BootsnAll Travel Network



Sick, tired, and sick and tired

I know it has been a while since I’ve posted, but it really couldn’t be helped. I don’t know how to even go about trying to fill in on everything we’ve done, but I’ll try to give the abridged version.

Let’s see, where did I leave off…oh yes, Istanbul. After we left Istanbul (without a carpet or a lamp, sigh), we took an overnight bus to Goreme in the Cappadocia region. I thought, at the time, that it was the most god awful form of transportation that I had ever been on. I found out later that it was only the second most god awful form of transportation. The bus was freezing cold, which wasn’t too bad since I was so happy to not be sweating for the first time in days. Sleeping was impossible because we were right behind the driver and he kept us up with his music and conversation. It was wretched, and when we got in the next morning at about 7am I swore nothing could have been worse. Oh, how naive I was.

Goreme was really awesome. The whole town was filled with Flintstone’s houses carved into the rock. Appropriately, our hostel was called the Flintstone hostel. It was so cute. The city was pretty tiny, but that made it easy enough to get around. We spent the first day on a day tour of the area, which turned out to be really fun. There were only 8 of us on the tour so it was nice and small. We went to an underground cave city, a giant crater lake for a swim, and we even saw the area that was used in the Star Wars movies for the planet Tatooine (I’m a nerd, so I was stoked). The next day was really fun too because we rented scooters and took 4 hours to drive around the area, going to a dam for a swim and driving to some little ghost town.

That night we had to take another overnight bus from Goreme to Kusadasi to catch our ferry. That turned out to be the most horrible transportation experience ever. I thought it would be a nice ride since the seat next to me was empty and I could lay down, sort of. During the night, though, after I had eaten these horrible Turkish flavored Doritos, I started feeling queasy. The bus was winding along mountain roads, bumping over huge potholes every two seconds, and it just made matters worse. Around 5am I couldn’t take it anymore. I broke out into a full blown sweat even though it was frigid on the bus, and I barely had time to throw off my jacket before I had to jump out of my seat down into the aisle where there was a trash can just next to me. It was horrible. I was that person who nobody wants on their bus…the sick one. Luckily, when I was finished and I had tied up the bag, I looked around and everyone was asleep. No witnesses, lucky break.

The entire next day I thought I would die. We got into Kusadasi really early and had to walk about an hour to the harbor where our ferry to Greece would leave. I was like a walking zombie. Kerry and Kelly were really ill as well from something they had eaten in Turkey, so we were all three in pretty bad shape. We had a few hours before the ferry left so we went to the beach, which was really beautiful. I slept under an umbrella because I was pretty much comatose, but the others enjoyed themselves.

The first ferry of the trip wasn’t too bad. We went from Kusadasi to Samos, the closest Greek island. It didn’t take too long at all. We had to stay a night in Samos before we could get to any of the other islands. We hadn’t realized how few ferries there were. There were only about 2 a day, and no direct ones to Ios, the first island we were planning on visiting. The next morning we got up and caught the 7am ferry to Mykonos to make a connection to the next place. The ferry ride was amazing. The water is so incredibly blue, and the islands were straight out of a postcard. I was so excited to begin our island hopping. If we had known what kind of island hopping was in store for us, I think we all would have jumped ship right then and there.

We were all sitting on the top deck of the boat from Samos to Mykonos when Kelly said she was heading to the bathroom and that she’d meet us in the bottom of the boat so we could get off when the boat pulled in to the port. Kerry and I were sitting around, waiting for the boat to stop before we lugged our packs downstairs. Then, all of a sudden, we were pulling back out to sea. Kerry and I looked at each other and I said, “That couldn’t have been it, could it?” Well, yes…yes it was. I ran downstairs to ask the purser when we would arrive at Mykonos. He said we had just left Mykonos.

You have got to be kidding me.

We waited up top for a few minutes hoping that maybe Kelly was just taking a while in the bathroom and she would come back any second. Minutes passed and there was no sign of Kelly. She had gotten off the boat in Mykonos. We were headed only god knows where. Luckily our boat stopped again about 45 minutes later, and not 5 hours later like the first leg had been. We got off and ran around the dock area asking about a boat back, but we found out the next one wasn’t until 6pm. It was only 2 o’clock. Crap.

