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Published: December 1st 2006
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I got up early to catch the morning train to Lagos, near the southwestern tip of Portugal. I took the metro to the stop closest to the station, which turned out to be a few blocks away. I made it to the station just as the train was arriving, so I didn't have time to make a reservation. The train wasn't too full though, so I didn't have trouble finding a free seat, but reservations are compulsory in Portugal so I wasn't sure what would happen.
When the conductor arrived, he looked at the rail pass and then asked for the reservation (in english, thankfully). I told him I didn't have one, and so he just charged me the normal 4€ reservation fee. So, as it turns out I really didn't have anything to worry about. The train was slow (are there fast trains in Portugal?) and I changed to an even slower one in the town of Tunes. They should rename the town to iTunes and get Apple to pay them a bunch of money. Anyway, after another hour or so on a train older than I am (seriously, the plaque on the car said it was manufactured in
The gang
At the beach '77) we pulled into Lagos. The clouds looked pretty ominous, but I took off towards the center. I made it about 100 yards when the sky opened up. I thought about continuing, but instead I decided that it was a sign to go somewhere else.
I hopped right back on the train I had just got off (even sat in the same seat) and after a few minutes it took of towards Faro. Now, the conductor had a pretty confused look (understandably) when he saw me again, but I've got a rail pass and it's unlimited use, so I can do as I please even if it might not make sense to him. Two hours later we pulled into Faro. The weather was marginally better (it wasn't raining), so I set off to find the tourist office.
I found the tourist office without too much trouble. Of course, this being a saturday, it was closed. I mean, no tourists would show up on a saturday, right. Sheesh. They also didn't see fit to put an outdoor map outside the tourist office (where it would be useful), and so I set off to find some food. I ended up
Ancient train
1970's vintage. Check out the interior. having a really crappy burger at McDonalds. Bad luck with McDonalds in Portugal it seems. When I left, I stumbled across a map finally, and was able to locate the hostel.
It took me about 10 minutes to walk over. I booked 2 nights and dumped my stuff in the room. The hostel actually looked pretty nice for one of the institutional types. It had a common room for once -- shocking. I heard some people talking downstairs so I walked down and met Anne (Manitoba), Pru (Adelaide), and another Canadian dude who was pretty full of himself. The guy reminded me of the classic American stereotype, except that he was Canadian (and proud of it!). After a while we all went upstairs and then I took off to find the grocery store.
I tracked it down pretty quickly and got some food and beer to bring back to the hostel. I made a sandwich and took it along with a beer into the common room. Ace Ventura was on tv, and there was a french-canadian dude (Marcus) drinking a beer, watching it. We sat around watching and were joined by Pru after a bit. A little while later, a french/polish couple, a german/mexican couple (yes I know, interesting pairs), and Anne joined us. The group of us sat and talked (while drinking heavily, of course) until pretty late.
The next morning, I woke up with several bites on my hands and arms. I pretty quickly decided that they were mosquito bites, and not bedbugs, and so I didn't worry too much about them. After breakfast, the plan for the day was a trip to the beach. We gathered a group, which included everyone but the french/polish couple and the annoying canadian guy who seemed to have been struck with some nasty diarrhea (aww, shucks). We stopped off at the bus station on our way to the beach so that Marcus and I could get tickets for Seville, and Pru could get a ticket for Lisbon.
It took about 30 minutes to get to the beach on the bus, but it was worth it. The weather was perfect -- maybe 75 degrees, and the ocean looked awesome. Everyone except Anne changed into swim wear, and we all jumped in. It was cold, but noticeably warmer than San Sebastian. The two girls got out pretty quickly, but I think they didn't give it enough of a chance, or maybe it's just because they're both spoiled by much warmer water. The rest of us ended up staying in for at least 30 minutes body surfing, and generally enjoying swimming in November.
After getting out, a couple of us walked quite a ways down the beach collecting shells. There were tons of the type that Shell Gasoline has as its logo, and I found some nice ones. Eventually we got bored and headed back. We jumped back in the water (minus the girls) and spent another 45 minutes in before we all got out and decided it was about time to leave.
We took the bus back to the hostel, and then went to the grocery store to get stuff to make dinner. We were hoping to make some sort of enchilada dish, but we couldn't find mexican style tortillas, only the thick spanish ones. So, we settled on pasta with beef sauce instead. We grabbed the ingredients and took them back to the hostel where Pru ended up cooking dinner. Thanks Pru! Dinner was great, and after cleaning up we pretty much repeated the previous evening of drinking. When Anne headed to bed some of us grabbed the rest of the beer and we walked over to the marina where we sat and finished it. I love being able to walk around with open containers in europe. We even walked right by the police station and they didn't even give us a sideways glance.
Afterwards, we all headed back to the hostel. I went into my room and spent about 10 minutes killing mosquitos. I must have killed at least 15 of the buggers. After I was done, I noticed that there were dead mosquitos plastered all over the walls. It was pretty nasty in fact, and I'm not sure why I didn't notice that the night before, but clearly mosquitos are a problem even in November.
That night I didn't sleep really well, I kept waking up because of the snoring guy in the room, plus the bites were itching quite a bit. In the morning, Anne, Pru, Marcus, and I all walked to the bus station. It turns out Marcus was planning to go to Morocco after Seville, and that's where Pru had originally wanted to go, but she needed a guy to travel with. So, she changed her ticket from Lisbon to Seville, and Anne bought one as well. So, there were to be 4 of us traveling to Seville together.
Stay tuned for our adventures in Sevilla.
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