So to catch up on my weekend trips (because as far as you all know I’ve only been to the beaches in Huelva), way back toward the end of October (weekend before Halloween to be exact) I hopped on a bus with some friends and headed to Lagos, Portugal. The trip from Huelva to Lagos takes a little under 2 hours by car, but when you’re at the mercy of the Damas bus company it ends up being 4 hours. Throw in a ridiculously sick little kid sniffling and sneezing in the seat in front of you and a couple making out and groping each other in the seat behind you and you end up with pretty much the most vomit-inducing bus ride ever. Oh and I almost forgot, to top it off the little kid’s seat was reclined–really? It’s necessary that a 4-year-old whose feet don’t even reach the floor lean back to go to sleep? Cool, thanks.

But then we got to Lagos and all was forgotten (except the hint of a sore throat I had just from sitting in the proximity of the sick child thinking I was going to contract his [probable] swine flu). Lagos was gorgeous: beautiful blue skies, warm sunny 80-degree weather. And it turns out almost everyone there speaks English. That was quite a relief seeing as how I don’t know a word of Portugese. We were actually told NOT to speak Spanish because even though they’re neighbors the Portugese and Spanish don’t like each other so they don’t bother to learn each other’s languages. But most Portugese people do learn English.

Lagos is also a haven for wanderers from Australia and New Zealand, we met many Australians and Kiwis who worked at our hostel and in the bars and we seemed to see them everywhere. And randomly, there was one girl who worked at (maybe co-owned?) our hostel who was from Morristown, New Jersey. So her and I bonded over our love for Jersey. She’s been living in Lagos for 10 years. And she had a strange accent, almost British but not quite. I could barely tell she was from America, let alone from Jersesy.

The first night we went to a local mom-and-pop restaurant for dinner. It was some of the most delicious food I’ve had in my life. At first we were each going to order our own dishes, but the waiter convinced us to rethink that decision and it’s a good thing we did because the portions were massive.

our delicious Portugese-style pork and potatoes, mmmm

One of the girls, Amanda, and I shared a plate of Portugese-style pork and friend potatoes. We complemented our scrumptious meal with three pitchers of sangria, which was also quite tasty. After dinner we went out to some of the bars in Lagos, where we met mostly British people or other Americans. Before we went out there had been talk of keeping it low key because we planned on doing a boat trip to see the caves and grottos on Saturday. But since the first bar we went to, Johnnos, gave us shots with every drink we ordered the night got pretty sloppy pretty quickly. We ended up at one of the clubs until 4am… so much for a low-key night.

Saturday morning we had by far the best breakfast I’ve had since leaving home. Not surprisingly, it was similiar to what you would get in a diner in the U.S.: two eggs over easy, bacon, hash browns, and pancakes. It was sooooo good. (So good that we went back on Sunday and ate it again.) I didn’t realize how much I had missed the occasional bacon and eggs breakfast until I had a taste of it again.

After breakfast we strolled along the water to the port area where we arranged a boat tour to take the six of us on a trip along the coast to see the grottos and caves. The boat tour was AMAZING! We had a great time. The scenery was breathtaking: the coast is made up of gorgeous cliffs with a bunch of grottos and caves. The boat went into these little caves where it seemed like we weren’t going to fit. It was very cool. I’m going to post some of the pictures, but I truly don’t think they do it justice.

At the end of the boat ride three of us went swimming off the boat out in the middle of the water. We did a countdown and all jumped in at the same time. Which was a good idea, because if I had watched anyone else jump in before me, I wouldn’t have gone in–the water was freezing! It felt very refreshing though and after a minute or so we got used/numbed to it.

After the boat tour some of the girls headed back to the hostel to nap. Brittany and I decided we would nap on the beach, but that proved to be unsuccuessful because we ended up just chatting and people-watching. Saturday night we had an underwhelming dinner at an Italian restaurant in town before heading out to the bars again.

On Sunday we had some time to hang out before our bus left for Huelva. Brittany, Ashley, and I visited a little old fort on the beach. We sat on the roof of it for a while catching some last Lagos rays before we got a late breakfast and headed to the bus station. Luckily, the bus ride back was 100 times better, no swine flu kids reclining their seats in front of me, and after we got back to Huelva we capped off our great weekend with a trip to our fav sandwich place – 100 Monteditos!

me in the fort on Sunday morning

the elephant/pinocchio rocks

the water inside one of the caves

the house that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie allegedly bought

view from the rooftop of the fort