Days 9 & 10
We left the campsite at 8:30, heading towards our final off-road track of the holiday.
Along the way, we noticed something rather strange in the woods. Bags were attached to the trees, collecting sap. They looked like blood donor bags, and once we’d spotted the first few, we began seeing them everywhere.
Bags and bags of tree blood.
It was an unexpected, almost macabre sight for a sunny morning in Portugal.
Then there were the village dogs. Each time we finished a track and travelled through tiny villages, the village dogs would know. Unlike the livestock guardian dogs we’d encountered in the mountains earlier in the trip, these village dogs weren’t particularly stealthy. In fact, they were quite upfront about their intentions.
Strangers? On my turf? I’ll show them!
And towards us they’d hurtle, barking and snapping.
We managed to avoid each encounter, thankfully. On a previous trip, Peter had been dogged, and his tyre still bears the tooth mark to prove it.
We continued along tracks and through villages so tight we found ourselves breathing in.
Then eventually we made our way towards our final hotel in the Douro Valley.
And what a place to finish!
The Douro Valley was breathtaking. Vineyards stretched across the hillsides in every direction, row upon row of carefully tended vines tracing the contours of the land. Everywhere you looked, there was evidence of the hard work that goes into producing wine, along with the tantalising thought of the finished product.
Naturally, we couldn’t leave Portugal without sampling some. After checking into our hotel, we took a taxi to a nearby wine-tasting experience. We were introduced to Teddy, the resident guard dog, who barely gave us a second glance. Apparently, we didn’t pose much of a threat. The two newer recruits, Bugs and Bunny, had rather different ideas. At six months old, these boxer-crosses were considerably more enthusiastic about our arrival. They had yet to acquire Teddy’s world-weary indifference and seemed delighted to have new people to investigate.
Our wine-tasting guide was fun, and what followed was considerably more generous than the few small glasses of wine I’d imagined we’d be sampling. Between the three of us, we worked our way through a full bottle of white, a bottle of rosé and a bottle of red.
And then they brought out the port.
I’ll spare you the details of precisely how much port was involved, but let’s just say that by the time we climbed into the taxi back to the hotel, I was rather drunk.
Dinner was out of the question.
In fact, the evening was over for me.
The following morning, we faced the long drive back to Santander.
It was a slightly hungover start, and the day was largely spent on the road, retracing our way towards the ferry terminal. By now, the holiday was beginning to feel as though it belonged to another time, even though we’d only just left the landscapes we’d spent the previous days exploring.
We arrived at the terminal in good time, only to discover that our ferry was delayed by two hours. There wasn’t much to do but settle in. We snacked in the car, chatted to the people around us and waited until we could finally board the ship.
After the previous evening, and ten days of travelling, we were more than ready for a quiet night. We found somewhere comfortable to sit and let the journey home begin, talking over everything we’d seen and done.
When we’d set out, other than a vague idea of Spain and Portugal, I hadn’t known where we were going. Peter had the map, and we simply followed. There had been something liberating about that. About letting someone else choose the road and discovering what waited around each bend, rather than knowing what came next.
Now, as we sailed towards home, the map no longer mattered. The journey was over, but the memories were already settling into place like the dust on our cars. Some moments would become stories we might tell for years. Others might fade, leaving only a feeling, a colour, a snatch of something glimpsed through a dusty windscreen.
Perhaps when we travel without knowing quite where we’re headed, we leave with one idea of the world and return with something subtly altered. Not necessarily changed by the grand sights or the places we set out to see, but by the small, unexpected things we could never have planned; a fog-filled valley, a mysterious small goat, a red house with a red car, a halo around the full moon, and, of course, a great many dogs.
The Road Beyond the Map had taken us through Spain and Portugal, across mountains and valleys, along tracks we would never have found on our own. We’d now reached the end of the road.
But some journeys keep travelling with us long after we arrive home.
