Day 60: Porto Covo to Lagos | 115km
31 July 2026
The early starts have become routine on the second half of this trip, so I barely need an alarm anymore since my body naturally wakes up around 6. From what I could see, I was the first one up, but Richard in the tent next to mine got out of his tent just minutes after me. Again, I felt a bit jealous that he had the luxury of lingering and taking his time in the morning, whereas I quickly disassembled my tent and chowed down on two bananas and some pastries I’d bought at a bakery yesterday. I’d been on a roll of long days, and today wouldn’t be any different, so I rolled out of the campground determined to cover the ground quickly as the sun would beat down on me all day. The first hour or two always feels slow, but eventually I get into a rhythm where I’m not really aware of thinking about the distance covered. The roads were a mix of bike lanes and countryside roads running close along the coast.
From what I could see online, all the wildfires in southern Portugal had been extinguished, so I felt a bit less worried about diverting from the coast to start crossing towards Lagos, my final destination for the day. The roads were fairly flat, but occasionally I’d face a looming, steep hill that required all my strength just to get up, where I’d stop to pant and catch my breath. When I reached Aljezur, I stopped for lunch at a grocery store with a cafe/restaurant inside. I don’t frequent grocery stores nearly this often in normal life, but they’ve become a second home and the reason I don’t have to carry as many supplies anymore. In the north, gas stations served many of the same purposes, although I didn’t shop for food in them.
I reached Lagos around 3 and checked into my hostel. The staff were kind enough to let me keep the bike inside and, even better, they had a garden hose outside where I could clean it off thoroughly. I’ve become more careful about keeping the bike in clean condition the further south I’ve been getting. I definitely neglected the importance of a clean chain and drivetrain for the first part of this trip, but there’s something extremely satisfying and also useful about wiping off the muck from the chain and seeing its natural silver colour shine through.
After all my chores, I headed out to explore Lagos a bit. I knew nothing about this town before rolling into it, but it turned out to have spectacular cliffs and long white beaches. I heard both foreign and Portuguese tourists around me. I strolled along the coast, not feeling like swimming but just enjoying the scenery. Out at sea were people on boats, stand-up paddleboards and kayaks enjoying the last few hours of sun.
I don’t know if I’ve said it before, but I thought this trip would propel me to have deeper reflections, but when I find myself in these peaceful moments, there’s not much going on between my ears. However, given how much time I’ve spent on the bike now, it has started feeling weird walking around without it. I feel slower, like something is missing, so when I returned a few hours later to the hostel, where I was reunited with the bike, I felt calm once more.