After watching "Into the Wild" for the first time (good movie) I sat back and contemplated the plot. Here was a true story of a young man, throwing caution into the wind and setting out to travel with no agenda. Although the film did glorify this ideal, I did fall victim to the enticing concept of 'driftin'.
Spoiler Alert...............
Yes, I know he died because of it.
Driftin', to me is about going traveling whilst being dangerously unprepared and with no formal agenda. Due to serious time constraints and money, I decided one of the best ways to experience a small taste of this type of traveling would be to trip around the Iberian Peninsula; Spain and Portugal.
So there I was, backpack in hand, a bit of cash in the bank and a plane ticket into Lisbon and one out of Madrid. Purists would say that it should have been left open ended, but gimme a break, I have work to get back to. This was just a trial run anyway.
My backpack, restricted by plane cabin requirements, consisted of 4 t-shirts, 4 pairs of undies, 4 pairs of socks, 1 hat, 1 pair of shorts, a bloody large camera, a toothbrush, and a stick of deodorant. For a 10 day trip, I would like to think that was on the verge of roughing it. I was wearing a pair of jeans, a jersey and an over-jacket as well.
Those jeans lasted the entire 10 days.
There was a slight green air around them by the end of it. It was so thick I actually had to kick through it to get my legs into the pants.
So, we flew into Lisbon, got on the first bus and made our way to a hostel. The hostel was conveniently located in Rapesville (editor note: not actual place) and had me strolling nervously through the streets with one hand over my jacksy. We got to a corner and Renee was making one hell of a racket, wheeling her suitcase over the endlessly cobbled streets. I looked ahead and saw a seedy looking fella with a singlet on and (no doubt) naughty thoughts on his mind. I stopped for a second and noticed a second head pair slowly from around a hidden street corner. The whites of his eyes stared straight into mine. I could read his thoughts... 'Your money, and your ass'
"OK......... our hostel is this way" I said out loud to Renee, knowing full well that our hostel was not in that direction at all.
We scurried off down another path.
"Can you pick your bloody suitcase up Renee?" I pleaded "The rapists know we are coming 10 minutes before we get there"
Suffice to say, with a keen eye and an internal compass you could set the sun to, we arrived at our hostel and locked ourselves in the room, fearing for our safety.
The next day had a brighter disposition; we checked out a few buildings, and made our way by train to a place called Sintra. Despite getting off the train quite literally on the wrong side of the tracks (as per previous paragraphs - just in different neighborhood) we found our second hostel and went out to explore the small town. Sintra became the glimmer of hope that rescued us from an initial worrying time. It is a great little town, centered around a really old palace, with narrow streets breaking off, each harboring small restaurants and eateries. We found a really nice small bar (it fit 8 people) and had a Chorizo sausage cooked from burning oil set alight directly on our table.
The next day was spent traveling to the coast to see a proper sandy beach before returning once again to walk the narrow streets. That afternoon we headed up into the mountains and explored a secondary palace, reminiscent of lollipop-land and ancient Moorish castle ruins that overlooked the town like a vigilant protector.
Heading back to Lisbon, we decided against staying in the place we crashed on the first night and instead we found another hostel and were warmly surprised. By far the best hostel I have ever stayed in. Awesome location, great beds, clean facilities and a really homely feel about it all.
We trekked the quaint streets of Lisbon for the next few days, and I was stoked to find a guy who spent his days carving up foreign currency. I bought a NZ 20 cent piece off him that had been meticulously sliced up to remove the negative space from the background.
New Years Eve was somewhat lonely, but the beers helped sort that out. There were no other tourists our age at the hostel and no one on the streets to hang out with, apart from all the dudes offering me "hashish and cocaine, whatever I want". I must have been approached about 10 times on a 1 km stretch of pedestrian path. I think the unkept stubble I had going on made me look dodge..... Or maybe it was my shifty eyes.
Anyway, after hanging about in the town square for bloody ages listening to some lame Portuguese band sing local translations of Go West's "In the Navy", the countdown to a new year come around.....
And what a welcome they gave it!
It was all done to some outstanding light choreography; arranged in time to the tunes of Michael Jackson and The Smashing Pumpkins (among others), blasting through loudspeakers at ear bleedingly loud decibels.
We celebrated the New Year with some 40,000 others
...............
New Years Day beckoned us to a small fishing village by way of train once again. It was called Cascais and it was a ahhh-some. We hired Segways and zoomed past awestruck oldies who could never figure out how we were getting them to move.
That night, we jumped aboard an international train and stayed there for 10 hours whilst it whisked us across the Spanish borders and onto Madrid.
Madrid was so much different to other Spanish cities I have visited. It had an almost American appeal to it; large buildings and pedestrian links everywhere. The shoppers were crazy. It was still technically Christmas for the Spanish at the time we got there (they celebrate up until the 6th of January when the arrival of the 3 kings signifies the end of the holiday season and the start of proper present giving).
The next few days were spent visiting a few sights, strolling the markets and washing my undies in the shower with me. On the final day we went out to the Madrid Zoo which was by far the best zoo I have ever been to, even though all the animals spoke Spanish.
A delayed plane flight back and a run in with a CHAV (council housed and violent) on the bus from the airport left us both exhausted and anxious to use a washing machine.
I think I will go into another driftin' trip a little more prepared next time
New York in 7 weeks...............................