Lisboa hostel

Due to the rain, it was a cool night and cold air was coming in through the open balcony door. So was traffic noise, including rubbish trucks loading in the middle of the night. But closing the doors would have made the room stuffy so I accepted the lesser of two evils by putting on my ear plugs. The guy in the bunk above had stinky boots and was a sleeptalker.


The refectory was crowded. The hostel was full of German and French students. Many of them still had tags on their luggage. I think they were looking for more permanent accommodation before the University term started.

Unfortunately the Gulbenkian Museum was also full of students, of the high-school variety, on educational visits. I find classical painting dull and prefer bright modern art or unconventional materials or methods, so I limited myself to those sections. I took a lunch of seafood rice in the cafeteria, which was quite tasty. There was a mix of visitors and workers eating there.

Gray skies again, portending rain. Out of boredom I started reading the guides on São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. I caught the recommended ferry ride from Cais do Sodré to Cacilhas, on the other side of the Tejo, to have a look. The weather was lousy so all I took was this photo. Cacilhas looks better than this in other online photos.

I had a nap, then prepared to go for dinner. On a spur, I talked to the Brazilian in my dorm. It turned out he was from Rio de Janeiro and waiting for a Portuguese passport so that he could go work in Germany as an actor. He showed me a wound on his abdomen. He had been slashed by muggers in Lisboa. He bemoaned the irony: Brazilian cities were noted in tourist guides as places to be very cautious of personal safety and yet this happened to him in Europe.

As a result of this chat, I was introduced to 4 other Brazilians in the hostel, one woman from São Paulo, two men from Porto Alegre and another Carioca. They had not met before coming to the hostel. We Brazilians are like this, said one, five minutes and we are chums. I liked their country already. We went for dinner together. Several restaurants were closed but we found a Portuguese diner serving simple fare. I enjoyed my bifano (steak) with rice and salad.

But the fun really started when we got back to the hostel and dance music was put on in the refectory/bar. Beer started flowing and bodies swayed on the floor. We were a mixed lot. Besides the Brazilians there was French woman from Brittany, teaching French in Albufeira, who was a great fan of Portuguese and Brazilian culture and knew the lyrics of many Brazilian songs by heart. A Danish student in Lisboa. An East German with very little command of anything but German, but enjoying Mediterranean culture for a change. Two Aussie girls from Sydney travelling together. Motto above hostel bar: All different, all same.


I had to have a shower before bed because I was so sweaty. More reserved cultures are accustomed to think of sweatiness as abnormal but Latin cultures accept it as a condition of existence. Also sexuality: Brazilian dance can be very suggestive, the closest you can get to vertical sex without nudity.

North to Lisboa

In the night the Argentinian hosteller snored like an outboard engine starting. An inconsiderate motorcyclist gunned his engine on a nearby street. It was a rainy morning. I think Lagos was telling me to get a move on. I had breakfast with S, then we said goodbye. I felt an anticlimax after the pleasant and undemanding interlude in Lagos. The bus retraced the route I came by with a change at Albufeira. There was a lunch stop at the same place as the trip south.


From Saldanha I caught a metro to Picoas. The hostel was just steps away from the entrance. There were music videos playing in the lobby. The place was clean but less conducive to meeting people. A sudden shower started after I arrived. There was traffic chaos outside. I was glad I had taken the earlier bus. But I was hungry because I only had figs and walnuts for lunch.


I found my dinner at Alfaia. I chatted with a British couple at the next table. R and G were librarians from Wales, though G had turned to social work, but were quite adventurous and had been to Nepal. They were interested in the Internet especially and its effect on libraries. The trend towards economic rationalisation concerned them. I shared a drink and conversation with them in Baixa.


I got back to the hostel just before closing time. The Argentinian had also arrived, but fortunately wasn't in my dorm.

Lagos 3

An extremely relaxed Sunday. Got up around 1000 and had a leisurely breakfast. The hostel had returned my washed laundry the afternoon before. I washed my shorts and T-shirt and updated the diary. I helped S make an escudo/peseta exchange with an American hosteller. I had no demands on my time until 1500, when I was to meet the Portuguese artist at the cultural centre.


S told me interesting facts about Japan. The Koreans in Japan are distinctive, their faces look different. They like a special style of spectacles. The girls walk hand in hand. But they cannot speak Korean anymore and in speech are indistinguishable from the Japanese. As for himself, he said that he played golf and went fishing with his friends from high school. He would get his tax accountant certificate soon and then be self-employed, rather than being a salaryman.

