Spanish Holiday in Portugal

On our first national holiday in Spain, Fiesta Nacional, we decided to take advantage of the five-day weekend and take a road trip to Portugal.
The cast was unforgettable: Andrew Magill, who entertained us by running into the freezing Atlantic Ocean wearing nothing but his curly red hair; Andrew Crosson, who drove his first car in Europe like a professional, aggressive European driver; Alisha Wolf, who satiated the urges for sweetness by providing a plethora of milk chocolate; Elyse Keefe, who ate a clove of garlic a day and kept her trail smelling like garlic perfume; and Jasmina Nogo, who acted like a squirrel in the roads of Lisboa while crossing the street.

Alisha, Andrew and Elyse took a bus from Motril to meet Andrew Magill and I in Malaga on Thursday evening where the car was waiting to be rented. It seemed too good to be true when the rental agency handed over the keys to a sleek, black Citroen car and Andrew pulled out of the parking lot in Malaga with us and our backpacks crammed into the back. The first step to our Portugal road trip was taken as we squeezed through the narrow and clogged streets of Malaga. When we finally got out of the knots of Malaga a euphoric excitement struck all of us as the car cruised down the winding roads of Andalucia, heading towards Huelva on the western border of Spain. We cut through mountains and valleys as the sun was setting on the horizon creating an intensely colorful backdrop to our cascading path. The positive energy in the car was mirrored by the mesmerizing colors in the sky and with chatter and music the hours passed quickly and we crossed into the border of Portugal. We stopped only once to satiate our hunger with bread and cheese, and then quickly got back on the road.

We arrived to our first destination of Lagos, on the southern coast of Portugal, around midnight and found our hostel in the dark with no problem. The little town was glowing from the streetlights and the little cobblestone streets led us directly to the door of our hostel. Lagos reminded me of what I’d imagined Greece to be like – bleach-white buildings, narrow cobbled streets, terraces with flowers on them and a beautiful rugged coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. Although it showed to be quite a tourist destination, everything about Lagos still had a small-town feeling. It felt like the town was tucked into the cliffs of the coast and buried behind the grottos, to be discovered only by those who ventured.

We stayed up long enough that first night to share a bottle of red wine between the five of us and stacked into the bunk beds of our room like popsicle sticks and fell quickly asleep, tired from the road and the sprinting thoughts. In the morning when we got up for breakfast, we were pleasantly surprised by the gracious meal being served in the hostels kitchen. A nice Portuguese woman served the food, and all I could say to her over and over again was obrigada, thank you in Portuguese over and over again. I had forgotten how debilitating it was to be unable to utter a single expression in a foreign language. Portuguese was similar in a lot of ways to Spanish and it was certainly comprehendible, but when it came to speaking I was mute and we all looked to Andrew Magill for help when approached by the Portuguese. The breakfast consisted of croissants with cheese, butter and jam, hardboiled eggs, yogurt, orange juice and café con leche. We sat in the hostel’s little outdoor courtyard and enjoyed our first meal in Portugal.

After breakfast we walked down the winding main streets of Lagos to explore the town and quickly found ourselves by the coastline. We found a small fortress with a moat and explored around the coast for a little while. It didn’t take long to see the entirety of the town so after our walking tour we decided to get into our car again to drive out to a nearby beach. The beach we found was phenomenal: an endless beach coastline with white, runny sand and crystalline water all along the shore. Given that it was the middle of October there weren’t many tourists so we almost had the beach to ourselves. Andrew and I swam in the freezing cold water for almost a half an hour, and afterwards I couldn’t feel the skin on my body from the cold but it was fabulously refreshing. I was in the Atlantic Ocean once again except this time my eyes looked in the direction of home so very far away. We took a long walk down the coast, across the jagged rocks and beside the towering cliffs.

After an afternoon on the beach we drove to a lookout point with a lighthouse on top of the cliffs and beautiful blue grottos down below. The water crashed against the cliffs, and the grotto glistened in its stillness. Tourists climbed up and down the rocky stairs to the grotto and back while we looked from above taking pictures and climbing to the peaks of the cliffs. It was one of those places that you only see on the travel channel and in magazines that look airbrushed, but it was so real and so beautiful that photographs couldn’t do it justice. Elyse once put it so well – pictures only capture the two-dimensionality of moments but they never capture the sounds, the smells, the music, the conversation, all of which paint the perfect moments in our lives. After the lighthouse we got back into the car and drove to the southwestern-most point of Europe – a little Portuguese town called Sagros. The town was so small that we made an impression just being there and walking down the street. At one point we walked into a tiny bar full of old men drinking beer and all heads turned in our direction standing at the door, to scope out the newcomers to this town. Our manner of talking, walking and dressing was such a strange sight to them. We went to a convenience store and bought snacks and beers and then went to sit on the windy coastal boardwalk, our legs hanging off the edge, the sun setting on the horizon.

