Off the Couch and On the Road

After a lazy morning we had a quick 40 minute transfer from Mykonos to Paros the following day, having said goodbye to a few travelling companions who would be staying longer (and who would get to go to the Paradise Pool Party on Friday night, damn it) and welcoming a few who were joining our group.

Paros was much less hectic that Mykonos, more a quiet fishing village than a party island. We enjoyed a nice dinner next to the beach before having an early night. Almost all my group hired quad bikes to discover the tiny villages scattered throughout the island the following day. Personally I don’t believe Greece has ever found the need for any road rules, so felt safer walking through the streets of Parikia and catching the public bus through the rocky, hilly landscape to Naoussa.

Both towns were small and quaint, and I spent the day walking, window shopping and just chilling out which was nice. The whitewashed walls, blue shutters, azure sky and brilliant bouganvillias deserved a million photos, but I held myself back. I think my family are still going through the ‘amazing moutain’ shots of Nepal, so I’m taking a wild guess and thinking shots of random white buildings are probably not appreciated. But I took a few anyway. Just in case.

-Sarah

I landed in Patras one stiff neck and two tired eyes later at 4.30 in the morning, and with some difficulty managed to find the bus station to travel to Athens when most were just waking.

Athens is so different to every other city I have been to so far – wide streets, concrete everything and advertising covering every surface – that the only place I could vaguely compare it to is inner-city Sydney.

The streets however, have no names, and twist and wind as though they never want to be found, and the traffic follows a Darwinian law that could only compete with Thailand (although the Thai’s score points for precision driving, hands down).

I caught a bus to my hostel, purposely missed the stop when I saw the neighbourhood it was located in, and caught the metro to the hotel I would meet my group at the following morning instead. A few euros more for a room to myself was worth any amount of scrimping later (although I seem to be saying that a lot, I don’t think I’m very good at this budget backpacking business).

My island hopping group was a young, mostly Australian (including our leader, Renee) bunch who were all really lovely and fun. We travelled by bus to the port very early the next morning, in the rain, and endured a 6 hour ferry trip to the island of Myknonos. In the rain.

“Think of it this way, would you rather be sitting at work inside on a sunny day, or on a greek island in the rain?” someone said. We all looked at her dubiously. Sitting in our office didn’t cost us a fortune, but noone was willing to say it aloud.

By the time we arrived on the island, the wind was howling (the island’s nickname is ‘windonos’…did anyone tell us that before we got here? Nooooooooo) and it was still sprinkling with rain, though we must have done something right, as after our bus ride to ‘Paradise Beach’ the clouds dissappeared and it turned into a beautiful afternoon.

We did a short walking tour of town – a maze of whitewashed alleyts covered in bright flowers and green foilage – before trying out the Mousaka (a kind of Greek lasagna) at a local restaurant. A few local heros, namely two pink pelicans called Petros and Patra, also made a visit near our table.These guys walk int othe kitchen of the seafood restaurants in Mykonos and tap their beaks on the glass to get fresh fish – the locals love them.

Noone went out until well after midnight in Greece, so a few early drinks kept us going at a bar called ‘Rhapsody’ before heading onto the ‘Down Under’ bar for happy hour with the Aussies and podium dancing until the early hours of the morning at the Scandanavian Bar and Disco.

Because we were a big group the bartenderes kept giving us free shots, so it was the biggest cheap night out in a long time and so much fun, although it was wall to wall bodies and no air from about 1.30am onwards.

The following day was spent recovering at the yellow-sand beaches and getting lost within the maze of town streets for the afternoon. We had planned a quiet night at the Paradise Beach Bar (next to our bungalows) but when we arrived at 6pm and hundreds of bikini and speedo-clad bodies were dancing on the bar, and the DJ was pumping hits 2m from the beach-turned-dancefloor, we resigned ourselves to the fact it wouldn’t be a quiet one after all.

There were about four contiki group there so you can imagine how crazy it was. The bartenders were selling full bottles of spirits in ice buckets andhanding out more free shots to keep the girls dancing on the bar. So we kept dancing and had another cheap night.

We love Greece. We really do.

-Sarah

I suppose I have been lucky so far – I haven’t been mugged, pickpocketed, scammed, arrested or chased by wild animals (man or beast), and for that I am incredibly grateful.

I arrived in Bari from an uneventful ferry ride with the guarantee from at least 3 people that the money exchange would be open (the one in Dubrovnik being closed when I left). Unsurprisingly perhaps, it wasn’t, and there was not an ATM in sight. So I was alone at the port with 3 euros to my name, at 11pm at night with not a bus in sight. Thankfully an older Australian couple hailed a taxi and asked if I wanted to share.

“Um, yes but I only have 3 euros, I just need to get to my hostel near the station,” I said hesitatingly.

They waved my concerns aside, “Don’t worry about it,” they said. “Can’t have you sitting in the dark by yourself.”

We arrived at their hotel and asked the driver how much it was to my hostel. “10 euros,” he replied. They didn’t flinch and handed me a 10 euro note.