At 1400 I went for lunch. The Adega Ribatejana was closed so I settled for piri-piri chicken. An Indian couple at the next table sprinkled bits of English in their conversation. Then I had to hurry to the appointment. There were other artists and they were talking about moving to Brazil, to an island near Sao Paulo it seemed. S was undecided. Later I bumped into her again at the hostel, copying addresses of hostels.


S and I shared supermarket shopping again, This time we bought choriço and feijão. After dinner we played billiards again. I listened to a new age station on my radio to lull me to sleep.

Sagres and Cabo de São Vincente

The night before I had made the acquaintance of S, a Japanese hosteller. We agreed to make a day trip together to Sagres and Cabo de São Vicente, the southwestern tip of Portugal.


The bus to Sagres was a milk run, it stopped everywhere, and the door beeped whenever the bus started or stopped. So we got to see vignettes of rural Portugal at a leisurely pace, such as an old man with a cane sitting in a doorway, and dogs, dogs everywhere.

At Sagres, we rented a couple of mountain bikes. The automaticos (petrol mopeds) would have required a driving license, risking attention from the police. Each cost 1200 escudos for 4 hours which was ample to cover the 4km from Sagres to the cape. We bought some müsli and bottled water from the market and headed out. The outward leg was slightly uphill so it was hard work.

But it was worth the effort. We had views to the north and to the east. There was a lighthouse which is one of the most powerful in Europe as it has oversight of busy shipping lanes. We looked out on the Atlantic from the ramparts. Centuries ago, this would have been the last vista of Portugal for intrepid sailors, not knowing if they would live to see home again.

In one area anglers with no fear of vertigo were fishing with very long lines from the high cliffs. I estimated the drop must have been around 30 metres.

On the way back we stopped to have a look at the fortaleza (fortress) and small church, but declined to pay 300 escudos to enter the fort. 

The return leg was much more fun freewheeling downhill. We returned the bikes in good time. Both of us were so fatigued that we fell asleep on the return bus. S's head even drooped to touch my shoulder at one point.

At the hostel we relaxed over afternoon tea, then went shopping for food to cook for dinner. S and I could not agree on something we could both eat so he bought instant noodles and I bought potatoes, carrots and a choriço (sausage), which we shared. The Argentinian boy from my dorm commented on girls chopping vegetables in the hostel kitchen: Why do they waste time tok tok tok? I make macaroni cheese, simple! I still chuckle over his succinct phrasing to this day.


After dinner S and I amused ourselves playing billiards until late.

Lagos 2

In the middle of the night one of the (probably drunk) Aussie boys climbed up the roof to bother the girls in the next dorm from the window. They got rid of him after some altercation

In the morning I felt listless and unmotivated to do anything after the tumult of the night before. To misquote Sartre, company is hell, but no company is also hell. But I had to make an effort so I walked to the bus station and checked the schedules to Sagres. I walked to the eastern beach, Meia Praia, took some photos and had an orange juice. I returned to the town by crossing the narrow channel on a ferry.

I had been moved from dorm 9 from dorm 7. My roommates were one Argentinian and later a few Brazilians. The place had quietened a lot since most of the girls (and boys) left. 


At 1500, S finished work at the restaurant and showed up at the cultural centre while I was examining a poster for a concert that night. She had been a lawyer but had abandoned that career to devote herself to painting and sculpture. She was petite, with combed-back hair, and green eyes. We walked and talked on the beach. She said that her dream was running a cafe by the sea. She thought Portugal was being "taken over" economically by the powerful nations of the European Community, e.g. Germany. Maybe that explained the anti-Nazi graffiti, e.g. Nazis are no fun!, I had seen on sundry walls. Not anti-fascist but anti-foreign ownership. But she also thought that the Portuguese were lazy. We agreed to meet again on Sunday.

I felt chirpier after an afternoon nap. The world feels better after a rest; I must remember that. For dinner I tried an East Timorese restaurant, whose staff looked authentic. The Pãu Kukus turned out to be a Chinese pork bun. The Chao Meng de Gambas was exactly that, fried noodles with prawns, only the noodles were flat rather than square, as is normal. The chilies in the condiment dish were fiery and mixed with salt. C had expressed an interest in joining me for the concert, but as the time drew close she was still talking on the phone, to her boyfriend, as it turned out later. So I went by myself. Perhaps it was just as well: the price, 1000 escudos, was ok for me, but might have been a bit pricey for a backpacker like her.


