I’m recently back from a three-month journey. (Actually 89 days.) This was by far the longest trip I’ve ever taken. Friends and family have asked me how it was to be gone for so long. Was I tired of being on the go? Are you happy to be home?
Here’s my evaluation of the trip.
How did I plan this three-month journey?
I knew I wanted to go to Morocco, Spain, and Portugal. I originally planned to do the Morocco Sahara Odyssey tour with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) and travel independently around Spain and Portugal by train and/or bus.
But as I started to look at putting together an itinerary for Spain and Portugal, I quickly became overwhelmed with options and with the challenges of connecting destinations. Some places I wanted to go were hard to get to. And the more research I did, the more destinations I added to my list.
I came to realize that either I’d be moving around too much and too impractically, or I’d have to go for even longer than the three months I was thinking. And analysis paralysis started bogging me down. It was getting so hard to figure out how to do this trip that I didn’t even want to put any more effort into it.
So I decided to book two more OAT tours: Northern Spain and Portugal: Pilgrimage into the Past, and Back Roads of Iberia: Spanish Paradores & Portuguese Pousadas. And I selected dates that would allow me to include some independent time, before, between, and after, to see some of the places that weren’t part of those tours.
What was the final itinerary?
With the three OAT tours booked, I was able to figure out where else to go in order to string them together efficiently. Here’s what I ended up doing:
| February 10–11 | Fly Guadalajara to Madrid Train to Córdoba (2 nights) |
| Feburary 13 | Train to Seville (5 nights) |
| February 18 | Fly to Casablanca for Morocco tour |
| March 9 | Morocco tour ends in Casablanca; fly to Valencia (4 nights) |
| March 13 | Bus to Barcelona (6 nights) |
| March 19 | Train to Girona (3 nights) |
| March 22 | Train to Carcassonne for pre-trip in France, followed by Northern Spain and Portugal tour |
| April 11 | Tour ends in Porto; stay with my sister who lives in Porto (4 nights) |
| April 15 | Train to Tomar (1 night) |
| April 16 | Train to Lisbon for Back Roads of Iberia tour |
| April 30 | Tour ends in Toledo; fly Madrid to Granada (4 nights) |
| May 4 | Fly to Madrid (5 nights) |
| May 9 | Fly home to Guadalajara |
Did anything go wrong?
Oh yes!
Obviously, some of these were minor inconveniences, and none of them completely derailed my trip. I have certainly had things much worse go wrong in the past. It just confirms that you have to be prepared for things to go wrong when you travel.
Some of these things I don’t like to write about in real time. It’s not that I’m trying to hide anything. I’m not trying to pretend everything is going perfectly when it’s not. I just don’t want my loved ones to worry about me when I’m halfway around the world. And it is also helpful for me to keep going with a smile if I don’t have to deal with concerns from back home.
First day injury
On my very first day in Córdoba, I was crossing the street in a crosswalk, and made the foolish decision to check directions on my phone. So I didn’t see the man coming towards me pulling a cart filled with metal rods. As he passed, one of the metal rods jabbed me on my side, near the bottom of my ribcage.
It was a chilly February day, and I was wearing a sweatshirt which came through undamaged. So I just figured a little soreness and a bruise was the worst of it.
But when I got back to my apartment that evening and took off my sweatshirt, the shirt I wearing underneath was torn and bloodied, and I had a gash about 4 inches long. It took several weeks to heal, and fortunately never got infected, but it was also quite sore. But I soldiered on, as all good travelers do.
Insoles
Shortly after I got to Seville on Day 4, I noticed that my shoe insole had rubbed through. I went to a shoe store near my apartment, and I bought a new insole.
That only lasted me until I got to Bilbao. By Day 47 I had worn through that insole, as well as the insole on my walking shoes. So I bought two more, this time from a farmacia that had Dr. Scholl’s products. These lasted to the end of the trip and are still intact.
Another injury
At a rest area in Morocco, I stumbled going up the three steps out front. Caught myself, no problem, with my hands. Not even a slight abrasion on the palms of my hands.
When I got back on the bus, I noticed a soreness in my left shoulder. It never went away. I should probably go to the doctor, and he’ll probably send me for an MRI, and then he’ll prescribe physical therapy. So I think I’m just going to start doing some internet-based physical therapy on my own at home. It worked when I tore my rotator cuff a couple of years ago (and physical therapy did no good at all).
