The Portuguese word of the day… “Ribatejo.” It means “on the banks of the Rio Tejo (Tagus River).”

According to Wikipedia (the knower of all things), the Ribatejo is a central region of Portugal where I’m walking that is known for its fertile farmlands.

I can attest to this. Today I saw grapes, blueberries, lemons, olives, corn, tomatoes and more. I also saw gigantic homes (compounds really) that belong to farm owners. Like at home, there are the haves and the have nots.

While no one was looking, I tried one of the blueberries. Yum. I should have taken a whole handful, but I’m on a Christian pilgrimage and can’t risk the wrath of God, or the wrath of the farmer.

More Tomato Info..

Today, I saw a machine that auto-magically plants small tomato seedlings. It also lays down a thin plastic hose to water the seedlings. It looks like 2-3 workers could plant a large field in a few hours.

With regards to the plastic hoses… I’ve seen many workers tearing them up after the tomatoes are harvested. I couldn’t tell what they were, but now it makes sense.

Today’s Walk

For the whole length of today’ walk, the trail went over or next to a large embankment that looks like it’s designed to protect these low-lying lands from flooding of the Rio Tejo. The embankment is about 20 feet high and 40 feet wide in most places. It’s earthen in the most rural areas, but made of stone and concrete near towns.

It was a quiet walk with little traffic. I saw a few cars and a few bikes, but no pilgrims. There was a swing for pilgrims, so I gave it a try. Used my shoe for the selfie stick.

Santarém

This is a larger town (population of about 30,000). It’s on a hill, which was my first significant climb so far. Santarém shows its age, but has a beautiful town square, and has many nice little streets with shops and restaurants. It’s the nicest stop so far.

Today I walked 12.8 miles, and will end-up taking about 32,000 steps. It was warm again with highs in the low 90s. There was a light breeze that helped, but not much shade, so it was definitely tiring. I’m enjoying a glass of wine on the town square as I type up this blog post. Not bad. (I’m waiting for dinner which doesn’t start until 7:00PM. Not my favorite thing about Europe.)