(...continued from part one....)
Madrid:
Meeting up with former flattie Georgie was something that I’d been looking forward to since she bailed out of the Godden cres flat to go travelling in March. We only had 3 weeks together, so had to make the most of it, while holding true to our shared values and goals around laidback, go-with-the-flow travel.
Travel Icon: 2/5. Lots of history, and everyone loves Spanish culture, right?
Fun Factor: 4/5. Some people are more fun than others. Whether we were sitting in a Madrid police station reporting Georgie’s stolen wallet, frantically scouring the city for two beds (or even just a wide piece of soft floor) on a Saturday night, rearranging a crazy old Spanish lady’s hotel room so that all her cluttery furniture was stacked in the wardrobe(it made sense, she just couldn‘t reach it - or communicate this to us without flailing arms dangerously close to our eyeballs), we managed to have a giggle or three.
Madrid is an excellent Sunday city - everybody comes out to the parks to watch the buskers, listen to music, go to the markets, or just drink a coffee.
As an introduction to authentic Spanish Tapas, the Sunday markets were spectacular - we wove through crowds of thousands, heading in the opposite direction to the growing stream of people with trays of tapas and cups of Sangria, until we found the most famous Tapas bar in all of Madrid - happiness ensued, lying on the grass listening to live music with a stomach full of goodness.
Grit Factor: 3/5. Within 2 hours of touching down in Spain, Georgie had her wallet stolen on the train from the airport. While she used McDonald’s free internet that night to skype home for family admin support (insurance etc), there were ladies of the night displaying their wares in the windows.
Being on a budget, Madrid was our first attempt at making our own Sangria in a darkened park one night(supermarket wine, fruit, and the trusty Leatherman knife) - but not the first time that we had to play ignorant tourist to stop the police from arresting us for drinking in public.
Granada:
Itching to get to the beaches of Portugal, and with the knowledge that time wasn’t on our side, we left Madrid behind. The smart thing would have been to head towards the border, but we heard that Granada was the one place in Spain that still served Tapas with every drink - how could we resist?
Travel Icon: 2/5. As the last Muslim town of Spain, Granada has plenty of unique history, and our struggling Australian foreign-exchange-student-slash-tour-guide made wandering the town with other backpackers a great way to learn about this.
Fun Factor: 4/5. Oasis backpackers was one of the best places I’ve stayed so far - I love seeing things that have really been thought about and done well, and this place hit the nail on the head, with everything that a backpacker could want. Also, the Tapas and Sangria fuelled lunches that became afternoon tea, then dinner, then dancing gave us a real taste of why Spain has such high unemployment - why would you want to work here?
Grit Factor: 2/5. Lots of fun - clean, easy, but still unmistakenly backpacker.
Seville/Lagos:
Too much time in Granada (according to the waistline) - it was time to get to Portugal!
Travel Icon: 1/5 Other than having a chain of overpriced hairdressers named after it, Seville is just another very old, very cool Spanish town. Lagos is famous for parties on the backpacker circuit, but for me the name means more in reference to Nigerian music of the 70s.
Fun Factor: 3/5. Getting to Lagos was a lot of fun (see below), but by the time we got there we were tired, sore, smelly and hungry. Luckily, our hostel had Momma. Momma was a real Portuguese Momma, who came in every morning to cook stacks of pancakes for all the tired, hungover, or just homesick travellers. What could be better than a stack of hot pancakes with pumpkin/orange jam when you walk in off the street?
Grit Factor: 5/5. Having missed the direct 18 hour Granada-Lagos bus due to a good book and late breakfast, we decided to just catch buses in the general direction of West, figuring that we’d get there eventually. So we arrived in Seville with 6 hours to kill - time enough for wandering, Sangria, buskers, and a bit of a picnic on the river before a nap with the homeless folk in the bus station. After a 3 hour bus over the border, we arrived at a train station that should have been able to get us to Lagos with another few hours of rolling, but unfortunately it was closed when we arrived at 2am. So we set up camp with our sleeping bags and woolly hats on the plastic café chairs on the sidewalk until the sun came up and the trains started running at 7am. Very few Z’s were stacked, but plenty of laughs were had.
The beaches of Portugal:
Since both George and I had been doing the backpacker thing in Europe for a number of months, we were looking to mix it up a bit. We had heard that Portugal’s beaches were worth a visit, but inaccessible by public transport, so we started trawling Lagos’ rental car agencies. After discovering that a car was less than half the price if we booked it online through a Greek company which used the local rental company as its agent, rather than going direct to the local company, we had our new travel companion - (Hyundai) Getz. Bring on the beach!
Travel Icon: 1/5. When I hear Portugal, I generally think spicy chicken before I think surf beaches, though the surf and laid back culture was the closest we had felt to NZ since leaving 6 months earlier.
Fun Factor: 5/5. It had been a long time between waves, so we made the most of the surf - morning, noon, and night. The freedom that comes with having your own car was also something that we had missed, and while not quite as crazy as those of Southern Italy, Portugal’s roads still hold their own quirks and challenges(especially with George behind the wheel).
Grit Factor: 5/5. Problem #1: Where do you sleep when you’ve just blown your entire budget on cheap car rental? The beach! How do you keep warm? Build a fire! How do you chop the wood? Leatherman! How do you get the smell of smoke out of your hair when the sun wakes you up? Swim in the waves.
Problem #2: How do you make it an authentic Portuguese experience? Sangria! We became mad sangria scientists, each night trying differing ingredients and quantities, until we had concocted the perfect blend to enjoy by the bonfire, under the stars, listening to the waves. Ahhhhhh.
Problem #3: What do you do when you finally arrive in Lisbon and check into a backpackers which is essentially a honeymoon suite with bunkbeds? Sleep, wash, eat, and attempt sophistication through a great contemporary art museum and sensational coffee and pastries.
Photo: Portuguese beaches, bonfires, and Kiwi Sangria.
For more photos:
Spain: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=558704&id=808690304&l=1c38ea6e74
Portugal: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=558719&id=808690304&l=39991020cc
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