with a cheap fuel station and filled Gary with 'Diesel aditivo', or Diesel PLUS. We had tried this last time and at least felt that he had a bit more power than with regular diesel. At this gas station, we still managed to be ten cents below the regular price.

After about an hour, we reached our parking spot, which was again right behind the dune by the sea. Here, the Rio Sizandro flowed into the Atlantic, though it didn't actually make contact with it. The river's water simply seeped into the dune on the land side and disappeared.

Our beach walk became a sandblasting experience with the current wind, as gusts came that propelled the fine grains through the air with such force that it was painful. Our sunglasses served as protective goggles of a completely different kind for us now.

At 7:30 PM, a white box van came honking loudly and steadily down the street, first stopping at the central intersection of the town and then directly at our parking spot. The bread and roll service had a limited selection left for the evening, but there were still a white loaf and a sponge roll for us.

We could only experience the sunset over the sea indirectly today; although the sky was brightened in the most vivid colors again and the clouds presented impressive shapes, we did not see the sun itself anymore.