I rose fairly early with the notion of walking to train station, but when I stepped outside and found it was just as hot as it was yesterday I went in search of the bus and took the easy way. I got there a bit early so had to wait for around an hour, then found my train and zipped to Seville. One there I knew I had a while to kill till my bus at 1.30 so I thought I would walk to the bus station, but once again the sun won... sun 2 Melanie 0 - and I went in search of a bus. I had to walk four blocks to the bus stop from the train station and that nearly killed me so I decided I made a good decision to not walk to the station! So I got the connecting bus to the next bus station and went to get my ticket (which I had checked online there was one at 8.30, 1.30 and 4.30, so at the window they said the next bus ran at 4.30 and I was like nooooo there is one at 1.30! and they assured me there wasn't so I went to the info counter to see if there was an earlier bus and she gave me a platform number for the 4.30 bus...I don't think she really understood my question! So I waited in the bus station with no air conditioning for around 4 hours......
So eventually I got on my bus, it was such a relief to have a comfy seat and air conditioning! And off we went......and 1 hour later the air conditioning died! So then we had to travel three more hours in 30 degree heat! What a total s***ter! Then 45mins before the end we had to change busses and then we finally got to Lagos!
s*** man what a day, should I recap? Bus to train, wait, train, walk, bus to bus, wait, bus, change bus, Lagos! Phew, so surprisingly I was b*****ed by the time I got there, and the map was so s*** I had printed out from the net I managed to get lost walking to the hostel. After standing in one spot trying to decipher my map and directions for five minutes a girl came up to me and asked me where I was off to, and when I told her she said it was not far from where we were and walked me there! Such lovely service, we also passed the cafe she owned and said I should go down for some food later as she has the cheapest meals in town, and I was starving so I assured she would see me soon! So I checked in at the hostel and then headed straight back for a feed which was great and just relaxed for a bit before I headed back for a well deserved sleep!
The next day with renewed enthusiasm for life I headed down to the waterfront and wandered around. I found some people taking boats out to the grottos around the coast so I jumped in one of them and went and saw some beautiful caves and rock outcrops and wizzed in and out of them all in the little motor boat. We waited for a boat to come out of one cave before we went in and somehow he got the engine stuck sideways and he slammed the boat into the rocks with a boat load of people! However it just left a whole lot of paint on the rocks but no hole so they were lucky. It was a pretty funny sight thought (although you could see from the looks on the faces of the people in that other boat they didn't think it was so funny!)
Lagos is such a pretty little town, over run with tourists but still it has a charm and a buzz that makes it quite fun being there. I went and got some food and went back to the hostel just as some new guys were checking into the room and invited me to go to the beach with them, so after a wander around we went and lay on the beach for the next few hours. We were there till the shadows hit us and nearly everyone else had left apart from a group of people beside us who turned out to be Kiwis! So we stayed there and chatted to them for a while about out travels until we got too hungry, so we headed back to town and back to the place I went the night before for more food.
At Casa Rosa they did a thing called the power hour, which meant with your food you could pay a bit more and have all the beer or wine you could drink in an hour......I know, I know it doesn't sound like a good idea but I was in a good mood and up for the challenge and convinced the boys it was a good idea too. So after one hour we were pretty merry, and off in search for another pub. A guy on the road convinced us to go into his pub but as it was full the bouncer wouldn't let us in for a fair while, so he took us to the pub around the corner and convinced the bartender he was doing them a good service by bringing them our custom and as a sorry for not getting into his pub we got a free drink, and then with every pint of beer or cocktail (yes cocktail by the pint!) we got another free one, and then it continued this way to another pub and another and met a whole bunch of ridiculously funny people and another pub......well we got back to the hostel at 4 or 5 or something as no one really knows...... great night though for what I can remember!
However I was still drunk when I woke up the next morning and that made showering very hard but amusing... and then I decided to go out and get some fresh air and try and get rid of my cracking headache and wandered down around the marina. There I found a glass bottom boat tour which I hopped on and went back out by the grottos and saw some coral and fishes which were all very nice, but it was all I could manage... then it was home for a sleep, and then I just took it easy for the rest of the arvo. I went back to the same place again for dinner, and was welcomed like a regular, and the guy said he was dj-ing in a pub last night and saw me in there and how was I feeling today... I said a bit rough and he said yeah you looked pretty drunk....haha what a wally I am!
That night a new guy was in the dorm room from Aussie and we has a chat and he had hired a scooter so we arranged for go for a trip the next morning before my bus. So after a very slow morning we went out on the bike for around half an hour to the west coast to a town called Sagres and checked out the lighthouse and huge sheer cliffs. It was a neat little place and there were even fishermen fishing off these cliffs! I could swear they were at least 50m high, if not 100 in some places! How the hell they did it I have no idea. Then it was time to head back and grab my gear and onto yet another bus to Lisbon...... phew.