Hands down, my favorite part of my trip so far was the time I spent in Sagres. Here’s how it went down…
On my bus from Lagos to Sagres, I was sitting behind a German backpacker named Eli. Eli had just come from a music festival and also had a tent that he was eager to use. I told him about a campsite that the guy who gave me my tent told me about, and he agreed that we should head there from the bus. We were dropped off on the main street of a sleepy surf town, only to discover that the campsite we wanted to go to was 3km away – too far to trek with our heavy backpacks. We stopped in a surf shop/hipstery surf cafe, and they suggested that since we had tents, we just camp on the beach. Duh! They let us leave our stuff at the cafe while we went to scope out the two beaches in Sagres.
We came upon the second beach about an hour before sunset, and I immediately had good vibes about the spot. One half of the beach was quite populated, but I saw that if you climbed over a few boulders all the way to the right, it looked like there was another beach on the other side that could be a perfect spot for camping. I started climbing over, and was confronted with a gorgous sunset over a deserted beach with really cool rock formations. Eli agreed it would be a good place, but the only problem was when the tide came in at night, it looked like it would come all the way up to the cliffs lining the beach and wash away our tent. However, I spotted a rock at the foot of the cliffs that was completely flat on top, and the perfect size for a tent, so it was settled – we would pitch a tent on top of the rock. Yay adventure!
We went back to the surf cafe to grab our stuff, and then stopped by the grocery store to get food and wine/beer. By the time we got back to the beach, it was completely dark out, and we still had to trek over the water and rocks to get to our “campsite”. Luckily, I had a headlamp in my bag and Nikes on my feet, so it really wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. We set up the tent on top of the rock, with the front unzipped so that we could dangle our feet out and look at the stars. I haven’t seen stars like that in years.
The next morning I woke up early, went for a morning swim, and did some “yoga” (lying down in the sand and humming Enya) while I waited for Eli to wake up. Just as he was climbing out of the tent, a lifeguard came over and scolded us for camping there and told us we had to leave. Oooookay. We set off in search of a hostel with empty rooms.
Sagres is not touristy at all, which was an amazing break from the rest of Portugal which had been buzzing with people on summer holidays. Sagres is just a surf town with houses for rent and a few surf hostels, but it definitely didn’t have a ton of accomodation. We checked the hostels but they were all booked, and finally I found myself pleading with the receptionist at the Sagres Natura surf hostel to let us sleep in the hammocks hung on their patio for 10 euros a night. She agreed, and we had accomodation.
I can’t put into words what I loved about the four days I spent at Sagres Natura. I think it was the people and the chill atmosphere, and just going with the flow each day. Everyone there was amazing, and no one seemed to mind that I had created a mess of clothes and shoes in the common room/my bedroom. Everyone at the hostel hung out together, and I kept those who weren’t surfing company on the beach during surf lessons. Each evening, everyone would break into the abandoned building accross the street to watch the sun set from the roof. This was definitely the creepiest abandoned building I’ve ever been in. There’s a decomposing cat on the floor to your left when you walk in, and the word “MURDER” is spraypainted on the wall with an arrow pointing up the stairs.
After sunset, it was off to one of the three bars in Sagres (all in a row) for extremely cheap beers and good music.
The communal, home-y feeling of Sagres Natura really resonated with me, and I’m hoping I get the same thing at my surf camp in Bali!