the Hobo traveller. Part One – Portugal & Southern Spain.

So. the trip begins..

I flew to Faro, southern Portugal on the 20th, and headed towards the hostel that i had booked, with the plan to just get there, chill and figure out where i could go. But as i was getting progressively more lost in Faro itself en route to the hostel, it turns out there was a week long, once a year festival type thingo in the town square.. Good timing. It was a good sign. So i found where i was going, dropped off my shit and headed back to the festival, drank some beers and stuffed my face with all sorts of portuguese chorizo, ham and then a whole lotta churras and fasturas. Good times..

It was still sunny the next day so i figured i’d head to Olhao, and jump on a ferry to one of the islands nearby and pitch a tent.. which turned out exactly how i figured. I pitched a tent on Armona, an island near to Olhao, ate chorizo and cheese and went for a swim in the afternoon. simple.. same thing the next morning and then back to olhao, where i jumped on a train to Vila Real de Santa Antonio, on the border to Spain. It was shit and it was raining, so i jumped onto the first bus leaving the bus station, headed to a place called Marim Longo..

This was a funny funny place.. the bus took like 2 and a half hours, and by the time it got there, it was already dark, so i figured that i’d just go and get drunk, at least the football was on and i could smoke inside, so as bars go, the boxes were ticked.. Then it turns out, after 60 cent bottles of beer, and sporting Lisbon scored, this crazy old guy named Javier came and joined me and he sterted telling me about how the guy sitting on the table next to us is the second best piano-accordian player in all of Marim Lungo but it was hard for him, even though he could play the guitar, the pan flute and piano.. Then once the bar closed i slept in the bus stop. Hobo points.

From there, I crossed the border into Spain and hung out in Ayamonte for a bit, and checked in an internet place where might be cool to pitch a tent.. Bought a book, caught a bus to Huelva and from there a bus to Punta Umbria, where i walked (in the sun.. oh yeah) outside of town, past a supermarket, and onto the beach.. pitched the tent, went for a swim and smoked like 8 million cigarettes, read the book and did absolutely nothing. At all. In the sun. The same one i didn’t see most of summer in England.. 2 days fuck yeah.

Bus back to Huelva, Bus to Seville. Found a hostel, booked in for the weekend, had a shower and made full use of the siesta, which turns out to be less about closing everything, but more about going for a really long drunken lunch.. So i walked around town, back and forth through the little streets, looking for that elusive awesomely spanish bar.. the one i’d always imagined. Then i found it.  No ashtrays. No barstools, it only had 20 person capacity, there were two massive barrels of wine behind the bar, bottles with 50 years of dust on them, and to top it off, the barman was an old guy named Pepe. fucken rad.. i drunk with some of the regulars and then there was a bit of a lock-in. great afternoon really.. then i had a nap. Met some aussies, some kiwis, some canadians, some americans and we all ended going out and smash baggin it over jugs of sangria in a flamenco bar.. good times

Train to Malaga, train to Fuengirola.. met my Danish buddy Jakob in fuengirola and went to his place, drank some beers and figured out where we could go, him being unemployed as well.. so we hired a car, went to the first round of the Volvo Masters golf tourney at the Valderamma golf course, Gibraltar – which is pretty much a big rock where you can see africa and covered in monkeys, Tarifa and Ronda.. stopping at a few other places along the way.. Fucken hilarious road trip – culminating in a drunken evening at a really awesome Tapas bar in Ronda (incidently it also had an old guy named Pepe behind the bar) where, on account you can smoke inside still, we had no need to get up, apart from going to the toilet, so for the first time in years, i ended doing that one when you dont realise how drunk you really are until you stumble out.. Shit hangover. back to Fuengirola.. Prawn day. oh yeah..

and thats up to date. ish.. photos to come when im not lazy