We spent the next few hours trying to sort out how we could still get to Ios after missing all of our ferries we had already bought tickets for. It was a nightmare. We finally found a way, but it involved staying a night in Syros and wasting an entire day. It wasn’t ideal, but we took it. We made the ship back to Mykonos and got back at about 6:30. It was a minor miracle that we found Kelly in the tourist information center just outside the port, and not at the main port where we had told her to wait for us earlier on when she had called my phone. Reunited at last, we were back to three again.

We went to Syros and stayed a night with a lovely woman whose American nieces had set us up with on the ferry from Mykonos. They were so nice, and we even had air conditioning in the room. The next morning she drove us to the port where we were to get the 11am ferry to Ios. We sat and read our books, wondering why the ferry was running late. It was ten till, and still no boat. Then, at 11:00, I heard a horn tooting from somewhere to my left and I look up to see a huge ferry speeding away from us. It was our boat. The horn might as well have meant “HA HA!” That’s what it sounded like to us. Completely defeated, we decided to give up on the islands and head straight to Athens. And that’s exactly what we did. We know when to quit.

Being back on a mass of land was a nice feeling. I hoped to never see another ferry again (although I’d prefer that to another overnight bus). We spent a day seeing the historical sites and melting in the sun. We went up to the Acropolis to see the Parthenon, which was really amazing. It was ridiculously hot though.

After Greece we were to go to Croatia. No trains went there, no buses went there, and it was too expensive to fly. We were forced to get on another ferry to go to Bari, Italy, and from there on to Dubrovnik in Croatia. It wasn’t too bad though. Being on an overnight ferry two nights in a row was a little harsh, though. We had deck seats both nights, which was the cheapest seat available. When I say deck, I mean deck. We slept on our little dirty beach mats on the top deck of the ship along with all the other dirty poor people like us. The first night it was freezing cold and we were so gross and we didn’t find the shower until the next morning. We spent the day in Bari between ferries at the beach. I am amazed how nice the beaches and the water is here. So nice and cool! Bari turned out to be really nice for a town that we just found ourselves killing time in for a few hours.

The ferry from Bari to Dubrovnik wasn’t as nice as the first one, but we all slept better. We showered beforehand when we got on the boat and bundled up for the night. We had reclining deck chairs this time, so we each slept better, too. We arrived in Croatia the next morning and were amazed at how beautiful it is here.

Dubrovnik is a resort town, so there are so many tourists here. It is the most touristy place we’ve been to in a while I think. It is still nice though, and not completely ruined. There is a really nice old city surrounded by medieval walls where we come quite a bit. We have been to 2 beaches here in the city, and yesterday we took a ferry to an island where it was just stunningly beautiful. We jumped off cliffs into the sea and sunbathed on the rocks. There aren’t many sand beaches here, but I am liking it a lot more than I thought I would when I first realized that. The water here is so clear, the closest I can equate it to is the spring water that we have in Florida. It is so deep that you can’t really appreciate how clear it is until you see someone jump off a 20-foot high cliff and see them clear as day beneath the water. It is amazing, and well worth the trouble to get here.

Kerry leaves us tomorrow to go on to Hvar in Croatia, and Kelly and I have another day here in Dubrovnik. We’ll be leaving on the 3rd for our LAST overnight ferry back to Bari, where we’ll take a train to Sorrento. We’re going to see Capri, Sorrento and Pompeii before we head up to Rome to meet up with Kerry and her two friends who are flying in to meet her there. The five of us will be together for a night and then Kelly and I will fly to London, spend a night there and fly back to Orlando on the 9th. I can’t believe we’re so nearly done! It seems like we just started, and yet it feels like we were in Spain years ago. Traveling is weird that way. I can definitely say this has been an incredible trip.



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One response to “Sick, tired, and sick and tired”

  1. dee says:

    how do you go from kusadasi to mykonos? CAn you please post some info?

    thanks
    Deepak

  2. admin says:

    Hmm…I was so sick that day I honestly can’t remember much about it! Basically we went to a little travel agency in a shopping plaza and bought a ticket on a ferry from Kusadasi to Samos, the first point of entry to the Greek islands. It was only a short ferry ride (couple of hours maybe) from Kusadasi to Samos, and once we arrived we went to another travel agency to book tickets throughout the islands. From Samos you can get a ferry to Mykonos that’ll take about 5 hours.

    Be warned…the ferries in Greece are a nightmare! Make sure you’re at the right port and know which stop is yours…they don’t bother to make announcements!

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