Days under the sun - mountains, grapes and fun

Greetings from Beas de Granada

This is the evening of our fifth day in Tom's house, and the last one.

Note of the day: ...

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Eating bicycles for lunch

Vromm vromm

Having a fast lunch

On top of the mountain

Nice view from up there

Want some sun?

A bit of work to get up there

Me and Tom

The house

Next to Buddha

Beas de Granada

Hola to all the great people that read this. Yeah, if you're reading this, you're awesome ;D

Anyways, today on Thursday we left Sevilla and made our way to Beas de Granada. We spent last two nights outside and didn't really get enough sleep and were a bit tired, so the idea of standing beside the road for hours in the hot sun again didn´t seem very appealing. So sitting in the railway stations McDonalds we decided that it would make more sense to take the bus to Granada.

From Granada took another bus to get to Beas de Granada, the little town where Tom lives. He is a great guy how is really open and likes helping people. Got here in the evening and after hiking up a hill we arrived at his place. This is how he describes it: "It's a house in a small pueblo 18 km to the east of Granada. The "finca" is a little less than a km from the pueblo center, with the house set up on a hill. There are amazing views in every direction. There´s also a pool and around 4000 sq. meters of olive trees, almond trees and grape vines."

And all he said is true, it´s an amazing place to live at and to visit. Tomorrow we are planning to go hiking in the hills and climb some mountains, also take some sun and enjoy the pool. So it's going to be a fun day. We'll try to keep the blog updated as well and add some pictures and videos :)

Note of the day: It's okay to take a bus once in a while, at least when the other option is hitch-hiking in Spain  with 45 degrees!

First person view of the pool

Got to love the pool when it's 40 degrees outside

Tom cooked an awesome lunch

Hiding from the sun

On top of the mountain

Nice view from up there

Cross Mountain =P

Chilling at the pool

Cannonball

Sunset from on top of the mountain

Travelers on top of the mountain

Tom making some great music

More of some Tom's performance :)

South-Portugal and back to Spain

Hey everybody :)

On Tuesday we left Lisbon and started hitch-hiking to south. We picked Faro as our destination since it's the biggest city in that area. Spent the first half of the day in the hostel online, so got to our hitch-hiking spot quite late in the evening, at 5 o'clock, but we were optimistic since Faro is under 300 km from Lisbon.

First ride we got was with an older couple who were going to a camping trip. As thought they didn't speak any english, but that wasn't a problem. Second ride was with a cool guy with an airport shuttle who was on it's way back to Faro from Lisbon. He dropped us off at his hometown Albafeira, a little nice tourist city on the coast, about 30 km from Faro.

By the time we got to Albafeira it was dark already so we decided to spend the night there. Slept on the beach next to the ocean. It was cool :P

On Wednesday morning started hitch-hiking early in the morning and, after getting a few awesome drivers, got to Sevilla. Looked around town, but there wasn't much to do since 15th of august is a national holiday in Spain and most of the shops are closed. Found out that even big food stores were having a holiday so couldn't even shop for food. But luckily McDonalds is run by slaves who don't have any holidays, so it's always open (atleast from 6am to 1am).

Later in the evening we went to a CS event and met some cool people there. After that made our way to the railway station and had a good night =P

Today, on Thursday, we'll head to a place near Granada where Tom, our first host in Spain, is waiting for us. Can't wait to meet him, so have fun and we'll see you there :)

Note of the day: Almost being run over by a tractor on the beach in the morning is not the best wake-up call!

Getting train tickets to get out of Lisbon

Gas prices in Portugal

Want to go see a bullfight?

Just hitch-hiking

Erki eating square magdalenas

Wieners in a jar - sorry but that's just cool =P

Albafeira nightlife

Lisbon

Arrived on friday to Lisbon from Navalmoral. That was our longest and fastest hitch-hiking leg of the trip. From Navalmoral we took a hiking trip to find a spot where to hitch-hike at, but once there, it didnt take too long to get a ride. A guy who works in marketing for a chemical company picked us up and actually was going to Badajoz, which is a city on the border of Spain and Portugal. He had to drop us off 40 km from Badajoz though, as his plans had changed and he didnt have to go there anymore. But to our fortune, it didnt take tool ong to get another car from the gas station he dropped us off at. Driver of that guy was actually originally from Lisbon and was heading there for the weekend holiday. So with two cars we got to Lisbon in about 5 hours or so.

Saturday was Erki's birthday and got him some cake and an awesome hat :P

First two days in Lisbon we spent walking around town with our backpacks and sleeping in the Airport, very interesting experience, but now going to airport is definitely our first option once we find ourselves on the street. After second night in the Airport we thought about going out of Lisbon and go somewhere else in Portugal, but as the local bus system was too difficult to figure out and there was a room open in a cheap and apparently nice hostel, we decided to stay for another night. After getting to the hostel and walking around town a bit we actually decided to stay for one extra day in the hostel.

