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Published: September 18th 2008
Day 9: Alcobaça - Batalha - Fatima
This was my first experience in a youth hostile...sleeping there isn't as great as the brochure tells you. First of all it's quite expensive in comparison with a camping site, about €13 per person per night. A camping in the same price range gives you a view of the city marina, a so-clean-sanitation-block-you-can-eat-out-of-it, a swimming pool, a miniature golf park, an overpriced supermarket and a wall you can crawl over in the middle of the night. And please I dare you to say that is has a clean, nice bed, I have nice and clean sleeping bag and an ultralight, self inflating divine matras to sleep on....If I could I would sleep on it all year round! Anyway I think you get my vibe that I'm pro camping...seek that contact with nature ;-) WOOHOO
Getting up to early to catch the bus to
Alcobaça we did get breakfast in the hostile. "It's only a five minute walk to the bus station": the receptionist told us. Well, boys and girls, it is just that! One slight detail he did forget to mention was the fact that at this hour, 8h45, the first
buses in any direction leave the station (read: just in time to get there but not in time to buy a ticket and just in time to miss your bus!!!). So the following two hours waiting for the next connection gave us some time to prepare
Lisboa. Fortunately I know a word or two in Portuguese so was able to ask which bus we should take, because like in every Mediterranean country punctuality isn't a big deal and neither is supplying tourist with correct and sufficient information.
I've got a bad feeling about this day...a really bad feeling!
Finally arriving in Alcobaça we check the schedules to get out of this village. No problems here we could even let our backpacks rest at the bus station! Entering the
Mosteiro de Santa Maria de Alcobaça the clerk at the ticket office said that we didn't have to pay anything because we are students. Three times good luck... luck was on our side....this is getting suspicious! Visiting the gigantic monastery was a thrilling experience. It used to be a Cistercian headquarter during it's peak. And like every good order of our Lord they all took a oath of poverty. But
people are people and will always remain that way, power and wealth gets the upper hand and decadency sets. These monks where so rich, fat and lazy that they diverted the river through the monastery so they didnt have to go out and fish anymore....these nice little fishes literally swam into there plates! After the abolishing the religious orders in 1834 it was abandoned.
Moving on swiftly to
Batalha....Where you ask? Exactly some small town bus station hub to get to
Tomar with an impressive cathedral build to celebrate the victory on the Moors. Guess what? Here our luck stopped!
It's 13h30 and the next bus out of this joint is at 18h! Believe me this a tiny village, there is nothing to do here, nothing! So waiting again, this time on a terrace with some nice caipirinhas...Remember that I said that they don't give sufficient information....Well they forgot to tell us that the bus was in the one that says Abrantes and not Tomar! So the only bus out of here just passed us by...again!
From Batalha to Tomar has a stop in
Fatima. It's about 17km from Batalha, why not hike? The calculation we made
was 5km/h with a compensation hour extra for eating and the heavy backpack. Wrong! Did I mention that Portugal was built in a mountainous region? no? Well it is!
Do you see that light far far away in the distance? Well I hope we don't have to be there hahahaha...
walking passed the light that were in the distance:
Eli, that joke isn't as funny as it was way way don there in the valley when we saw this light!
After walking for three and a half hours straight next to unlit road we ran into a restaurant with a bus stop across of it. In my best Portuguese i ask the owner that he Hablas Ingles....He doesn't! Carrying on in Portuguese I ask him if the bus to Tomar passes his door. Lord and behold it does! So i ask him the direction, the time and if we could sleep in his front yard...things were running as smooth as baby's ass!
Signing off somewhere with lights in the distance
the bacpackers
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