So my last update was from Lisboa (Lisbon in English). And I feel like its time for another update with some more detailed discriptions of our journey. I will apologize ahead of time for my spelling mistakes, seriously the keyboards here are very hard to use and you never get enough time on the computer, its expensive to use the internet. So, anyway, we have biked almost 600km since Lisboa and the countryside in Portugal was absolutely gorgeous if a little bit wet and rainy. Its also very humid here and that makes camping not so fun. We have camped a total of there nights and each one has been interesing. The first night was in the middle of a field of olive trees (not yet with olives on the branches) and a herd of goats roaming through our campsite, there was also a little dog not far off who would bark just about every second the whole night and it kept both of us up. The second night of camping was the next night and it was behind a school that we both assumed was abandoned (we thought that because the playground was in shambles and weeds and some of the windows were broken). We set up camp and shortly a janitor showed up to clean the classrooms, the whole time he/she was cleaning we sat outside behind the school in fear that we would be discovered and reported to the police for trespassing. It would have looked bad!! Then later that night a man and woman showed up behind the school in our little camp with their bikes (we think they were looking for a place to make out!) and after they should up I could not go to sleep! The third night of camping was just three nights ago in the Spanish countryside just 10 miles or so outside of the huge metropolis of Sevilla. Southwest Spain is pretty flat and as we were biking through it, we couldnt help but be reminded of Kansas or Oklahoma.
We have also stayed with several couch surfers. The first was a couple that lived in a flat in Lisboa, they were very hospitable and dispite being busy, they insisted on giving us big breakfasts. The second couch surfer was in Southern Portugal in a small fishing community of Santa Luzia and he was currently already hosting a man from Holland that was also biking, just in the other direction. He was a 52 year old man on holiday heading from Malaga, Spain towards Faro, Portugal. His name was Cornelius and Josh and I instantly took to him, because our host was busy, Cornelius was able to show us around and hang out with us. Cornelius even rode with us to the border of Spain and saw us off.
After crossing the border we entered a National Park and got lost in the backroads for about two days and it got a little scary for a while. Eventually, we found our way out of the national park/farmland and we made it to Rota (a united states Naval base) and josh was able to contact a man stationed in Rota who was a friend of a friend. We didnt know him or had ever met him. But after being lost for two days, hungry and thirst. Seeing Americans and being met with hugs was amazing. They paid for us to stay in a nice hostel since we couldnt go on base, and they took us out for tapas and pastries and showed us around the beautiful little beach community of Rota. They also saw us off and now we are in Cadiz. That is just a grain of sand in our jar of stories and crazy experiences and I hope to tell each and everyone of you more when I get home!! Love and miss you all.
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