José Arês Cruz said that it was the first time that anyone had walked the whole route on foot. One thing they had learned from the first stage of the long walk was that no walkers would cope without waymarking on the ground and many people would get lost between the hills of the serra and the barrocal if nothing is done.

It is for this reason that, in the coming days, Cruz's troop will be proposing to Almargem that, starting with the next leg on 8th and 9th March, the scouts will be helping to mark the route with paint and brushes. He added that it was not difficult for them to do this and they had plenty of experience.

Waymarks taking the form of signposts with information panels are being prepared by a construction company in Vilamoura, which won a tendering process for this purpose, and they should be fixed in the ground in the near future so as to be ready by May or June when the Algarve Way will be opened. But for the moment, there is a distinct lack of information on the ground.

Along with this, the scouts are proposing to publicise the Algarve Way amongst local people, giving them information leaflets that Almargem is also preparing, as they have found that many people along the route have no idea what the Way is.

Enjoying walking

The leg during the weekend of 8th and 9th February was the first in a series of eight (and 18 days as there will be two long weekends in the middle) which will culminate in their arrival in Sagres at the beginning of December.

The decision of the troop of the CNE, the National Scout Corps, to cover a stretch each month is based on the conviction that if they did the 300 kilometres in one go they would not get pleasure out of walking and would not learn as much. The scouts opted for a more leisurely “hike” instead of the usual and more painful “raid”.

Cruz said that they did not want to go walking for the sake of walking but rather to enjoy being in contact with nature, with local people, and to be able to relax, and he added that if it was done against the clock it would not be so enjoyable and would certainly produce some blisters.

Even so, to judge by the experiences on the leg from Alcoutim to Furnazinhas, the walk will not be easy. When they got to Balurcos at the end of the first of the two days, they were worn out.

This was mainly because the route is not level. José Cruz said that what was most tiring was doing a steep climb after crossing a stream which the main road crosses. He said this was a tough 50 minutes, although it was made up for by the spectacular view once they got to the top.

Drinking river water

When it came to crossing the stream, it was once again their scouting experience that came in handy; José Arês said that when the path came to an end before the water course, the continuation on the other side was 200 metres to the left, with nothing to indicate the change in location; he said they would have got lost if they had not been paying attention on the way down.

Apart from carrying out a survey of the route, something that the group always have at heart is contact with local people, and the time to pause to take photos, scrupulously noting down incidents that take place in a diary.

The notes they made in the northeast Algarve include some about some almost deserted places where a dozen people are enough to constitute a village, where children are a rarity and middle-aged couples have decamped to Tavira, Vila Real or Lisbon.

The diary is also bound to make mention of the café “O Tempero”, the only one in Cortes Pereira, open every day of the year, as well as the kindness of Sr. Michel, the French owner of a snack bar in Balurcos who, at 10 o'clock at night, prepared plates of roast chicken and meat for the 12 walkers with 40 kilometres behind them, and where the drinks were on the house.

Almargem's plan is that all this information could help with the publication of a guide for future walkers so that they know where to eat, sleep and how far they have to walk to the next place with drinking water. Either out of a tap, or from a river.

Because in those parts there are still streams where crystal clear water flows and you can still drink out of cupped hands.

source: the algarve observer