Buenas! Back from Lagos, Portugal from what I can assure you was a MUCH needed vacation. I'm sure you're thinking..."what a brat, that girl travels all the time". True. I've done so much sight seeing, traveling, and touristy things the past four months that all I wanted was an actual vacation. One where I didn't have to worry about finding a bus, missing a plane, but just lay out on a beach and catch some rays. Solution = Lagos. If you have never gone...go! Lagos was so beautiful and the weather was awesome. I was alright with taking a 6 hour bus ride from Granada. A group of maybe 150 students jumped on the two charter buses at 6am Friday morning. We got the Lagos around 1:30 after the 3 mandatory stops in between. We stopped at the cliffs just a little ways from our hotel. They were awesome -- and the water so blue. Below there were people on cute little boats riding next to the cliffs, between the huge rocks that shot out off the ocean, and under the arches.
It was a quick stop because everyone wanted to spend their free time at the beach. Right below our hotel was a cute cove with cliffs on all sides and a big rock we could jump off of in front! The water was gorgeous and it was so much fun getting to catch some rays, throw an actual American Football, and relax! For the night we went out to the "Na-Na-Ba" Restaruant which makes a Top 50 (in the world) Burger!!! So of course I got it..and DANG was it good. It was called "The Tucan" and had a giant onion ring, bacon, an egg, and pineapple on it.
Saturday we left the hotel at 11:30 and took a bus into town. Lagos isn't very big so it was a short bus ride. We were dropped off at a dock next to the beach. There were two large sailboats ready to go. We had all you can drink Sangria and a small boat attached. When we got a ways out, we sailed and the little boat would take us through the caves we saw Friday! They were so cool! One rock looked like an Elephant. It was impossible to understand what the boat guide was saying...since he spoke Portuguese. Our tour guide told us not to speak Spanish because there is a little rivalry between Spain and Portugal, since Portugal seems like a part of Spain. The weather was partly sunny, mostly cloudy, making it a little chilly on the boat but when the sun was out it was hot!
When we got back from our little excursion we spent three more hours on the beach. I stood through a game of sand volleyball.....hoping everyone is catching the sarcasm there. Walked on the beach and laid out some! When we got back to the hotel we showered up and got ready to go to: "The End of the World"! In another small town, about a 30 minute bus ride away, there is a lookout point with a lighthouse. Many, many years ago...before Christopher Columbus, the people had thought just ahead of where we were standing was the end of the world.It was beautiful, sitting there next to the HUGE drop off cliffs and the light house watching the sunset. Definitely a sunset to remember!
When we got back into Lagos, the bus had dropped us off downtown. We had followed the guide around looking for a Thai food place. Turns out they were so busy they didn't have any rice left?! So we took the guide's advice and tried out this American style restaurant called "Rockefellers". It was very good! I had some bacon macaroni and cheese. I know its stupid, but I think the food I miss most from home is a box of Kraft's macaroni and cheese! Afterwards we went to a different places downtown. Sunday morning was absolutely beautiful. So after our breakfast we had threw together some sandwiches from the cold ham and cheese from breakfast (poor college student 101) and grabbed our stuff to head to the beach. We laid out for a while and as the tide started rising we were getting hotter and hotter. So we decided to jump in the water and jump off the rock. Brr the water was very cold and the climb up this HUGE rock was hard. It really wasn't a rock. It was more like corral. You could see the entire thing was made up of white sea shells and boy were they sharp. Many people got cut up as they climbed up. I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Now I'm not a fan of heights, like my Dad, but you only live once right? So I jumped!! And had to go a second time too :) But then that was it for me! Warmed up on the beach again, freshened up in the hotel, bought some snacks for the ride home and grabbed a late little lunch of vegetable soup at a local cafe. There are just as many ugly stray-looking dogs without leashes in Portugal as there are in Spain. So we were accompanied by a limping, no toothed old dog who desperately wanted a spoonful. Probably not. I was so happy to see Granada at 2:30am Monday morning. Nothing like a quick 5 1/2 hour sleep before my four hour class Monday morning.
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| One of our tour guides |
Portugal was perfect. All my trips have been amazing and I'm hating that this was my last trip. Granada has shown me beauty, given me challenges, shown me love, and thrown a couple good unexpected punches right at me. There have been days when I look at my calendar and shake my head with disbelief that I only have X amount of days left. Then there has been those days where I'm figuring how many hours of class I have left to go to or how many bocadillos I will probably be forced to eat yet. There are times when I want the time to fly and just to be home hugging my dog Buddy, lifting weights with my teammates, or eating a true farmer's meal with my family. Laying on the beach, meeting crazy fun tour guides and other students on
our trip, sharing jokes on the microphone in the front of the charter
bus, watching the sunset at the end of the world... moments like that I
wish time would stop. And lucky me...this weekend I got what I wanted. As I climbed the giant rock for the second time, I heard an all-too familiar beep coming from my left wrist. Crap. I forgot to take off my watch. The watch that has traveled all over the world with me and more importantly wakes me up in the morning. Yep, I'm just as upset as you are mom because I know that was a nice watch. So as the day went on and I tried to dry it...I watched my watch try to evaporate the salt water from its screen, the side buttons unresponsive when I push them...and then when I woke up for class Monday morning...I realized that for me in Spain, time had stopped at exactly 4:32am.
Thanks for reading...look for my next blog in a week!
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