New Friends, Lagos Portugal

One of the things I associate Lagos with is a good barbeque! Nothing better than a few new friends sitting around a Barbie with a drink and discussing the places they have been to and have yet to visit.

The Lagos Youth Hostel has been around for over a decade now and has seen thousands of travellers pass through its doors. The spacious central courtyard and adjoining kitchen make for easy social interaction. Couple that with the eagerness of the manager Pedro and the staff to please make it a refreshing stop on the traveller's itinerary.

With over sixty beds in dorm rooms plus a half dozen doubles the hostel is suited to all types of travellers. Age differences seem less of an issue as everyone chats at the free breakfast in the morning and then at the congregation of bodies in the modest kitchen in the evening. It is the bond of travel that unites people here and that is ageless.

The weather had been a bit mixed and with a coolness in the evening a barbeque seemed the best way to round off the Easter weekend. A varied selection of cooking skills ensured much laughter and questioning of the "doneness" of some of the larger pieces. Fortunately we had Ros on hand, a chef herself, to make sure no one was going to have problems the next day. That did not apply the to crazy mixed gang of Aussies, and the stray Colombian who had to get up at 5 am to catch their bus to Seville and insisted on one last trip to the bars before catching a few meagre hours sleep.

I have had many a barbeque and shared meal in places all over the world and it seems that they all share a common thread. It is the most natural of instincts in Humans to gather together for meals to tell stories and socialise. In our modern lives with the pressures of work we do this less and less, losing an important part of our social structure in the process.

Few people in cities and even small towns and villages know their neighbours, let alone invite them over for a meal and how often do we meet total strangers? The few times we do talk to total strangers is when we go on holiday or suffer a minor inconvenience such as the weather and we may engage in a short conversation with the person next to us on the train or in the bus queue.

Knowing how others feel about things and the interaction that takes place when we have these conversations is uplifting, with a sense of shared emotions. Travellers know this. We enthuse about the things we have seen and done and are driven to new endeavours by the tales of others.

I wouldn't necessarily say it would be a good thing to stop a stranger in the street and invite them back for dinner, although there are obvious exceptions! Nonetheless the next time you have the opportunity to talk to your neighbour or co worker or fellow traveller on the regular train to work strike up that conversation and ask the unusual or unasked question. You may get a short response but you will have opened the door.

We need to talk more and understand each other in deeper ways than we do at present. If we rely on the newspapers and politicians to tell us what our prejudices should be we are doomed. By talking to others we strip away the pre-conceived ideas of race and culture and delve straight into the individual themselves.

So pack your bags and get on the road. To quote Mark Twain "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."

Peter J Smith Lagos, Portugal April 2009