Before nightfall we were back in Lagos and ready to eat our first real meal of the day. We followed the directions from a little flyer to a Mexican restaurant in the town center. Low and behold it was the most common destination for all of the tourists in Lagos. Only English echoed between the walls of the restaurants and even the wait staff was foreign to Portugal. But it’s places like this that seem to make the most money in little coastal towns. The tables had the game of Connect Four and we played a couple of matches, all losing to Andrew Magill and finally deciding that it was quite a conversation killer. Those of us that ordered burritos thinking we’d get our black bean stuffed Cosmic burritos were in for a surprise. My burrito had carrots in it, no rice, and big red kidney beans instead of the familiar black beans. And we decided they weren’t burritos at all because they weren’t rolled nor stuffed like burritos, rather just stuck into a rolled up piece of tortilla. But what were thinking eating at a Mexican restaurant in Portugal anyway? After dinner we strolled the streets a little bit, went back to our hostel’s courtyard and played an epic game of Never-Have-I-Ever with Pisco and Fanta mixed drinks. We have quite a way of bringing our American culture with us no matter where we go, it seems.
The next morning, after our filling Lagos breakfast served by the kind Portuguese woman who’d been to New York City and graciously refilled our coffee cups at least three times, we got back into our sexy black Citroen and headed towards the country’s capital city of Lisboa. The big bridge that led us into the city resembled San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge and an enormous statue of Jesus Christ towered over the entrance to the big city. Lisboa appeared huge from the highway with a distinct separation from the modern and industrial seeming part and the old historic area. After a couple of stops and getting lost only once, we finally found ourselves in the Barrio Alto in the heart of Lisboa. The streets were incredibly steep and cobbled, with electric trams running through traffic amongst cars, pedestrians, scooters and bikers. We finally found a little residence with room for five, after being turned down a couple of times, and settled into our rooms. The rooms were quite tiny, smelled like cigarettes and stale milk and were incredibly dark. Alisha described the place as creepy yet unique, but later retracted the second part of the statement and left it at just creepy. We only had to spend one night there, thankfully, and didn’t spend much more than a night’s dreams in its creepiness. That evening we stumbled upon a buffet for only 7.95 euro and our pockets couldn’t resist the deal so once again in Portugal we ate American-style. The buffet may or may not have been good, but we wouldn’t have known because we were starving and the cooked food filled our stomachs graciously.

After dinner we wandered the streets once again down to the coast and back up again through the evening lamp-illuminated marble streets. We found a little bar in our neighborhood and watched the Portugal soccer game which was being played only fifteen minutes from Lisboa. The streets were pulsing with life and hundreds of people just walking up and down, standing outside of the bars, listening to music, talking, living the European life. We all agreed that Lisboa was probably the most underrated European capital. It’s an incredible city both aesthetically and culturally, yet you don’t often hear of people traveling to it. By the end of the night we were falling asleep at the table of the little bar. I was so tired I hadn’t even realized the soccer match was over. Needless to say, once my head finally hit the pillow of the creepy hostel I was lost to the dreams that came that night.
The next morning we left the residence and checked into a different hostel, this one much more colorful, full of windows and travelers. We set off in the morning towards the heights of the city to see the old Arab castle. From the top we could see the entire city spilling out below, the big bridge in the distance, the statue of Jesus only a finger’s length from the distance. On the way back down the hill we stumbled across a little band playing traditional Fado music and a woman singing songs about loss and nostalgia in the most beautiful and resonating voice. People gathered around the little restaurant watching and taking pictures. A little ways further we came across another couple of street musicians playing the most interesting instruments – a guitar-like instrument called a “stick,” which he played with both hands, one for the baseline and the other for the melody. They perched on a little bench beneath a canopy of flowers, overlooking the blue water below. It was like a scene from a movie, as Andrew put it so eloquently, and it all happened like it does in the movies – a group of travelers stumble upon a musician playing in the street, with a picturesque backdrop and beautiful flowers hanging above and they sit down along the wall and stay upwards of an hour just rocking to the music, unable to stay still from the natural beats coming from the accompanying drum.

After our free concert we strolled along the streets and finally ended up in the city park where we found a nice plot of green grass and sat down for a picnic of bread, cheese and fruit. We took catnaps in the grass and after a couple of hours headed back towards Barrio Alto to check into our new hostel. The room we stayed in was full of different colors, had a balcony and the hostel had a community kitchen, living room and terraces. It was full of people from all over the world and the environment was completely conducive to making friends with them. We went out to the grocery store and bought ingredients to make dinner (each spending only 2.50 euro!) and took our food back to the hostel to make pesto pasta, salad and black bean dip. The kitchen was packed full of people making dinner, all speaking different languages. A group of Chilean guys made a huge pot of Chilean stew with all kinds of vegetables and chicken. They offered it around the table and we all got to try it. The Germans were baking a huge stuffed fish in the oven that looked like it belonged in a culinary magazine. The group of American girls made frozen pizzas and prepackaged salads. We all sat around the table and got to know each other and our cultures a little bit better. After dinner we took another stroll outside into the nightlife, hung out in the plaza where other Portuguese youngsters were spending their evening and once again went to bed relatively early from the exhaustion of the day and the foresight of the coming day of driving all the way back to Malaga from Lisboa.

The Citroen served us incredibly well thanks to Alisha and Andrew’s ability to drive a stick shift car. Gas was incredulously expensive (60 euro to fill up the tank!) but thankfully split between the five of us it wasn’t unbearable. We got it back the next day in six or so hours flat, in top notch condition, drove it into the parking garage beneath the Malaga train station and returned the keys and the car without a scratch. I couldn’t believe how perfectly the entire trip went and without unexpected expenses or unplanned detours. Five Americans, with several languages between us, actually managed to take a spontaneous road trip across Spain and Portugal.