iTourNow

First Road Trip!!

@ daveNY37

After crunching some numbers and committing to living out of a car, Steve and I decided to hit the open road.  Our month in Lisbon had been great, but the time had come to start ramblin’.  I was pretty pumped for this.  Overall I love to travel, but there’s just something about adding some wheels to the mix and making it an official “road trip.”  We were salty veterans with this back in the States, but I was excited to see how things would go over here.  Plus there was a wild card this time.  We’d be living out of the car for 5 days.  Ever called a Hyundai Getz home?

Ok, here’s what the plan was.  We’d head-out from Lisbon Airport in our silver steed and drive south to the Algarve region of the country.  It’s right along the coast, and our main destination would be a town called Lagos.  Then we’d make our way towards Gibraltar, hopefully hitting Cadiz in the process (in Spain by now).  After a good chunk of time on the Rock, we’d head north to Seville.  After which we would make our way back to Lisbon.  At that point we had a flight to catch to Madrid.  It was a lot, but we were quite determined.

It felt so good to get our wheels and hit the road.  Penny-pinchers that we were, Steve and I carefully plotted out a route that would avoid most tolls (which I personally thought were outrageous).  Another plus side to this was that it would take us through more interesting territory.  We spent most of our first day slowly making our way down to Lagos.  We didn’t get started until mid-afternoon, so we didn’t have a wealth of daylight to deal with.  We did witness some great California-esque scenery, some quaint little villages, and many random dogs without leashes (this seems to be a southern European thing, I don’t really get it).  Along the way we also discovered what I think are possibly the best potato chips in western Europe…

We meandered into Lagos well after dark and happened upon an Aldi almost right away.  Now, I had seen several of these discount stores back in the States but never really paid much attention to them.  Over here they’re a gold mine and have been regular staple on our trip.  Cheap food with decent selection.  We hit this place for a late dinner and stocked the back seat with enough non-perishable food to last most of our trip.  I really wanted to spend the night by the water so we wandered around until we found a great spot.  There was a furious wind on the beach, but overall the temperature wasn’t bad.  The waves were coming in at a decent pace and making for some soothing audible ambience.  We spent the rest of the evening just hanging out, and eventually hitting the hay.  The Getz didn’t make for the best of beds. But with the windows rolled down a bit so the wind and waves could make their presence felt all night, I was more than happy to catch some Z’s in that exact spot.

The next day we spent most of the morning exploring the seaside town of Lagos.  It was basically a nice walk around town, with a couple historical sites thrown in.  Around lunchtime though, I felt to the need to keep moving on.  Lagos was nice, but we had bigger fish to fry.  Honestly, my main goal for this trip was to hit Gibraltar.  Once back on the road, we made it all the way across Portugal and into Spain in decent time.  It still amazes me at times how easy it is to move between countries when you’re in the EU.  New York to Pennsylvania, Oregon to California.  It’s basically just like that.

We made a couple of quick stops along the way, but I was in the zone that day.  The itch to keep moving was great so we did just that.  After dark we decided to hit Cadiz for a bit.  Right along the Atlantic, it was quite alive at night as opposed to Lagos.  We drove into the old section of the city and just strolled around for a bit.  Everything historically interesting was closed, so we just took in the sights around us.  After a couple hours though I had that itch to scratch again.  I figured we could make it down to Gibraltar that night and spend the bulk of the next day there.  So we did just that.  We rolled across the border from Spain to Gibraltar quite late, and we decided it would be more interesting to crash for the night here.  We drove around for a bit to check things out, and discovered it was a bit challenging to navigate through the city.  Eventually we worked our way to a great spot overlooking the strait.  We couldn’t see much, but the lights of large boats were scattered throughout the darkness.  Looking off even further into the distance, I could see a bunch of lights all squished together.  I instantly received quite a rush…that was Africa!!  The geography nerd in me knew where I was, and what I was looking at.  Even just a few years ago, I never imagined I’d ever be this close.  We parked for the night not too far from that spot.  I couldn’t wait to get out and explore the next day.  Between those thoughts and some great North African music we found on the radio, it was hard to sleep that night.  Oh yeah, it also didn’t help that I was in a Hyundai…

In my opinion, Gibraltar was awesome.  We woke up and immediately went to our overlook spot from the night before.  Turns out that was Europa Point.  In the daylight it was even more inspiring.  From gazing ahead at Africa, I turned around to face “the Rock.”  I was so ready to hit that!!  Ancient caves, macaques, and more historical-old stuff awaited me.  There would be some quite precarious driving as well.

