Well well well… this was quite an interesting adventure we had. This port was the only port that we could overland travel to which means we could travel from Lisbon to Cadiz on our own on the land and meet back up with the ship in Cadiz, so naturally we chose to take that opportunity which quickly turned into a challenge.
I’ll start at the beginning, we (a group of 6 girls) hopped on a 6 hour bus ride from Lisbon to Seville a town near Cadiz. All was well until we realized that our airbnb never confirmed us and we did not have a place to stay. So frantically everyone was doing research and calling parents to find a place for us to all stay together. Quickly we discovered that literally the whole town was booked due a marathon that day unless we wanted to pay upwards of 800 euros a night. I was not on planning committee and somehow our best option was an airbnb outside of town which didn’t sound bad until we got the address. That was the moment we realized it was an hour and two minutes away. We continued with our plan and had to take 2 taxis out to El Pedroso a mountain agricultural town with no stoplights, 3 restaurants, a post office, and Pepe’s Pub. On the ride we were going 100km through these curvy roads and I kid you not a huge long horn bull bigger than the car itself is just standing on the road around the corner, we came inches from hitting this huge thing, it was not something I could make up. I thought that was it, we were going to be stranded somewhere in Spain with a taxi driver and an angry bull. We get dropped off and are nowhere near a house or anything, our taxis leave and we are stranded outside of Pepe’s Pub. We call the host and he comes in his car to pick us up and take us to the location. Now before you panic and think we are about to get in a strangers car in the middle of nowhere Spain outside a place called Pepe’s Pub we all make a plan to not get in his car, we will walk to the place no matter how far. But before I know it, this man is insisting that the only way there is his car and my group starts getting in, this is when I start to get nervous. It’s 12am we are in a strangers car in Spain who doesn’t speak a lick of english. Luckily one of the girls speaks french which our host did as well so we did have a slight form of communication. He told us not to drink the water and not to go outside or be alarmed because of all the animals around outside. After a curvy ride up to the house he pulls us into this long driveway with a gate and granted its pitch dark outside so we are disoriented and have no idea what any of this area looks like. Finally we pull up to the house and its a beautiful ranch home and the inside was warm and spacious and it turned out to be a very good stay, we all really enjoyed it once we got past all the other issues. There was a lot of worry and questioning between the hours of 10pm -12am but we are all alive with a great story to tell.
Next day we got the first and only train out of that town and back to the city. In the city we met up with more friends and did some exploring but with our luck it was Sunday and again almost everything was shut down. Here is some of what Seville looks like. We visited La Plaza de Espana, the golden tower, and some other palace thing that I cannot spell the name of. We also had a new place to stay very close to the city center and we didn’t have to jump in any strangers cars to get there.
The next morning we finally made our way to Cadiz which is an island on the southern point of Spain. Here I spent my time at the beach, visiting San Sebastian, watching the sunset, chatting with locals and walking the boardwalk oh and of course eating some delicious food. I’ll let the pics do the talking…
Dubrovnik, Croatia is next!
Ally’s Insights:
- Often times water is more expensive than foodÂ
- Tops are optional at the beaches in Spain
- Pepe’s Pub is actually a very nice place
- Always eat tapas
- Be careful of long horn bulls in the mountains of El Pedroso
- Paella is a great dish to help recover from hangovers
Ally's Adventure Abroad 