On the second day in hostel, we decided to take a walk around town to find a hat and dress for Katrina and then hit the beach. Our selection was Guincho, one of the best surfing beaches in the world apparently. Had a great time there, swam in the ocean and built some sandcastles. It took the metro, a train and a bus to get to the beach, and the same to get back, but it was worth it :D

On Tuesday spent the morning updating the blog and doing some other neccessary stuff online. But now we will start hitch-hiking to South of Portugal and then back into Spain. Have some cool people from CouchSurfing waiting to host us as well and can't wait to meet them, so things are looking good :)

Hope you're having an awesome summer and enjoying every minute of it :)

Note of the day: Good to chill out at a hostel and get the bags off the back once in a while!

Typical Lisbon architecture

The view from on top of the mountain

Erki and birthday cake

Sending out postcards - keep an eye on your mailboxes ;)

Just a cool train station

To the beach :)

Building sandcastles

Being weird at the beach

A long wait for the bus at Guincho

Hostel

Good morning from the airport

Tram and cool streets of Lisbon

At the awesome beach

Madrid and Navalmoral

To our surprise we arrived in Madrid today, on monday, which is great.

Hitch-hike from San Sebastian to Madrid took about 8 hours and 5 cars. Thank you to all the helpful drivers who have helped us along the way. Yeah we're here now and will enjoy Madrid and the rest of Spain. Hope to meet lots of great people :)

In Madrid we had to stay in a hostel for 3 nights. Unfortunately weren't able to find any CouchSurfers there that could host us. Hostel itself wasn't really the best one around, cheapest one actually =D
City seemed pretty cool, nightlife was active and there was lots to see during the day.

Hitch-hiking out of Madrid was hard though. On the first day we tried to head to west, in direction of Salamanca, but not one car stopped, and as it was really hot outside, we stopped sometime around 5-6 in the evening and headed back to the hostel. Second try was a bit more successful, as we got about 180km away from Madrid and had to stop in a small town called Navalmoral on the way to Portugal, as it was late in the evening by then. Actually the car that picked us up from the road and took to Navalmoral was an small town ambulance, but they seemed to be off duty at that moment. So now we have hitch-hiked on a police car and an ambulance =P

Navalmoral was a nice little town with calm people and warm weather. We took a small walk through the town and sat a bit in a small park near the bus station. It was cool to see families with small children spending their evenings out together into the early night hours. For sleeping we just selected an out of sight spot next to the bus station and just spent our night there, much more comfortable than in San Sebastian =)

Moving from Navalmoral to Portugal went a lot faster than start from Madrid, but more about that in the post covering our stay in Lisbon ;)

Note of the day: Madrid is not the best place to hitch-hike out of!

Cool street in Madrid

Having breakfast before heading out to hitch-hike

Trying to hitch-hike out of Madrid

Yarrr, we need a parrot

Walking around in the heat

Getting some rest after hitch-hiking in 40 degrees

Lunchbreak

Got some cool leche and watching Olympics

Found some snakeskin, looking for the owner

That's the outside of Madrid for you :D

In the ambulance ;)

Nightlife at Madrid Puerta de Sol

In the desert near Madrid

Hitch-hiking on the road to Portugal

Evening in Navalmoral

San Sebastian in Spain

Got to San Sebastian from Bordeaux on Saturday. We were trying to hitch-hike to South-West of France from Bordeaux, to stop in a town called Bayonne. We were picked up by two french girls heading to San Sebastian for the weekend, and as there wasn't anything certain planned for Bayonne, we decided to go all the way with them.

Once in town we took a walk around the center town to find a Touris Information point and got ourselves a map. After finding a map, we headed to the beach. To our surprise the sand area of the beach was fairly small, but later we saw that it was because of the high tide. Beach itself looked fairly nice, but the water was cold. To our misfortune, after staying on the beach for a bit the sky turned cloudy and it got bit chilly. So we decided to head back into town and find something to eat and perhaps a place to stay at.

For dinner we got two packs of chips and some sausages, from already closing Lidl shop. We enjoyed it well and started to look for a place to sleep at. As there were two train stations near by, we tried to see, if we could spend the night there. Unfortunately it was closed for the night, so we had to settle with some benches outside of it. After siting there for a while, decided to walk around a bit and find a place to lay down at. After trying to find a spot somewhere around the train station and the park there, we spoted a church tower nearby. As we had a recomendation at the start of our trip to spend a night near a church, if we had to sleep outside, then that's what we did.

It wasn't comfortable by no means, but we got some sleep, untill it started to rain early in the middle of the night. We quickly packed our stuff and walked away from the church. After walking for a while through the city to find a dry spot to lay down at, we eventually stopped next to the beach on a small area meant for people to enjoy the view over the beach. It was certainly the longest night of our trip so far, but we survived it =)

On Sunday, we decided to head on deeper into Spain. To our misfortune, the weather continued to be awfull and it rained almost all day, not really best time to hitch-hike. As sleeping outside with the rain wasn't an option, we had to settle with a hostel marked down on the map we got from the tourist office. Looking back, it was fairly expencive one, but atleast we got a warm and dry place to sleep at.

Monday the weather turned warm again, so we started heading out of San Sebastian. More about that in the next post ;)




Beach at San Sebastian

Trying to find a host :P

Dinner on our first night

Dinner at the hostel on our second night

Hostel

Complimentary breakfast

Our hostel

Beach at San Sebastian

Enjoying the city and having dinner

Rainy day