We spent a good chunk of the day taking in what Gibraltar had to offer.  I’m a sucker for a good view, and there was a lot of that to be had.  Up by St. Michael’s Cave the road keeps going until you reach an old military bunker.  The road ends at that point, but if you get out and climb it you’ll have a spectacular view.  Keep an eye on those macaques though!  The cave was quite interesting, and very gorgeous in it’s own underground way.  They also have a theater down there built into the rock walls.  Pretty cool.  Speaking of macaques, they were everywhere.  Not only that but they could get to be a pretty decent size, with a good set of teeth.  We stopped off at this one particularly good overlook, and they were everywhere.  As we stepped out of the car this little guy hopped up onto the roof.  He wasn’t much bigger than a typical house cat.  He was staring at me so I had a little conversation with him.  When I decided to go do my own thing he apparently wasn’t happy with that.  I turned around to enjoy the view and bam!  The sucker jumped right on my back, and began to tug at my fro.  Fortunately, he jumped off before I decided to well, get the monkey off my back…  No harm no foul.  If he had been bigger, whoa!

From the Upper Rock to the Siege Tunnels, I thoroughly enjoyed Gibraltar.  It was such a unique place to visit.  If you’re a history geek like me, be sure and find the 300+ year old graffiti.  Again, this is the closest I’ll ever get to being whisked back in time and caught up in a particular moment from long ago.  We spent way more time up on the rock, as opposed to down in the city.  It looked interesting down there, but it just wasn’t as exciting.  By the way, if you struggle with driving a stick, let someone else drive!  Lots of inclines and tiny roads.  I took it head-on, and fortunately the car came out with no dings or scratches.   I’ll admit that it was a bit of a challenge at times.

I’m so glad that I had been so driven to get to Gibraltar and check it out.  To me, it represented a unique geographic location.  Years of gazing at maps and wondering what it was like wouldn’t let me get so close and not get to see it.  Like a kid leaving Disney World I was a little bummed to have to keep a schedule and eventually hit the road.  We grabbed an especially delicious kebab once we crossed back into Spain and hit the road once again.  There are so many places in the world that I’d love to see, but some stand out more than others.  Gibraltar was one of them, and I feel blessed to be able to say, “been there…done that!”

Now the goal was to make our way up to Seville.  Before we left we had taken some screen shots on my Mac of pertinent routes to be taken on the trip.  The direction we were heading now had the potential to be quite a pretty drive, and it was.  Within a very short time we were into the gorgeous Spanish countryside.  We drove through quaint villages, often with the ruins of an old fort or castle off in the distance.  I imagine that here used to be the spot these villagers would to run to in times of trouble.  Or maybe that’s where some power-hungry lord in his manner started some.  As the drive went on we began to ascend into a hilly, slightly mountainous region.  They weren’t huge, but provided for some really great views.  The road began to take some serious twists and turns, and combining that with the scenery made for some great driving.  As dusk began to settle in we came across a village that appeared to be built right into what was the steepest slope possible.  It was crazy.  If you lived on the edge of town, you literally were on the edge!  I can’t imagine what would’ve have possessed a group of people to build a community in such a precarious position.  Blink twice though and it had come and gone.  From Gibraltar up to this point, it was a leg of the trip where I just couldn’t stop staring out the window to soak up the world around me.  Loved it.

After dark the trip lost its glossy shine and we just passed the time listening to random music and football announcers going absolutely nuts.  About 45 minutes outside of Seville we found a place to stop and camp for the night.  Nothing spectacular this time.  It was a large shopping plaza with several box stores.  The cops checked us out once, and I surprised myself with my Spanish skills after just being woken up.  They seemed to get a kick out us and moved on.

Seville was great, and I thoroughly enjoyed just wandering around the city for most of the day.  I did have one major priority though before said wandering began.  I had to get into the Cathedral and see Christopher Columbus’ tomb.  See, history excites me quite a bit (if you haven’t picked-up on this by now).  The idea of seeing this was really floating my boat.  I mean, talk about a guy that lived a full life.  All implications of his actions aside, the dude had to have guts to do what he did.  The “exploring” I’m doing would probably just make him chuckle.  I’d love to have had a conversation with him about it.  Man, where’s the DeLorean when you need it…

After Seville we just made our way back to Lisbon.  There was a stop at a chapel made of human bones, but it left a sick feeling in my stomach so I’m leaving that one alone.  To both of us the trip was a rousing success.  It was basically the prototype for others that were soon to come.  Eh, what’s 5 days straight of living out of a car?  I can handle more, bring it on!!