I felt a bit formal in my long sleeved shirt and dark trousers. The players were the Medici Ensemble, comprising graduates of the Porto Conservatory, with a substitution of the pianist Rui Soares da Costa. Some of his vocal compositions performed in the first half were lovely. In the second half, they played lighter pieces by Berlin, Kern, Porter and Gershwin. I was transported to a higher world for a while and forgot my fatigue induced melancholy. Music goes straight to the heart, no matter what style.


I realised that the diary I wrote, the postcards I sent, and the promises I made for later, were all links to my other life, the one back home. What would it be like, I wondered, to be totally cut myself off from that "normal life", say to put my affairs on ice for a year and travel. Was it possible to cut all ties like that?

Lagos 1

Some inconsiderate idiot played a drum machine in Room 6 late into the night. I slammed the door of my dorm in anger. He must have heard and played softer afterwards. I left at 0930 and caught the train for the short ride to Lagos.

On approaching I looked out at the marina from the window and already I liked Lagos. But it was very very touristy. I noticed that the local radio station used the first few bars of Santana's hit, Europa, as station identification. In town I got a haircut and delivered the note that M and I had asked me to pass to S, a Portuguese artist they had met in Lagos who worked at the Hong Kong Chinese restaurant. We agreed to meet up later. I had a satisfying lunch of chicken stew at the Adega Ribatejana.


It was breezy in the courtyard of the hostel and a great place for dolce far niente. Lagos seemed to be a party town. I guess the word got around by bush telegraph.

The hostel was handy to the beach, they even lend you beach mats. At the beach I met C and other beach belles, including two South Africans working in London, B, another German girl, a few bronzed Aussies, and H, a Norwegian girl taking a break in Iberia before heading to Nice for studies.

I joined R and N, the South African girls, in grocery shopping for a group spaghetti diner and helped with the cooking. From left to right, C, H and B. After dinner C brought out her guitar and played a little while B sang. H tried her hand at a tune.

Then we all headed into a music bar in town where a Peruvian band was playing. I was exhausted by the end of the night. It bound to be quieter the next day as the girls were leaving early.

Monchique

At breakfast M and I invited me to join them on a day trip to Monchique. This is an elevated inland municipality and contains the highest mountain in the Algarve. We rushed to the bus stop but the bus was late departing anyway. It was a 22 km trip ascending through the Portuguese countryside.

At Monchique we had a look at the ruins of the convent, then a peek at the church. Nothing spectacular to see, but it was pleasantly cooler than the coast.

We shared a 1000 escudo taxi ride to the top of Fóia, the highest point in the Algarve. It was a misty day so we couldn't see very far.

We walked down from Fóia past rough hill vegetation. By the roadside were eucalyptus, cork, lime and orange trees. I think it was the first time I had seen cork bark close up.

This is a kite shop in Monchique. Over drinks, M was persuaded by I to overnight in Monchique despite their having to be parsimonious, being poor students. Not surprising, as the town felt romantic and cozy.


So I returned to Portimão alone. Nice couple but it was a pity they smoked so much. I was reminded of this at dinner when I found myself next to a table with two smokers. I complained to the waiter but he mumbled and did nothing. I left without ordering desert.


What a stupid place to site a hostel, I thought, after the 20 minute walk out of town. There were hardly any hostellers that night. I talked to a couple of Irish women and that was my entertainment for the evening. While repacking my backpack I realised that I needed to find a laundry soon.

Portimão

I had some time to spend before the bus at 1230 so I took at look at the markets in Faro. There I saw a variety of apple called reinata which looked like green nashis but were floury and tasted like golden delicious. I also bought a box of flattened figs and almonds at a doceria (sweet shop). It was an interesting combination.

It had been a cool morning, but turned into a hot day. The bus went through Albufeira again going west, then Lagoa. A pretty German girl got off at Lagoa. Pity. During the journey a bubbly pop ditty about a country girl moving to the city came on the radio. No drama or pathos in the story, just a catchy tune sung by, one imagines, a pop princess vocalising in parts, dee dee ta doo. With this limited information I have since searched in vain for what the song or who the singer might be. Perhaps a one-hit wonder now submerged in obscurity. I guess it will be one of life's little mysteries.


Eventually we arrived at Portimão. In retrospect Faro and Portimão demonstrated my lack of research and preparation. I simply picked a few large towns in the Algarve to visit in sequence without thinking about what sort of holiday I wanted. Aside from a few spectacles like the southwest tip of Portugal at Sagres, the Algarve is just a sun and sand region and most visitors go straight to their chosen resort for relaxation. So really I could have just had a pleasant time sticking to the most interesting Algarve town. But the first time through you want to see everything.

