nearby. Tall phallic statues 
gazing out to sea watched over me during the night. Wrote a postcard to a graduate student back home... Thought about the explorers that had departed from here long ago, and decided to depart also. Besides, Jesus 
kept staring at me from a hill across the way, and it made me a bit nervous. (Of course, Jesus is a ubiquitous guy in these parts, difficult to avoid when traveling through Spain, Italy, and Greece.) Later, wished I had stayed longer, but I was anxious to explore the Mediterranean coastline before the end of the month, and did not know just how long it would take by thumb.
Bought a train ticket to Valencia de Alcántara, Spain, stamped my passport Saída, and rode the night train out of Portugal. However, the train did not stop at Valencia de Alcántara as expected. I pulled the emergency cord to stop the train and the conductor came running. "Why!? What are you thinking!?" he seemed to ask. "This train is an express on its way to Madrid." "But my ticket is only for the border." Cheap as I am, I was trying to save as many pesetas as possible, thinking I could hitch a ride with someone tomorrow on their way to Madrid. The Prado was my goal. Reluctantly, the conductor stopped the train, stamped my passport, and I jumped off in the middle of a dark nowhere. If only I had known what was in store for me tomorrow, I would smartly have kept quiet and slept on to Madrid.
