We explored Lisbon and the area around the city to exhaustion, and decided we needed to move on. At that point, we could either go north or south. We decided to head south to the Algarve. First we took a bus inland to Beja. We stayed with a university professor there. We had a wonderful time having dinner in her beautiful house, but unfortunately she could only host us for one night. She let us know about the buses out of town as she dropped us off the next morning in the town center. We explored the city a bit, and decided that instead of taking a bus, we would try to hitchhike to our next host's house. The city was nice. We visited the castle, and although it was a simple fortress, we had fun exploring it. In the afternoon we started to hitchhike, but it soon became clear that hitchhiking was not very good in Portugal. Most people who drove by would scream out the window at us and flip us off. All we were doing is asking for a ride, but the people were taking very serious offense. After some time failing to get picked up, we decided to change location. We thought our luck might change, but it didn't. People continued to be extremely rude to us. I have never experienced such horrible treatment while hitchhiking. Later on, we spoke to other veteran hitchhikers who had the same experience in Portugal as well as Spain. I wouldn't suggest trying to get around these countries this way.
Eventually, a car actually stopped. To our embarrassment, it was our host. She had told us hitchhiking wouldn't' work, and there she was willing to help even though it was going to inconvenience her. She actually drove us an hour and a half to our other host's house, because it was easier for her to do so than to give us a ride to the bus station in the morning. What a wonderful woman.
We did finally arrive to our next hosts house. An old cantankerous German man accompanied by three Russians. It was all a little wierd. The German was not very nice - actually he was a dick. He was in a wheelchair, and I guess had taken a very pessimistic and angry view of the world. Despite also being disabled, he took every chance to make fun of Javier's disability. I wasn't sad when we left his house to head to Lagos.
We took a bus to the southern coast, where we could begin to enjoy the beaches. In Lagos, we spent our first night in a cramped hostel room with two Australian idiots. They came in drunk in the middle of the night, talking about girls and idiotic things. For example: "Why didn't she like me. Maybe I should have worn my other shirt. It is luckier." "Yeah, you do look good in that shirt." I wanted to get out of my bed and give them a piece of my mind, but I bit my tongue and did my best to fall back asleep.
The next day we
went searching for a cheaper and quieter place to stay. We found an
actual apartment, rented by this woman. It was cheaper than our cramped
hostel room, and we had privacy. Awesome. We explored the city. The
area around the beach is really cool. There are all these rock
outcroppings out in the water, and the beaches are isolated by cliffs.
It is no wonder that this is such a popular tourist destination.
While in the south, we also visited Sagres, an old military outpost located in a perfect strategic spot on a thin peninsula. It is VERY windy on this peninsula, and from what we heard, it is always windy there. When we left Lagos, we continued back towards Spain along the coast. Our last stop was Tavira. We tried once more to hitchhike - I guess we are a little stubborn - and had the same awful experience. We ended up spending the night huddled in an abandoned lot trying to sleep while the mosquitoes ate us up. The next day, we gave up and just took a bus to Huelva.
