The Algarve

 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. 

Sintra: Fairytale Castles

 Just a short train ride from Lisbon is a small town called Sintra.  In Sintra is a castle straight out of a fairytale.  This castle, pearched upon the top of a mountain, is colorfully painted, with intricate carvings, and lavish furniture.  It is really not very large, but very beautiful.  Just down the road, perched on top of the adjacent mountain, is a fortress.  The fortress is not as impressive as the castle, but the views are amazing.

 

We cruised around these hills, hiking and taking buses up and down the road all day.  Back near the train station, we found a Chinese resturaunt that we loved.  It was actually pretty good food for extremely cheap!  We actually ate there twice that day.  If you ever go there and need to eat, I absolutely recommend it. 

Lisbon

We arrived in Lisbon during their annual city festival: the feast of Saint Anthony.  Because the festival is so popular for tourists, the city was packed and we were unable to find any Couch host.  We struggled to even find a reasonably priced hostel that wasn't full.  We spent our days walking around the city.  So many people were visiting and partying in the streets that our experience in Lisbon was unique.  Each day, we would check out of our hostel hoping that someone would accept our Couchsurfing request, but we were unsuccessful for a few nights.  Finally, a nice man accepted our request, but told us that he was not going to be at his house very much.  We were still happy to accept his offer, so each additional night we spent in Lisbon, we waited late into the evening for him to pick us up. 

The city of Lisbon is not the most beautiful.  I really enjoyed the winding streets that line the hills of the town, but the town has a very dirty feel to it.  When you are walking in the center of town, you are constantly berated by people selling drugs.  We were told that most of these people are offering fake drugs (in hopes of taking you somewhere), which is how there are so many running around without getting caught. 

An important thing to know about Portugal in general, is when you go out to eat in a restaurant, do not eat any bread or other appetizer they put on the table unless you want to pay an exorbitant amount for it.  In many places - like the U.S. - if bread, butter, or anything else is put on the table before ordering, it is complimentary.  In Portugal, they will put out many little plates of appetizers, and if you eat any of them you will pay many Euros.  We even experienced times where more than half a dozen little plates were put out in front of us.  We personally believe that this is a strategy to squeeze money out of hungry resturaunt patrons, waiting for their actual meal.  This is particularly sleazy when considering that many tourists may not know about this little trick.

Lisbon offered us the ability to take buses to many places, but once we got to those places, it was hard to move on.  There is plenty to see in the vicinity of Lisbon, but if you want to do a little bus-tour loop, you will find it difficult.  Many of the small towns don't have connecting buses to other towns, so you will often have to go all the way back to Lisbon to continue.  When we did a loop around this area, we ended up hitchhiking back to a train station before nightfall.  The reality of this is that we were very lucky.  Hitchhiking in Portugal is really awful, but we will get to that later.

Cacares, Merida, & Badajoz

In central western Spain there are three cities that are very interesting to visit: Cacares, Merida, and Badajoz.  Cacares has an awesome citadel.  It seems plain, lacking any color or embellishment in its stone walls, but it has a very medieval feel.  While in Cacares, you can visit the Aljibe, a very old Hispanic-Arabic cistern.  It is very beautiful to walk down into the cistern and see the light reflecting off the water.  Otherwise, you can walk around and see Cacares' many towers (the citadel has 30) and churches. 

Next on our way to Portugal was Merida.  Merida is known for its Roman ruins.  The ruins in Merida are spread throughout the town, and you can spend a lot of time visiting all of the sites.  There is a very interesting aqueduct. It is not as impressive as the one in Segovia, but it is very different and maybe even more asthetically pleasing.  There is also a very beautifully intact Roman theater (except for one theater I saw in Greece in 2012, this is one of the best preserved).  The ruins continue all over the city.

Finally, our last stop before leaving Spain is Badajoz.  This city is right on the border.  In Badajoz we stayed with this young hippie who lived with his father and grandfather.  These three men were histerical.  They would all have this huge lunch and pass out on the couches in the living room.  They were really lovely men and were very wonderful hosts.  Badajoz is a nice city, but not as interesting as Cacares or Merida.  Nonetheless, it is a nice city to walk around.

National Park Monfrague

 We traveled west from Toledo to a small town called Navalmoral de la Mata.  We spent our first wedding anniversary with a wonderful married couple in their small apartment.  Our first night, they treated us to a wonderful dinner, and we chatted late into the night.

The next day, the couple had the day off, so they invited us to visit Monfrague National Park with them.  This park is long and skinny, following the River Tagus.  It is a dry scrubby habitat, with lots of large shrubs and old gnarled oaks.  One of the main attractions in the park is the abundance of birds of prey.  We took a short hike along the central ridge that runs along the length of the park.  At the top of the mountain, we found a huge celebration occuring at the small church located at its peak.  It was just our luck that this particular day happened to be a celebratory day for the church.  People were dancing, laughing, and enjoying a feast amongst the trees.  It was a very happy surprise.

We climbed the nearby tower before heading towards the river.  At the river there are some large cliffs where the vultures and eagles prefer to perch.  There were many bird watchers with their spotting scopes and binoculars.  The sky was littered with enormous birds.

Toledo

We left Madrid again to go on a longer journey around the southern half of the Iberian penninsula.  We hoped to be able to hitchhike and Couchsurf as much as possible.  Our first stop on our journey was Toledo.






Toledo is very rich with history.  It is a beautiful little citadel, with stairways and narrow passageways.  Formerly the capital of Spain, there is a lot to see in a very small space.  It is interesting to see evidence of the former coexistence of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam in this city.  All three religions were practiced at one time or another.  Today of course, as in much of southern Europe, it is predominantly Catholic.

We had a great time in Toledo with our young hosts.  They took us out to this strange little bar.  A long narrow corridor with little tables filled with hipsters.  They were our first hosts in Spain, and they turned out to be a lot of fun.