The Vagabond Adventure Daily Journal
Where Are We Now?
Good to see you! Hope you’re enjoying the journey!
This journal provides you snapshots of our journey as we work our way around the world, never traveling by jet. It’s a chance to get a close-up view of the planet as we explore it the way people did 120 years ago.
Day 565 - Porto, Portugal
Our train from Lisbon took us along the Portuguese coast to Porto, Portugal’s oldest city and the nation’s namesake. This was a local train so many stops were necessary: Pombal, Nazarré, Granja do Ulmiero Alfarellos and Coimbra. It sometimes rattled and screeched on unsure rails, and at other times rolled so seamlessly you wouldn't know rails existed at all.
Prosperous and scrubbed is the way you would describe some towns, others were crowded with trash, unkept parklets and warehouses; some are industrial, others pastoral. Mostly the views from any train passing through urban areas are notoriously devoid of beauty. It's the green open spaces that catch your eye: the sleepy sheep that seem drunk in their corrals or great swaths of green farm lands, or, far off, the sea and it's crashing surf.
Day 564 - Lisbon, Portugal
Beyond the Square and we passed a through slender archway and entered Rua Áurea (Golden Street). Among the retail shops, small mercado's and bakeries sat a stone archway hung with slick, black, rubber curtains, with big white letters that read: "Girls! Dancers! Peep show!" Within I could make out the strains of "I'm never going to love again."
Day 561 - Goodbye L’Austral
It was dawn Easter morning when the L'Austral turned to enter the wide mouth of the Tagus River (Rio Tejo) and dock in Lisbon. The city's mercury vapor lights winked in the dawn as we drifted beneath the sprawling Bridge of April 25th (the name memorializes a military coup that changed Portugal in 1974). Then the ship pivoted neatly into its berth.
For the first time in 21 days we listened to the roar of overhead jets, rumbling trucks, and the urban thrum of the city beyond. The bow breaks of the sea and the high pitched calls of brown boobies were gone. Lisbon's white, low buildings burst bright as the sun rose, and their ubiquitous terra-cotta roofs seemed to open like flowers.
Day 557 - Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
After the red and black tugs haul us into the port of Las Palmas, the largest city in the Canary Islands (100,000 people), we find a city alive with long rows of tall hotels and apartment buildings gleaming in the morning sun.
This is the first time we’ve planted our seagoing feet on solid ground since Montevideo. We have half a day. Not much time, while the ship replenishes its stores. Everyone, including members of the crew, are excited to visit.