Lagos and Lisboa, Portugal: Magnificence at its best

Having passed out on my flight to Lisboa after a late night on Thursday at Oveja, I landed on Friday morning in Lisboa and proceeded to the bus station to meet up with Ian and Mikel who had braved a 14 hour train ride to the city. Although we were supposed to meet at the bus station to head to Lagos together, I couldn’t find them and thus just took the next bus that was leaving. After a smooth 4 hour ride to the coastal town (on which I slept the entire way), I had arrived in the beautiful coast town of Lagos. I met an American on the bus who happened to be staying at the same hostel that Ian had booked us in (ironically called ‘The Rising Cock’) and walked to there with him. I checked in and called Ian from skype to find out that he and Mikel were near and that we indeed would meet up (up until this point I wasn’t sure what was going to happen). We dropped our stuff off, changed into our bathing suits and headed to the coastline for what was to be a marvelous walk along the cliffs that Lagos sat on. Words cannot describe the vistas that we saw. Please see the pictures for a better idea or even google image Lagos to fully understand the beauty that we experienced. It was truly a surreal experience and was so wonderful to be back in nature after really only having visited cities for the past 2 months. This coastline was some of the most beautiful nature that I had ever seen. We walked along the coast for 2 hours before stopping for lunch at a restaurant that overlooked the cliffs. After lunch we continued on and hiked down to a beach for a swim. The water was cold but we toughed it out and went for a swim through some caves and caverns that were right off the beach. Everything was going wonderfully until we got too shallow and freaked out after scraping ourselves on a lobster trap (though at the time we had no idea what it was) and swam quickly back to the shoreline. We walked along the coast, popping in and out of caves before deciding we should head back up, watch the sunset and head back to the hostel. After a quick rest, we headed out for dinner which was delicious and since it took so long got some free treats. I ate bacalao with potatoes, a traditional coastal Portuguese dish. Exhausted from a long day of traveling, we headed back to the hostel and passed out for the evening. Ironically, we were staying at what was known as the biggest party hostel in the town of Lagos. Oh well, the next day was going to be huge as I was going to be going scuba diving!

I woke up early Saturday morning, downed some of the famous crepes from Mama and headed outside to meet up with the dive company that I had emailed the previous afternoon. Elmar, a friendly German who had been living and diving in Lagos for 15 years and now owned Blue Water Divers, met me in his old school jalopy and we headed out. Unfortunately, the ocean on the coast that I had walked the previous day had swelled up and it wouldn’t be possible to go diving there. Our other option was to drive around to the western coast and try our luck there. I figured I might as well give it a try and we loaded up the truck and headed out. It was a beautiful drive through the Portuguese countryside and eventually we arrived at our destination. Fortunately, the ocean wasn’t too rough on this side and so we donned our gear and headed in for our adventure. The water was much colder than I expected and was around 65 degrees Fahrenheit. The first dive was magnificent. We had a maximum depth of 55ft and a bottom time of 70 minutes. The equipment that we were using was unlike anything that I had ever used before and took some adjusting to but once I found neutral buoyancy, it was smooth cruising in this dark and mysterious sea. We swam through beautiful caves and caverns which the sun shone through, saw numerous octopi (huge ones and one inked at us twice!), multi-colored starfish and oddly enough blocks of hardened marijuana. Apparently, a drug trafficker had dumped a bunch of marijuana trying to enter into Portugal and Elmar had found it and turned it in to authorities. However, some still remained and had been hardened by the salt water but still had the scent of the herb as we found out when we exited the water. We took a short surface interval and headed back in for our second dive. The second dive was just as spectacular and we stayed down for 60 minutes with a maximum depth of 45 ft. We saw multi-colored urchins and more caves, octopi and large schools of fish. It was an experience that I will never forget and treasure forever. Exhausted, we headed back into Lagos and I went back to the hostel for a quick nap before dinner with Ian and Mikel. We tried our luck at going out in Lagos but decided it wasn’t worth it and took an early night in Lagos since we were going to head to Lisbon in the morning.

We woke up early and downed a bunch of Mama’s famous crepes and headed to the bus station. After a nice bus ride that took us along the coast and through the countryside we arrived in Lisbon. It was kind of a shock being in a city again after relaxing in a beach town for the past two days. We grabbed a delicious lunch and worked our way through some of the most famous sites in the city. We began by touring the Se Cathedral and walking through the old Alfama neighborhood before heading up the hill to catch the view from Santa Luiza Belvedere and explore the Castelo de Sao Jorge. We packed a ton into the day before I headed to the airport to catch my flight back and Ian and Mikel headed to the train station for their trek back. Portugal was beautiful and I definitely hope to make it back there at some point in the future.