The journey from Algeciras to Lagos, Portugal was one long adventure, or inconvenience, depending on how you look at it. I had researched and booked a bus that was supposed to go directly there, albeit with a few stops, including one in good old Sevilla. The tickets were pretty expensive, but it seemed the best and easiest way to do the trip. We were scheduled to leave at about 10:45 a.m. We got to the bus station, the only bus station we had dealt with in Algeciras so far, and to my knowledge the only one this small city had, to discover that the bus to Sevilla wasn't until 11. This made Sara worried and suspicious, and after looking at the ticket I had printed out, she said that we were supposed to go to the Port, and not to the bus station.
I tried to play it cool. By the time we made this realization we definitely did not have time to walk to the Port and find whatever buses might be there before missing the scheduled departure. So I figured if we took a bus only 15 minutes later, maybe we could switch to our original bus when it stopped in Sevilla. It definitely wasn't ideal, but I didn't want us to waste more worry over it than we needed to, so we rode the bus to Sevilla and agreed to sort it out when we got there.
Unfortunately, we were up for another frustration when we arrived. Well, several actually. There was some sort of demonstration, art project or (most likely) general transportation strike going on in Sevilla that day. There were hundreds of taxis just sitting empty in the streets. Also, there are two bus stations on opposite ends of town in Sevilla. One is right near where my apartment had been and sends out buses to other countries and far away places. The other is for local and regional buses. Our bus from Algeciras went to the latter, and our bus to Portugal was going to leave from the former. So we hiked across town with all our bags to try and figure out how to get to Lagos.
We then had another couple of stress-filled hours while we waited at the bus port, not sure if the tickets we had would get us onto the bus we needed, or when exactly that bus would roll up. Our original bus was supposed to get us to Faro (a town within a short cheap train ride of Lagos) at around 4:30. We didn't actually board a bus in Sevilla until 4. We finally got to Lagos around 8 or 9. But once there, all our problems were solved. Our hostel hostess Marie picked us up at the train station in her car and drove us back to her house/guest house. This was by far the nicest hostel I have ever stayed in. It was a big, cozy, comfortable, impeccable, lovely house. We were the only guests the night we arrived, so we got our pick of rooms between a slightly bigger one and a smaller one with sole access to the chill-out area on the roof (from whence there was a view of the ocean). This place also had a kitchen and a living room with active fireplace, computer with internet, TV with cable and movies. It was pretty fantastic, especially the first 24 hours when we had the whole place to ourselves.
We began exploring Lagos the next afternoon. It was a beautiful little town--full of boats, right on a gorgeous coast full of grottos, colorful cliff and cave formations and beaches. It was clearly a popular tourist destination as such a beach town, but it was not touristy in any of the ways I object to. This may have had much to do with it being the off-season. But it was not crowded or kitchy and I didn't feel like everyone was trying to sell me something. It was just a nice place to visit.
Before getting there Sara and I had talked about treating ourselves to a horseback-riding adventure. After consulting Marie, however, we decided it was too expensive and difficult to get there because we didn't have a car, and we were better off going on a guided boat tour of the grottos. We did that and it was really beautiful and epic. We took a LOT of pictures. And that was the main thing we did while we were there. The rest of the time we just relaxed. We went grocery shopping and made ourselves some food, we went out a few times, we walked on the beach and marina and we snuggled by the fireplace. We even chatted with some Americans who were doing a masters/teaching program in Madrid, but were spending their weekend at our hostel in Portugal.
Lagos was lovely and we were sad to head out after 3 nights. But we did all the same, and caught a bus to Lisbon (after yet another small transportation misadventure).
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