A Year Abroad: Lagos PORTUGAL, not Lagos SPAIN.

I had my very first real backpacking experience whilst travelling into Portugal. As Nat was travelling when I was booking everything, I just planned it all and booked it all. My expected small margin of error became significantly bigger and very real when we tried to enter Portugal. We boarded our bus from Sevilla and it should have taken about 4 hours to get to Lagos, Portugal. That morning as we had tried to look up directions from the bus station to our hostel in Lagos, we couldn't seem to come up with a defined location. This all became very clear as to why when the bus we had boarded, and the tickets I had bought, were actually for Lagos, Spain. 7 hours away from our intended destination.
Arriving in Malaga, Spain (one our away from Lagos - we didn't get on that bus thankfully), we realised something was wrong when the map showed us having gone backwards away from Portugal. Feeling extremely tired and carrying my body weight in bags, we realised where we were, what had happened and tried to figure out what to do. We had two options:
Option 1: Stay in Lagos, Spain for the two nights in stead of Lagos, Portugal. Lagos, Spain is a beach cruise destination, so bound to be nice. But, we would have to forfeit money spent on booked accommodation in Lagos, Portugal, bus tickets from Lagos to Lisbon, and we could have to pay for new accommodation in Lagos, Spain and a way to get to Lisbon.
Option 2: Catch the next bus to Faro, one hour from Lagos, Portugal, and taxi it in. This option was a six hour wait until the bus went, leaving at 9pm and getting in at 2am. Then taxi it for the hour from Faro to Lagos. Arriving hopefully at 3:30am.

We went with option 2. Thankfully, Lagos Portugal is a 24 hour party town in the summer, so arriving at 4am, the night was just beginning. We latched onto some drunk Australians, who some how knew where our hostel was and were able to remember how to get there! Success. Bed at 5am.

The next day was much more relaxing! Beach, beach, beach and then kayaking. THIS IS WAS BEAUTIFUL! The water was so green and clear and warm. We kayaked around and in grottos/caves. The water was so shallow at points, kayaks got stuck, etc. Some of the caves we had to lie down in our kayaks to get into as the entrance was so low. It was awesome. We then kayaked to a small beach and went snorkelling.
That afternoon, I had Piri-piri chicken for dinner. It literally felt like my mouth and lips and parts of my face were on fire... It was so hot. But delicious.