Sick #1
I came down with a bad cold in Ouarzazate, on Day 23. That was “A Day in the Life,” OAT’s way of giving travelers an opportunity to engage with locals. I decided I needed to skip that activity. I slept in and walked to a nearby pharmacie for some cough syrup. Feeling a little better in the afternoon, I did some exploring in town, but the next day I felt worse. When we got to Marrakesh I asked Abdellah, our Trip Leader, to call the doctor. I saw him at our hotel, and he prescribed some meds, including prednisone, plus some eardrops (he said I had an ear infection). By the next day I was practically 100%. The cough llingered for a while, but I otherwise felt fine. (It was not nearly as bad as the digestive upset suffered by two of the men on the tour. One of them probably missed about half the experiences.)
Tragedy
OK, this didn’t happen to me. It was still (I’m pretty sure) tragic.
I was riding the bus from Valencia to Barcelona on Day 32. As we were approaching Barcelona, the woman sitting next to me got a phone call. I believe she got some bad news. Her mother might have died. Or someone else very close to her. All I could pick up between her screams and wailing and repeated moans of “Ay dios mío” were “Estoy en Barcelona.” I didn’t want to intrude, and I had no idea how I could be of help, so I just tried to mind my own business.
Sick #2
I did pretty well from my return Spain on Day 28 until I got sick again on Day 69 in Lisbon. I thought I had come down with food poisoning, though I ate the same thing as everyone else the night before. Not wanting to miss our day trip to Sintra, I soldiered on, but by the time we got back to Lisbon, I felt crappy again. That night was Home-Hosted Dinner night, and I decided it would be best if I skip that. I did feel much better the next day.
Power Outage
I already wrote about the power outage on Day 78. Luckily, that didn’t screw up too many plans. We were supposed to have an optional cooking class that evening, but obviously that got canceled. Not a huge deal, since it was an additional charge that I didn’t get charged for. And dinner was mostly what we could scrounge from our minibars (which the hotel generously waived fees for). But the power was back the next day, and everything continued with no interruption.
Canceled flight
I also wrote about the canceled flight from Granada to Madrid on Day 84. That was a rather annoying inconvenience, because the flight was at 10am, and I didn’t even get the notification until 11pm the night before. So I had to figure out how to get to Madrid, and I ended up having to fork out a big sum for a last minute train ticket. I’m still waiting to see if I have any compensation coming from the airline (other than the ticket cost that they refunded).
Ride no-show
About five minutes before the train arrived in Madrid (four hours later than I would have arrived by plane), I got a text message from the driver I’d been assigned through Welcome Pickups. He said he was a few minutes away. So I got off the train and waited, and texted him back to see where I should meet him. He never responded, and he never showed up.
I figured out that the Airbnb where I was staying was a 20-minute walk from the train station, so I decided to hoof it. Once I was settled into my Airbnb I sent a message to Welcome Pickups, and they were very responsive, quickly issuing a refund and a credit toward a future ride. I’ve used Welcome Pickups a lot, and this was the first time I’ve ever had a problem.
How was the weather?
Until Day 32 it was pretty much perfect. Temperatures were cool and pleasant, and there was plenty of sun. It never got very hot, even in late April and early May in southern Spain.
But on Day 32 the rain came, and there was a lot of rain over the next five weeks or so. We had a few days’ respite for our time in the Douro Valley and northern Portugal, but the rain came back in Porto. Things finally got better around Day 70.
Until Day 85. That was the day I visited the Prado and Reina Sofia museums in Madrid. And I got poured on during the walk between the two. I probably should have stayed longer at the Prado and waited for the rain to let up.
What was the highlight?
I’ve actually been asked this question a lot, and it’s really hard to come up with an answer. I tried to offer up a list of some highlights, but on a three-month journey, it’s just impossible to narrow down to one or two or even ten things.
Did anything disappoint?
Not too many things were a disappointment on this trip. Perhaps some of the places we visited en route along the Camino de Santiago weren’t very interesting. I have to think there are better places to spend two nights than Pamplona and Léon.
I was also disappointed that we didn’t have more time in Lisbon, Sintra, and Évora.
But there was not single place I visited on this three-month journey I can think of that was a letdown.
Would you do it again?
Yes, definitely.
Around halfway through the trip living out of a suitcase started to feel like my regular, everyday routine. Settling into each new hotel or B&B, and packing to leave became so easy. It didn’t ever feel like it was too long to be away. When it was time to come home, I was ready, but if the trip had been longer, I’d have been fine to keep going.
Were you glad to come home?
Yes and no.
It’s nice to sleep in my own bed. It’s wonderful to see Luis and Taco. But I kept wishing I could see more. And I guess I could go back to the question of if anything disappointed. The biggest disappointment was not getting to all the other places in Spain and Portugal that I would like to see.
My travel motto is, “Don’t worry about what you miss. Enjoy what you see.” Nevertheless, I find myself with some regret about things I didn’t get to see.
And the clear solution to that is to go back to the Iberian peninsula to see more of it.
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