After a lunch of Portuguese chicken I walked to the hostel, getting hot and sweaty along the way. Fortunately the hostel had a pool to cool off in. But it lacked deck chairs. On a chance I struck up a conversation with a Belgian couple in the hostel. M and I were Uni students and taking a holiday before restarting studies. We played some pool in the evening as there wasn't much else to do. The place was too far from the town centre and somewhat disorganised. And I discovered in the steamy night that there were mosquitoes in my dorm. This place is no fun. Time to move on to Lagos.

Faro

After breakfast I checked out and caught a metro to Saldanha which was the closest station to the bus terminus. The bus to Faro crossed the Tejo on the 25th April bridge. There was a lot of construction around it, probably in preparation for Expo 98 to celebrate 500 years since Vasco da Gama arrived in India. The theme was The Oceans, a Heritage for the Future. Gil was the mascot. 

Most of my fellow passengers were Portuguese. The woman sitting next to me had a mobile phone, not so affordable in those days, so I supposed that her job required it. Football seemed to be a passion in this country. They played Dead Poets Society on the bus video. It was not as in your face as on Spanish buses. Since I knew the dialogue I listened to my radio with earphones at the same time. Gracias a la Vida, Chilean singer Violeta Parra's most famous song came on.

At the outskirts of Albufeira, where the north-south highway meets the coastal highway, passengers changed and the bus headed east towards Faro. It was a large city with high rises. The landscape and the brilliant sunshine reminded me of Andalucia in Spain. I got myself a room in a residencia and had a fast food lunch of a hamburger and a banana split in the shopping street. Menus in foreign languages were all over so Faro must be a tourist destination. A street vendor was offering fresh pipies with his cry todos vivos! Another was selling chestnuts.

I squirreled myself in my room for a siesta in the hot afternoon and emerged in the evening to walk around the harbour. The cool air was a welcome change from the heat and humidity of Lisboa. Families were strolling on the shopping street. Perhaps inspired by the street vendor, I found a restaurant serving tasty ameijoas (shellfish), figuring that they couldn't mess that up. I shouldn't have, but I had another ice cream afterwards. Back at the residencia, the attached Mexican restaurant was having a quiet night but there were still some customers.

Sintra and Cabo da Roca

Radio stations here played a lot of disco, but I once heard some Gal Costa. The day started cool, but looked like it would warm up. On the way out I passed the luxury Hotel Avenida where birds perching on the neon signs were adding spurious accents to the letters. I wondered how the tracks emanated from Rossio Station, whose entrance looks like any of the other establishments on the Praça. I came to the conclusion that the only possibility was that the tracks burrow into the hillside.


The fare from Rossio to Sintra was a ridiculously cheap 185 escudos. 45 minutes later I was at Sintra. From there it was a short walk to the Sintra National Palace. It was crowded with tourists.

More interesting to me was Pena National Palace, a short bus ride away. It has Moorish architecture and is garishly painted in parts.


It was tricky to find a lunch place, they were all full. Finally I settled for a place next to the town hall. Even so I did not get served until about 1430 when the crowd dwindled. There seemed to be an election on, judging from the posters with candidates.

From Sintra, I caught a bus to Cabo da Roca which is the westernmost point of continental Europe, beating the next contender, Cabo Fisterra (Cape Finisterre), in Galicia, by about 16 km. A stone plaque on the spot proclaims its status. I thought it interesting that people, including myself, would visit a place with nothing much to see but high cliffs just to know they had reached the limit of Europe.

It was a windy day. I must have been in a chatty mood that day, as I noted talking to some Canadian girls in the bus, and Japanese girls, Austrian guys and a Belgian couple elsewhere during this sector.


After Cabo I caught another bus to Cascais where I had been yesterday, to complete the third arm of the quadrangle. From Cascais I walked to Estoril.

At the beach, cabanas serving drinks gave me a foretaste of South America. It was a pleasant evening with families out on the beach.


The restaurant I picked that night was not up to standard. It was noisy, the service was slow, the food was salty, they tried to stick me with extras, and the change was slow coming. I was beginning to look forward to going to the Algarve the next day to get away from the bustle of Lisboa.

Cascais

The breakfast buffet was poorer than in Cannes, but I suppose that was to be expected of Portugal. The day started off with minor frustrations. I missed the train to Belém by a few minutes because I was on the wrong platform. I lost money to a vending machine. The Ribiera market (also here in Portuguese) was not impressive. I suppose I had some adjustments to make, coming from France.