“It’s too kind of you,” I said, unwilling to take it but not wanting to be left on a street corner in the dark.

“No, take it,” they said. “Have a drink on us when you get your money and have a wonderful trip.”

I was so grateful I couldn’t speak, and kind of managed to smile and nod, sighing with relief as we sped off that it would all turn out ok after all. Until we arrived at the hostel, an old concrete unit block in a dark alley with no lights. The driver threw my bag out and drove off, and I rang the buzzer to gain entry. Noone answered.

After 10 minutes of buzzing and wondering what exactly I should do, I fell back on the old Penshurst faithful and buzzed a neighbour, claiming I forgot my keys. It worked, and I found the hostel door, knocking and ringing the bell for another 10 minutes before sitting down on the corridor stairwell. I could sleep in the corridor, I mused, at least it’s inside, and it would only be until morning.

As I was contemplating this, a neighbour opened his door and looked at me. I shrugged.

“Where is hostel man?” He asked. I shrugged again, apologising for waking them up with my knocking.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” he said, gesturing me inside his apartment. His wife joined us, lending me her phone to try calling the hostel owner, who’s number was dissconnected.

Soon, they had me with a cup of coffee, a sofa, pillow and blanket, with the offer that I could stay as long as I needed to. I smiled and thanked them gratefully, my head hitting the pillow and sleeping for a precious few hours before daylight.

The next morning, I crept out, leaving a thank you note, and spoke to the hostel owner who was preparing breakfast. He denied that he was in any way at fault, and when I waved my confirmation email under his nose, he rolled his eyes.

“In Italy,” he said condesendingly, “we write our time in 24 hour, so you told me you would arrive at 11 in the morning.” The fact I am Australian, the website is in English, and my entire email was in English did not seem to convince him otherwise.

In the end, I managed to catch a bus back down to the port, pick up my ticket to Greece, and board my ferry without any more dramas. True, I wasn’t mugged, pickpocketed, scammed, arrested or chased by wild animals, but it’s the little things that matter most, and the kindness of strangers that lets us know we aren’t alone.

-Sarah

Firstly, apologies for the delay of this entry, the first draft sounded something like ‘the weather was shit but Split was nice’, and I had doubts as to whether that would truly engage my audience (hi mum).

I left Hvar town in such a mad rush, which is so unlike me, that I ended up on a bus hoping it was heading to the port at Stari Grad and not Slovenia. It didn’t, and the ferry ride was only two hours, which would have been ok save for the backpacking guitar-strummer next to me, who I’m sure was a virtuoso but could only quite manage 3 chords over and over. Maybe he brought his guitar half-way around the world to practise.

The first thing I noticed about the very modern harbourside city was that every second shop was a shoe store. The second the was McDonald’s. Both these things made me very, very happy.

My hostel was in the centre of town so I spent the first afternoon walking through the marble paved streets, before the rain set in (see note above re: shit weather). The town surrounded Dioletian’s Palace, originally built as a fortress, now hosting modern shops alongside temples, statues and Roman ruins, similar to Old Town in Dubrovnik.

The palace was made up of so many narrow alleys, some only an arm’s length wide, that it was inevitable I would get lost – although I had a wonderful time window shopping whilst trying to find my way again. There were 4 or 5 cinemas (Kino) showing new movies in english, with each tiny theatrette showing one film twice a day. Stumbling across one of these in between shops was a real find, and during my 5 day stay I saw Pirates of the Carribbean 3, Spiderman 3, and some really bad movie with Ryan Phillippe in it, for only $4 a movie.

Granted, 5 days was too long to spend in Split, but the horrible weather meant I couldn’t spend any time at the beach, and the only morning it was sunny I went for a walk through the forest that covered the entire western end of town and came across a fat naked man waiting on the track who was definitely a little bit special. Needless to say I gave him the auntie Sarah ‘this is very bad behaviour’ look and got someone to call the police.

Which really pissed me off, because I wanted to visit the zoo at the top of the hill. But on arrival back at the hostel I found a TV channel that had nothing but CSI all evening. Which totally rocks more than the zoo anyday. Love it.

On the morning I left Split, it was hot and sunny, and I jumped on a bus to Dubrovnik, freaking a little when a sign said ‘Welcome to Bosnia and Hercegovina’. I calmed down a bit when we kept heading south towards Dubrovnik, and proceeded to spend the next few hours wondering if I could count it as one of my countries. I mean, it’s not like I just saw the airport, right? I saw trees, a highway, and even a service station with a toilet. I experienced that country, man. If anyone asks me for details I am sure I can mumble something about a bus.

From Dubrovnik, a 5-hour ferry trip back to Italy, and an overnight stay in Bari would prelude my 18 hour ferry trip to Greece, which didn’t sound as daunting as it did a few weeks ago. Maybe I am getting used to staring into space with my iPod playing and ignoring annoying old men wanting to know here I’m from (who cares? I don’t care where you’re from. If you’re hot, then we can talk).

-Sarah

PS Yes, I did buy shoes, but only one pair of trainers to replace my sketchers that I kindly left for some little sherpa on a mountain in Nepal.