Get Thee Up Into The High Mountain..

Hiking was on the Friday & Saturday menus

An invitation came from Randy and Joanne to meet up with them and Pat and Gary on Friday to hike the trail up Cerro da Cabeça near Moncarapacho. It was a beautiful sunny day at the beginning with a cool breeze that brought some cloud cover. Not to worry, we continued on and the skies began to clear later in the day.

Our staring point..

The edifice is part way up…

A bit of a rest…

and then there were stairs…

and amazing views

For those of you who don’t know, I have a built-in fear of heights. Everyone of these hikes challenges that fear. Going up those stairs was alright as long as I faced inwards. I was happy to learn we would NOT be descending that way.

This is the view from the edifice…

Someone used to live up here. What a view.

The trail was somewhat rocky.

But eventually became less of a challenge

and then we found Jackson’s house in Portugal!

This was my first time on this hiking trail and there was always a lovely surprise around some of the corners.

This home reminded me of The Hobbit…

…it struck an empathetic chord.

a view of where we were

Latania on a stone wall

abandoned well

An abundance of datura

A prickly end to the trail.

The hike was over in time to drive back to Estoi for lunch and then Jackson invited me to go exploring in Estoi.

Collection of Christmas cacti in full bloom

Tiny thumb size Jack-in-the-pulpit

Trumpet vine full-on around the bend

A lonely nasturtium blossom

The biggest delight was discovering a swathe of paper whites in full bloom in what looked to be an inaccessible place. However, with some determined searching and a bit of an uphill climb over rough terrain filled with wild shrubs and rocks, we got there:

And there are always cats…

And that brought us to the close of another delightful day in the Algarve.

Rocha da Pena…because it’s Saturday

This is a hike that I’ve done in the past with Randy, Pat and Gary. Today, it was decided to do it in reverse. The beginning of the trail is about 45 minutes from Estoi and as I was driving there on my own with the help of Waze and Jackson, we left early. I was giving myself time to get lost! Also, I should explain, this is my first time driving in Portugal. today’s road trip was a challenge because of my fear of heights and it all worked out.