From the Belém station, it was a long walk to Belém Tower and the Monument to the Discoveries. For a golden period in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal, a minor country on the edge of Europe, was in the forefront of European exploration of the rest of the world, then sank back into obscurity as other European powers raced ahead. However one legacy is Brazil, which makes Portuguese rank 7th by number of native speakers.

The figure carrying a caravel leading the procession is Henry the Navigator who provided the impetus to discover.


Although I wanted to continue west to Cascais, there was no station nearby so I had to return east to the station. There I missed the train by 20 seconds because of some elderly people in the queue. So I cooled my heels writing the diary.

I reached Cascais with a train change at Oeiras. When the sea breezes hit me I felt it was worth the effort. The day had started off cloudy but it was now sunny and very warm at 30C. A public thermometer showed 20C, patently wrong. A wedding cavalcade with horns blaring went past.


The pedestrian precinct was paved with striking mosaic designs similar to those in Spain.

I found a barbecue chicken shop and had a portion with piri-piri sauce and a full serve of chips, took them to a park and washed them down with a beer. When I got my order, I understood why guide books recommend asking for only a half serve (meia dose). I fed the bones and a lot of the chips to stray dogs in the park. Not surprisingly, they suddenly took a liking to me and followed me around.

Incidentally McDonalds in Portugal serve beer. Also popular in this country are bottles of Nestea and Lipton. I was so warm returning from the beach that for once I did not mind that they gave me too much ice.


In the evening I took the elevator up to Bairro Alto again and dined at A Primavera. This was a nice joint run by cousins. Apparently Josephine Baker once visited, if a picture on the wall was to be believed. I had the Bacalhau à Bráz (strips of salted cod fried with matchstick fries and egg batter), a signature Portuguese dish. The walls were decorated with frames with Portuguese homilies, such as: O falso amigo é o pior dos inimigos (The false friend is the worst of enemies), Amor com amor se paga (Love repays love). An elderly Portuguese couple at the next table was impressed that I was looking up words in my dictionary and we had a short chat.


Back on the Praça, a street vendor was selling glimpses of Jupiter through a telescope for 100 escudos. In one establishment a dance party was in full swing. One woman was doing steps all by herself.

Lisboa

I started the day at 0500 and walked to the airport, which is just at the far end of Promenade des Anglais. A couple in front of me with too much baggage made me concerned I would not board in time, but I made it. At Amsterdam I transited to a Lisboa flight. My neighbour was a Portuguese woman married to an Englishman. She was taking bags of presents home to see family. Said she wasn't used to the excitable Portuguese temperament anymore. She gave me useful tips for Portugal.

I got some cash from an ATM and hopped onto the shuttle bus to (Praça do) Restauradores. Got some information at the tourist office and bought a map. I had omitted a guide book for Portugal to save weight for a long trip so I had only notes. I started matching postcodes of the hotels I had listed against the map. Ended up in a place in Travesa de Gloria, not far from the Praça. It was clean but the room was stuffy. Later I felt that I could have picked better accommodation.

After napping through the afternoon to catch up on sleep after a late night and early start, I went for a walk in the evening. It was rush hour when I emerged. I walked to the ferry landing on the bank of the Tejo, then back along Rua Augusta, which is a pedestrian precinct in the middle of downtown with outdoor cafes.

I rode to the top of the Santa Justa elevator where there is a platform with views to the hills surrounding Lisboa, on both sides of the Baixa district. The elevators are a handy way to ascend the steep hills.

At the platform topping the elevator is a vantage point and a cafe serving drinks. I took a table and sipped a strong beer in the balmy evening breeze.

There are views to the river Tejo and the hills surrounding Lisboa.


Time to get dinner. This time I took the funicular tram to Bairro Alto where there are many restaurants and fado venues. I picked the Cocheira Alentejana which was a touch expensive, but what the heck, I wanted the Alentejo food experience. I had escalopes de vitela ao Madeira (veal cutlets Madeira style) accompanied by a red wine and a bica (Portuguese expresso).

Then it was downhill by the funicular again. I was amused by a notice from 1927 affixed to the tram with a list of prohibitions: No drunks (i.e. me, hahaha), repulsive or contagious people. No insufficiently dressed people. No dogs or other animals. No bulky goods. No firearms.

At the Praça de Dom Pedro IV aka Rossio, I came across music and dancing. There was a lot of construction in Lisboa for the 1998 Expo. The wine and coffee were a potent combination so I fell asleep as soon as I reached the room, and only showered when I woke up around 0230.