Took the train from Faro to Lagos this morning. It takes about 1 hour and 45 minutes and a distance of 83 km/52 miles. Ticket cost is €7.95.
Grabbed some lunch at the harbor near the train station and then walked 15 minutes to the Olive Hostel to check-in. I researched hostels for Lagos and the Olive Hostel had great reviews.
The Olive Hostel was the best hostel experience for me so far! Everybody was so welcoming and inviting. Since leaving Amsterdam, I misplaced my belt (probably because I was packing at 3:30 am in the dark) and have been trying to find one along the way. I asked if anyone knew of a place where I could find one and they suggested a visit to a street vendor that made leather goods. I found him and he had belts! He even customized the belt holes. Funny thing is I passed right by him on the way to the hostel.
When I returned to the hostel, I had a massage with Fiona Maguire, who happened to be there on Mondays (my lucky day!). The massage was amazing! Really worked on those travel knots!
At the hostel, there are people from all over Europe – one finished a hike on the fisherman’s trail along the coast of Portugal, another just graduated with a bio-engineering degree, another person in our group is a graffiti street artist originally from Brazil who travels the world. A wonderful and smart group of young people.
In the kitchen area, someone cooked a pasta dish and someone else made leek and potato soup and shared with all of us. I contributed by doing the dishes. 😀
Later in the evening everyone gathered in the open air common area and played music, board games, and sampled some port wine. The guy next to me was sewing a patch onto his backpack. They had a fire pit going and roasted what looked like buckeyes. I confirmed it was, but there was a European term for it. Also roasted some sweet potatoes.
As the evening went on, I realized that my trip is running out of time and that my planned stops in Nazaré and Lisbon will have to be skipped – I need to head to directly to Porto. I excused myself from the evening’s festivities and booked a FlixBus to Porto and a two night stay at the Selina Porto hostel.
One thing I need to note is that the common area allowed smoking. Everybody I saw rolled their own tobacco. Asked why and it was because of lower cost and lack of additives. The smoke didn’t bother me because for some reason there wasn’t much of it.
Crashing for the evening.
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