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Day 25-30, Gibraltar – Granada, Granada

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Day 25, La Linea – Granada I; ~245km, 5 cars, maybe 3,5h waiting time

T25 La Linea-GranadaCovered in ashes I got up and saw that the smoky cloud was now covering the Upper Rock of Gibraltar. I didn’t eat breakfast, but started hitchhiking nearly right away. A guy from Ireland drove me to a service area where I asked to guys who then drove me to a service area at Malaga. There I met a Polish couple, who wanted to hitchhike along the coast but didn’t have any success yet. I asked people for about 90 minutes until I found a Polish guy who drove near Granada. The hitchhikers had decided to stay and go with a Polish truck driver to Paris the next day.

It took two more rides until I finally was in Granada at 4pm. On the way I picked some of the special cactus fruit.

In Granda a friend of mine, E., whom I know since kindergarten studied for 2 years now. I waited for her at Plaza Nueva with some ice cream. She picked me up some minutes later and took me to her apartment which terrace had a stunning view of Alhambra, the famous fortress.

Together with her friend Borja and their two dogs Lanu and Umbra we went to a small stream to chill. In the evening her French roommate made crêpes with different tastes, very delicious, for us and some of his friends.

I chose the terrace as sleeping berth, because it didn’t get colder than 22°C at night and the view of Alhambra was just too nice.

Day 26, Granada II

We were invited for dinner by two friends of E. and I was shown the town for a bit. In the late afternoon till evening we went across the Alhambra are a bit and rented a car for the next day to go to the beach.

So I enjoyed the cliché day of Spanish lifestyle, siesta, relaxing, taking things easy (and slow).

Day 27, Granda III, beach near Motril; 80km, 1 car, no waiting time

At noon we went to the airport to get the car – a Volkswagen Polo. I was the one who should drive to the beach. We were 5 persons and three dogs – if that was legal, I don’t know, but it was quite an experience.

It was a bit difficult to find the beach but we managed. I just went swimming for some minutes and then searched for shelter from the sun.
E. and her friends intended to stay overnight, but I wanted to return the same day. So when the first people started to go at 7pm I just approached two of them asking if they were going to Granada and if so, whether I could go with them. And well, yes and yes. So E. needn’t drive me to a bus station where a bus would have left a time none of us knew and I saved the money of the ticket.

So I before I returned home, I stopped by at a supermarket and then had a relaxing evening on the terrace.

But this day really made me thoughtful. At home I would have never ever asked strangers that are about to leave a beach if I could go to town with them. I guess it’s mainly because I can hide behind the English language and “just being a stupid” tourist/traveller when I’m abroad.

Day 28 (Sunday), Granada IV

I slept till the heat of the sun woke me up. That was at about 11am. After a fruity breakfast I started a walk around the area. There are little mountains, since Sierra Nevada is not far away. Caves can be found in some of these hills in which people are living. You can see chairs in front of even wooden entry doors, washing lines with clothes on it. These caves are no temporary “apartments”. Since I thought E. and her friends would return late in the evening I arranged a meeting with some guys from the crêpe-event.

The bar we went to served ridiculous sized beer. It was more of a beer shot than a glass of beer. I wanted to go on quickly, that was depressing. On the way to the next bar, we saw some Serbian basketball fans partying. We went into the bar that served Tapas as well and ordered some beer. Among the guys was a Polish girl, A., and because the other guys were kind of afraid of the Serbs we both decided to join them alone. They were already in a good mood and invited us for some more beer. I was soon called Albert Speer or Albert….that’s how a part of Serbs are. When they started to fight each other, because one of the Serbs was given a shirt from the opponent, we left for another location and at 4am I went home.

Day 29, Granada V

I visited the famous Alhambra fortress, but since I’ve already been to Iran, honestly I didn’t find it that interesting.

Since I wanted to hitchhike directly to the Netherlands the next day, I bought food and nice falafel. But there was something inside, that made my stomach revolt again.

It is strange; after all these journeys, where I honestly didn’t pay much attention to what I ate or what I drank – sometimes I drank water from the tap although most people didn’t recommended it – never had any health problems. And now, in Europe, I have problems two times in a two weeks.

Day 30, Granada VI

That’s why I had to stay in Granada. Fortunately E. was OK with it, because I couldn’t have done extreme hitchhiking in that shape since it’s a 2300km trip to Breda.

So we cleaned the apartment, ate some ice cream and looked how I could get to my hitchhiking start spot. In the afternoon two funny friends of a friend of E. arrived and we had a nice chat altogether. But I didn’t join them going out, I had to be fit for the 2300km-nonstop-hitchhiking.

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Photos of the inside of Alhambra
Day 25


Day 26-30, Granada


Inside Alhambra

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Day 20-22, Lisbon – Faro, Faro

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Day 20, Lisbon – Faro I; 300km, 2 cars, 9h travelling (5h waiting)

T20 Lisbon-FaroAs usual I got up at 8am and ate breakfast. Then I said good-bye to O. who gave me some ticket for the tram. I should go by tram for one long stops and the card should have given me a discount on the ticket.

When I arrived at the stop, however, I didn’t know how to get advantage of the ticket. That’s why I just didn’t buy a ticket. It was 2,85€ for one stop, so no. At 11am I finally arrived at a possible hitchhiking spot….but no one stopped. Therefore I walked to an alternative spot which was illegal as one the highway. And yes, I was lucky as in Zaragoza to just bump into a highway employee you told me to get lost.

