A slow morning - we wake up late, grab a round of pastries from a local bakery, and head up to the bus station to purchase tickets for Lisboa. To get the bikes on the bus, we must remove all panniers and detach the front wheels - but at least there is plenty of space for them in the undercarriage, so that we have no problems getting ourselves to Lisboa. We are somewhat sad that we have to cut off such a large section of Portugal, but there are few choices; it is either that or miss seeing Morocco and the Strait of Gibraltar, and these have great symbolic importance in our journey. When we (half-drunkenly, it is true) first imagined this trip, we wanted to circumnavigate the Mediterranean from top to bottom of the Strait. We changed our plans upon learning that much of the southern coast was dangerous to bike through, especially for North Americans; there are large concentrations of unexploded ordnance from the World Wars in some parts, and many of those countries are not on the best terms with the US. Anyways, the choice was clear - so here we are, taking the bus from Porto to Lisboa. We have still biked most of our trip, taking alternative forms of transportation only when we felt it to be absolutely necessary...and as long as we bike 10 000 km, we are happy!
So we arrive in Lisboa - and immediately sense the differences from Porto. Whereas Porto is astoundingly beautiful and historic, the bus station in Lisboa faces a modernized but not particularly striking shopping mall. Beggars make the rounds on the bus platforms, asking for coin in broken English. We make our way down to the waterfront, where there is a decent path for bikes and pedestrians...that quickly drops us behind several automobile dealerships that curiously lack exits to the main road. We backtrack a bit and take that road, which is in dire need of roadwork in several stretches; it takes us past roughly 5 km of not-very-scenic port lands before we finally hit the centre of town. The first visible feature as you take this road is the merchants' plaza, which now houses an enormous statue and one of the local tourism offices.
We go to the tourism office, hoping to find somewhere to stay or something interesting to see. Instead, we find that they appear to be closing up; one man is behind a desk that sells local and regional maps, but he says that we had better ask for something now before he leaves - and then promptly leaves anyways when we don't answer absolutely immediately. The other desk is more helpful, but not much; as in most places, they have connections with some of the hotels and pensions in the area, whom they call first...only to find that they are all full. After much persistent questioning, we finally manage to extract the names of some other hostels from them - one, the Old Town Hostel, looks to be not far away, so we head for it.
As we leave the plaza, Lisboa gets markedly less nice; the roads are in even greater disrepair, while garbage piles up in parts of the street...the buildings are in decay, the drivers rude...the whole place gives off this has-been vibe, the acrid stench of failure in a time dominated by rising modern giants and exquisitely preserved treasures of antiquity...and Lisboa, at least here, seems to be neither. We try in vain to find the street for some time before noticing a plaza that is marked on the lackluster maps furnished by the tourism office - by doggedly following our highly developed sense of adventure navigation, we at last succeed.
Or do we? The hostel is full...but the person staffing the desk looks at us with our dust-streaked bikes, and perhaps he takes pity or something...for there is a "dirty old room" downstairs that might fit three beds. Desperate for lodgings and certain that we will not find a suitable campsite within city limits, we check it out. Turns out that this is the storage room, an old apartment entrance serviced only by an ancient elevator and a creaky staircase...but it is enough, not too dusty even, a working light, and full use of their shower and kitchen and wifi...it is worth it, and so we snap it up for the night. Perhaps we are the only people to ever have slept in this room!
By the time we get all of our things into the room - there is an entrance off another street, allowing us to bypass the maze of stuff clogging the staircase - it is nearly 1900...and we are too tired from our travels along the Camino and to Porto, so instead of hitting the town we stick around the hostel for the night. There is an oven, so we take this all-too-rare opportunity to bake a delicious lasagna that of course overflows and leaves a burnt black mess on the bottom...but we clean most of it off and eat the dish, sharing the leftovers with a guy from Aix-en-Provence (which is also along our route, but not for another month or so!) It is an uneventful night of commenting photos and writing blog posts - for this is the truth of bike travel; you work so hard to see so many amazing sights along the way that there is often no time or energy remaining for a night out on the town. And yet it is worth it to see the mountain valleys, the desert rock faces, the rivers and fields and ridges lined with wind turbines...and you can always grab a drink anywhere; there is no need to go halfway around the world for that!
Tomorrow we start towards the Strait of Gibraltar. A look at our map provides the dire forecast: 600 km over 5 days, possibly through hills and mountains, definitely away from the coast and through the comparatively hot interior. Will we make it? We'll have to - it is our only chance to pass by the Strait and see Morocco and still make it to the Alhambra on 28.7!