Day 1:
Arriving in Madrid
Day 2: Madrid to Toledo to Cordoba
Day 3: Cordoba to Granada
Day 4: Granada to Costa del Sol
Day 5: Costa del Sol
Day 6: Costa del Sol to Gibraltar to Seville
Day 7: Seville
Day 8: Seville to Lisbon
Day 9: Lisbon
Day 10: Lisbon to Salamanca
Day 11: Salamanca to Madrid
Day 12: Madrid
Day 13: Madrid (extra day after tour ends)
The Toronto Reunion (plus additional links)
Sign my Guestbook
View my Guestbook
The shrine of Fatima
Wednesday, September 6, 2000
After a relatively decent breakfast, we were back on our bus, on our way out of Portugal, with a stop in Fatima. Despite the previous night not being a very active one for most, there were quite a number of people with their eyes closed very soon after we started on our way. For instance, when I got on the bus, Mandy, in the seat behind me, was all ready to slumber, her travel pillow around her neck, the sunglasses on, seat reclined and window drapes drawn closed. Many did the same when the bus got moving. Mandy's roommate, Magda, sat down beside her, took out a pair of hairpins and used them to hold the window drapes on the bus together to prevent any bright sunlight from getting in from between the cracks. She then said to me facetiously, "And guys say girls aren't good for anything." She then promptly wrapped herself in a sweater, even covering her head and curled up in her seat. Today was going to be our longest day on the bus, so everyone was getting prepared to get some well-deserved rest. Jacquie put on the last ten minutes or so of There's Something About Mary, which we didn't have time to finish seeing on our drive into Lisbon. Elena was also the latest to blame me for spreading my cold to her, and the second Torontonian to do so.
After a bit more than an hour, we stopped in the small town of Fatima to see the religious shrine, erected in honour of three children who had seen the image of the Virgin Mary. To this day, it is a very sacred and religious shrine. Some people could be seen walking on their knees, along a path to the cathedral. The square was huge, very reminiscent of St. Peter's Square in The Vatican.
In a complete turnaround, we were then headed a little further into town for port tasting. We entered a small port and wine store, were shown a short video on the manufacture of local port, then given a chance to taste various flavours of port. Some cringed at the taste of some of the port, whether it was the flavour or the high alcohol content. A few people even admitted to feeling a bit tipsy afterwards.
Tasting port: (Back row: Magda, Eric, Mandy, Me, Roni; Front row: Delia,
Mary Cris, Alex, Kevin)
After the opportunity to purchase bottles of port, we were back on the bus and on our way back into Spain. We had a stop for lunch at a self-serve restaurant, with our last chance to spend our Portuguese escudos, before we were back on the bus for a three hour drive to Salamanca. To pass the time, Jacquie again put on another movie; this time, it was The Matrix. Surprisingly, many people were able to fall soundly asleep despite the loud action sound effects from the movie blasting through the speakers on the bus. Even I was able to get some sleep over the noise (I had already seen the movie, so I wasn't missing anything). With less than an hour to go until we reached Salamanca, we made another stop, this time just over the Spanish/Portuguese border (where again, there were no border guards or customs officials), at a supermarket for people to stock up on any snacks to munch on and any water or drinks. We got back on the bus and finally reached the Hotel Alfonso in Salamanca around 7:00PM (with the time zone change of one hour forward). This hotel we were at had only one very small elevator. So what we ended up doing was filling the elevator with as many bags as we could for people all staying on the same floor, with one person inside, and sending it up. I got to be the person being crushed by all the luggage, as the elevator went up to the 6th floor.
Dinner was included at the hotel, but some of us, tired of greasy fries and rock hard bread (remember, we're back in Spain now), decided to forgo the included dinner and go out for pizza, made the Spanish way. Kevin lead us to the pizzeria, but this time, it really was a pizzeria, unlike The Palace incident in Seville :-). Armando was the only one who didn't order pizza; he had pasta instead. The rest of us, after trying to translate the menu to determine which pizza had which toppings, ordered a variety of different types. The pizzas were on a thin crust and a relatively decent size per person. Roni, Magda and I made the mistake of ordering the seafood pizza. A few bites of her pizza and Magda ordered a pasta dish. Roni and I reluctantly ate our pizzas. Of course, we took the longest to eat ours because we had to peel the shrimp that was on our pizzas. There were also crayfish on our pizzas, but one bite into them and I realized they were still raw on the inside. Everyone else, though seemed to enjoy their pizzas much more than we did. Magda gave me taste of her pasta to confirm her belief that the sauce came from a bottle of Ragu. When asked about his pasta, Armando said his did indeed taste like Ragu sauce.
We left the pizzeria and our group of ten was split in half. It was just Armando, Audrey, Mandy, Magda and I, while the others disappeared elsewhere. So the five of us just headed back to the hotel and into the bar, where beer and Bailey's were ordered around. The bar was fairly empty when we came in, and soon afterwards, we were the only ones in there. Somehow, the topic of conversation mainly settled on relationships. We all had only known each other for less than two weeks, but considering we had spent so much time together everyday that everyone was pretty relaxed to talk about something so personal. Then in came our driver, Manuel, who sat down with us for a drink, and he also joined in on the conversation, speaking in some English, but mainly in Spanish. Armando, fluent in Spanish, was able to converse with Manuel and translate for everybody. I'm sure some of the ladies on the tour (who were swooning over him) would probably be jealous to know that Manuel revealed to our small group of five, some personal details of his life, including thoughts on his job and why he is still single. Jacquie then walked in and joined us for a while. With the bar closing, we exited, some going back to their rooms for an early night. Others headed back out to find where most of the rest of the Contiki crowd had gone for the night.
> DAY 11: Salamanca to Madrid >
