It's a motley crew that set off one morning for the end of the world. Chums Toddy and Nigel, chic architects Eleo and Filipe, leader Terry, Happy the Yorkshire cross, and me. At 68, Terry is fitter and stronger than the rest of us put together: since moving to the Algarve nearly a decade ago, he has, with walking-minded friends, identified and revived an ancient pilgrim trail that wiggles from Alcoutim on the Spanish border to Cabo de São Vicente, Europe's most south-westerly point. In Neolithic, Roman, Arab and medieval perceptions, this cape was where our earth ended, the sun sinking, hissing, each day into a boiling, snake-filled ocean.
Terry has tailored for us a four-day walk of about 100km that starts in the foothills below Caldas de Monchique, a spa village high in the drizzly hills above the Algarve. Known as Al Gharib ("the west") to the Arabs who ruled here for 500 years, today's Algarve is more golf than Gulf. The plane to Faro was awash with boozy hen parties and blokey banter, but here, all is peaceful.
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