Very upset I went back, wrote another sign with a closer destination than Faro and really after I don’t know how many additional hours a woman took me to the next service area having a McDonalds. There I met a girl and a boy from Lithuania who intended to hitchhike to Faro as well. So we took some drinks first, the girl Enrika, got hers sponsored for a spontaneous painting.

We had to wait again for a minimum of two hours, but then the car that stopped was at least going all the way to Faro…finally! He didn’t had much space in the trunk so we took our backpack on the legs again, but who cares we were going to Faro.

Faro was the second and last destination were I couchsurfed. A. and A., two nice and cool Polish Erasmus students studying in Wroclaw were doing their internship at an architect’s office. After I took a shower, we went to the supermarket, cooked something and walked inside the huge city with some port wine.

Day 21, Sunday, Faro II

After breakfast we all went to a local market where we met with the Latvian colleagues of A. and A. and their friends. We bought some fruits I’d never seen before and agreed on meeting in the afternoon to go by ferry to the beach, since between Faro and an Atlantic Ocean beach is a natural reserve park.

At 4pm we cruised through the park and enjoyed the fresh Atlantic. At 10pm after we all ate some dinner we met for some wine at the harbour again. We thought we could watch a local international/traditional dance festival but it was quite boring, so we went to take 18 shots of different kinds (regional, strawberry, kiwi and passion fruit) of Poncha instead, which was a better decision.

Day 22, Faro III

A and A. had to work again. They worked quite too hard. I made myself a chilled day. I slept longer, wrote some postcards and was happy to recognize that my boss didn’t had a problem if I came a week later, which I wanted to spend in Berlin.

Then I bought ingredients of potato pan cakes, so that the girls needn’t cook after a hard 12h working day and also the pan cakes taste quite good and would give my stomach some buffer for the next long hitchhiking stage to Granada via Tarifa and Gibraltar.

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Day 20


Day 21


Day 22

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Day 11-13, Ézaro – Cée – Finisterra – Cangas – Ponteareas

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Day 11, Ézaro – Cée via Fisterra; 45km, 1 car

T11 Ezaro-CeeAfter having gained enough sleep I was guided by a local fisherman to the tourist information to get some hints about Monte Pindo where I intended to hike. After I assured the lady behind the desk multiple times, that I will return before she closes (sooner than 7 hours from that time), I could leave my backpack there.

The mountain area was affected by a huge fire a couple of months before, so dead black trees rose between the stones everywhere. On the peak the view of the beaches was nice and it was possible to see even Fisterra (Finisterra – The end of the world).

Two hours before the information desks closed I arrived and could visit Fisterra together with a Spanish-French couple. In ancient time Fisterra was believed to be the end/westernmost point of the known world (Europe and Asia). It was the official final destination of the Camino de Santiago as well and it seemed common to burn a part of clothes, which resulted in many small fires and a strange smell of burnt shoes and T-Shirts.
Because it was Thursday I wanted to check out the festival in Cée. The couple drove me there, I pitched my tent next to a church after I reassured two times, that nobody would care. Unfortunately it was not a traditional festival but only a commercial whoopee. At least when I came back, neither of my things was stolen, which I was a little afraid of. That is one negative fact when travelling alone.

Day 12, Cée – Cangas; ~160km, 6 cars

T12 Ezaro-CangasIt was Friday and I intended to stay the week-end in the Portuguese national park of Gêres. After two rides, I had to walk through a small town and ate two super delicious balls of ice – white chocolate and pistachio.

Later that day I ended up partying with 3 Spanish girls, but before hitched with 5 different cars, went too far and had to hitchhike back. Then Matilda, Moira and Icía stopped. They were on a week-end trip to relax at the beach and do some partying. While we drove Matilda and Moira, who was driving, were already preparing for relaxation smoking one joint after another. First we drove to a beach and to a spot which seemed to be famous for its sunsets. Then we drove to an octopus party in Cangas. Due to the high prices at the party, the girls asked some police men where to go instead. There they ordered multiple different meals: pizza-like pieces with seafood, cucumber called “Padros” (if I’m not mistaken) that can be very spicy or not – it was lottery and dumplings.

It was very delicious and made me full until next after-noon. Before we returned, we went to a bar and ordered Liquor-café, which is what the name describes and very tasty.

We pitched our tents near the beach we’ve been early that (or the previous) day although according to a sign it was forbidden and could be fined with 600 EUR. Anyway at 4.30am it was time to close the eyes.

Day 13, Cangas – Ponteareas; 55km

T13 Cangas-PonteareasWe spent a calm day at the beach and I did a little hiking tour with Icía around the coast. I was sure I wouldn’t need any shoes, but it was a very bad, stupid and painful idea. After my feet were kind of painfree again it was also time to visit a small festival. We made many detours before we arrived there. Then we ate some can food and joined the festival at midnight.

Around 30 people were attending the “festival”, where fortunately no electronic music was played. The place was outdoors. It was basically kind of a parking lot with access to a small river. In the middle were the speakers and the DJ. We danced till the early morning respectively when the music was shut down. But because there was still some cakes and beer left, we were given two litres of the delicious – and in my opinion only real beer in whole Spain – Estrella Galicia (Star of Galicia). At 6am we returned to our tents.

 

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Day 11


Day 12-13

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