During the festive period it has already been documented and discussed in great length , how the men spent several hours drinking in Espargos while the girls went Christmas shopping !
With this at the back of our thoughts ( as if ) we decided to make amends and do something productive that didn’t revolve around Estrella . So a walking expedition was agreed , Mikey was going to paddle down the west coast of Sal while Peter/ Gary / and veteran walker Dave would walk from Buracona to Santa Maria with a night camp somewhere along the way . I quickly found a 2 man tent on the island and we were off !
On December 30th 8.30 am with the help of Adrian ( once again up early for a good cause ) we loaded up the car “thanks Kim” and all headed to Buracona , the weather was extremely poor from the start and wind conditions extremely good for the kite surfers but not the walkers .We headed down to Palmeria and arrived 10.20am for Coffee and some beer and wine shopping , which all quickly got stored in Dave’s back pack, You cant keep a good mule down and this one was constantly walking 100 yrd’s in front .
We eventually arrived at Monte Leon at 1.15pm to find Mikey still at the same spot that he was dropped at 9.am . Due to the weather conditions 35 knot winds, South East , his board decided to travel 30 mtrs in the Air and land on the rough rocks piercing the board and making paddling impossible.
Mikeys tent soon followed the same direction and ended up like a rag and sticks on the ground, fortunately for Mikey we had a bottle of red wine for his disposal Gary had the Cork screw and Peter the glass ,sensible male tactics making sure that not one person gets the full benefi.We then made a collective decision to leave Mikey and continue the walk to Murdeira to organise our aluger for all the camping and SUP (Stand Up Paddling) gear. The walk was completed in 3.59 minutes covering 19k and burning 1,800 Calories . Time for a well earned Pint .
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In February, although Mikey was away in his homeland we decided to complete the journey and walked from Murdeira to Santa Maria.
The walk started at 8.30a.m. once again and the quick pace from David was soon evident , obviously he could smell the beer in Ponta Preta which took us 1hr 45 minutes and 7km. Slightly too early for a beer but never the less a quick sample was required . We then moved on to Santa Maria and the final destination Tam Tams in a total of 2hrs 30 minutes a distance of 11.07km and once again 1058 Calories sufficient to drink several cold beers watching the Wales England Six Nations Rugby. Although a disappointing result for me, the perfect end to a hard walking day.
Total distance covered: 31km in 6hrs .30 minutes.
During the next few weeks we intend to walk a 3rd distance from the hut at Kite beach past Serra Negra and arrive in Pedra da Lume, we anticipate this to be a further 25/ 30km and possibly the most difficult of the 3 walks . All this is in preparation for a big push in mid June when the veteran Dave returns to Sal we intend to walk the whole Island of Sal anti clock wise , this will take an estimated 3 nights camping and 4 days walking and will be widely publicised as we intend to raise more money for the Children’s Charity Castelos do Sal http://facebook.com/castelosdosal
For those who would not be able to attend the walk but would like to make some sort of contribution a small donation would be greatly appreciated. Contact information for any donations or other ideas on how to raise funds during the walk to:
