You May Have Noticed...

So I haven't posted for a little over a week. Sorry peeps. I'll probably take next week off too, but check back after that for more travel goodness!!

:)

Love,

Christy

PS: Here is a picture of two dolphins I took from the bow of our boat. Because who doesn't want to see a picture of two dolphins on a Thursday?

Doubt & Renewal

For two nights I stayed in an abysmal hotel in Kusadasi (pronounced Kush-a-dos-uh). I booked that portion of my trip knowing that it probably wasn’t going to be the highlight of my holiday, but it was a necessary evil to see Ephesus and one other historical site I was interested in. I’m not the type of person to do something or go somewhere un-fun on holiday without a really good reason. So as I sat in my stupid little dusty hotel room with a very nice bathtub, but without any hot water (seriously), not even wanting to venture out to explore the streets around me because the entire town was just so Da*!ed unfriendly, I began to doubt myself.

Why am I here? This is dumb. This town is horrid. If this is what the rest of my vacation is going to be like, I just might *SHOCK*HORROR* hate traveling.

UGH.

I have to say that was the first time I’ve doubted my ability to plan a good holiday. I really began to wonder and worry about it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Ephesus was great and worthwhile. But there was really no need to spend so much bloody time in Kusadasi! Blasted Turkish packaged tour booked through my Istanbul hotel.


So to my great relief, my friendly driver Yusef, from my first day in the region, picked me up from the gross little “Dabaklar-4 Star Otel” (That’s what it calls itself. Not what it really is. Well maybe it was when it opened in 1950...) and took me to the bus depot.

Bus travel in Turkey is fairly comfortable and relatively easy. But those drivers sure are in no hurry to get anyplace. I think in the states the three hour drive could have been done easily in an hour and a half. It took us two hours to go 100km. (62miles) We stopped once for a five minute break somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Turkey and as I hopped out of the bus, a WALL of heat hit me like a Mack truck and a voice in my head said that that little place was what hell felt like. It must have been 120F in the shade. (I’m not exaggerating. I’m sitting now on the coast at 8pm and the temperature is a comfortable 102F.) And in that moment, I really, really felt for the Men and Women of our Armed Forces stuck out in the middle of nowhere, not too far from here. Five minutes later and one more squatter toilet later I dashed back to the air conditioned bus.

Bodrum was beautiful from first glimpse. The bus drove along the coast for nearly 20 km and I caught sight of azure blues from the Meditteranean, gorgeous little white stucco homes and fishing boats. I knew in that moment that I was out of the “funk” and safely back in the proper travel zone. 

MYHEAVENSTHISPLACEISGORGEOUS!

I walked from the bus depot 4-5 blocks with my packs to my hotel, Otel Gulec, which is realllllly nothing fancy, but came highly recommded on TripAdvisor. And I was not let down. I’ll take Otel Gulec’s simple, friendly, clean atmosphere over the so-called 4 star previous hotel anyday. No TV here, but plenty of hot water in the shower and a nice big room. And a lovely garden to boot. And not more than 4 blocks from downtown and the beach. And it’s CHEAP. I paid 50 Euro for a night’s stay. Tell me where else you’re going to find a deal like that. Come. Spend a month. You’ll love it!!

I’d come back here and I haven’t even left yet.

Whereas Kusadasi was somber, dusty, unfriendly and stoic, Bodrum is merry, cheerful, clean and fun. Everywhere I walked people would stop me and smile and ask me to take their picture or their child’s photo or a photo with their dog. These people are so friendly that my jaw dropped, and I stared at them, literally. It’s amazing. I wandered down the bouganvilla-lined streets with a huge smile on my face, happily snapping pictures of everything!

And the coast… Oh I’ve told you all before how being on the water is always such a relief to my soul. Today was no different. I dipped my toes into the pleasantly cool Mediteranean and instantly regretted not having on my swimsuit in that moment. But it would have to wait.

You see I leave here first thing tomorrow for Kos, Greece, and I needed to arrange for the ferry ride and see a couple of important historical sites.


1^st necessary historical site: The Mausoleum. The original, that is, as in one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. All Mausoleums are named after that first one. It’s not standing anymore, but you can visit the site where it stood and see some parts of pillars and reconstructed models, etc. 2^nd, The Mydos Gate. This dates back to the 4^th century BC. It was built by King Mausolus to protect the city and today portions of the Gate have been reconstructed. It’s a really cool site to see and look out over the city and the port below. (Photos of sites to come in a later post.)

Did I tell you that in order to access those sites I shlupped myself (on foot) up into the hills at 4pm when it was at least 110 degrees? HOLY COW. I felt as though I needed an IV of water dripping constantly into me just to make up for what I was losing in sweat during the hike. On the way back to my hotel I downed two bottles of water, a sparkling water and a Starbucks Raspberry smoothie thing. (Don’t hate… I’m not a chain food supporter – but sometimes a girl just needs some home comfort/Frozen flavor goodness and raspberry is not a common flavor here. Thanks for taking over the world Starbucks.) I didn’t get to see the cool 14^th century castle in the harbor (the inside), but I watched the sun set over it as I swam in the refreshing ocean next to it.

This trip once again rocks.

Try the Goat

Allow me to tell you about the tiny Greek Isle of Levita.

Located in the Cycladic islands of Greece, Levita is practically an inkblot on a map. It's nearly uninhabited. I'd place it's population somewhere around, say, 6. That's it. One family lives on the island and they raise Goats. And some Sheep. And I saw a donkey (actually I was almost attacked by said Donkey). This island is a tiny little rocky, thorny paradisical getaway from just about anything and everyone. It's reachable only if you have your own boat. That's right, you can't even catch a ferry to this island. And its practically perfect in every way. And it's got a heavenly little protected bay to anchor in overnight.

The one family that lives on the island runs a tiny taverna that serves (you guessed it) Goat. Goat chops. Goat meatballs. Served up with some mighty tasty fries, tomatoes and cucumbers.

So did I eat Goat the night we anchored little Ekavi in Levita's calm bay? YoubetIdid! And it was REALLY GOOD. Who knew Goat was so tasty? Not I.

Of course it might have had something to do with the fact that I had just finished a three hour scramble across the island to what looked like some ruins on it's far side. (Turns out the ruins weren't quite so ruinous after all. What a let down! Brutal hike. No path. Rocks, thorns everywhere. It's the kind of hike where you have to pay attention every second, or you risk losing a foot.) I was famished. And if you're offered a choice between Goat and *Eh*hem* Goat, you'll eat goat.

Except I think I'd eat it again. But probably not in America. Definitely in Greece. Everything tastes better in Greece. Truly. Well except for pastry. It's decent. But go to France for great pastry. Mmmm. Butter.

But Levita... Get yourself a boat and go. Or don't, actually, because I want to go back there and find it just as secluded and void of humanity as it was a few weeks ago.

 The stupid lighthouse/non-ruins I hiked to. Phew!

 View from our table at the Taverna. Yummy goat!

We anchored overnight with five other boats. Paradise.

Kalimera Levita!

I woke up to a bit of sunlight streaming into my cabin from the open overhead hatch. We had anchored overnight in the shelter of The tiny island of Levita's horseshoe shaped harbor. A quick breakfast of Greek yogurt with granola and honey and I made my way all the way aft, and sat with my feet dangling into the water next to the ladder that connected sea to boat. The azure and sapphire shaded water was perfectly calm and the gentle morning sun caressed it, dancing and laughing against its glass surface. The hills surrounding us were a shade of gold. Suddenly over the boat's speakers came the sounds of 80's Madonna: la isla Bonita, cherish, like a prayer. And it was so stunningly, perfectly ambient.

Captain Robin came up from the cockpit and said "Puhfect day, ya?" (Awesome German accent).

The moment froze in time for me: a lush moment of absolute contentment on the water in the Greek isles.

Ya. Puhfect day.

Dislocation

Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes into the sailing trip around Greece that I'd been planning since last December and I almost mucked things up royally! We had just got under way and unfurled the mainsail after leaving Kos Harbor. (By We I refer to myself and my boatmates: Skipper Robin- a super-chill German surfer turned sailor, Carrie- a very fun 35 year old Brit accountant, and Melanie, a 50 something Medical lab scientist. That's right. 3 passengers on an 8 passenger boat. SWEET DEAL.)

So anyhow, we girls hadn't quite yet found our sea legs and were getting knocked about a bit by the boat. I had moved from my seat to make room for Robin to secure some lines when the boat (50 ft Bavaria) suddenly listed hard port. I had already been half step into moving back to the port side bench when it happened and I suddenly found myself thrown forward, hurtling toward the bench. I instinctively reached my hands forward to stop myself smashing into the boat, when my right thumb made contact with the bench, taking the force of the impact.

Pain shot through my hand as somehow I found myself sitting in the bench snugly. When I looked at my hand, what I saw simply didn't register with my brain. Gone was my thumb, replaced with a kinked-up mass of flesh, not unlike something you see at the end of skateboarding videos when they show you all of the gruesome injuries and broken bones. All I could do was to stare at it. It hurt, but it didn't feel broken. But it also didn't make sense that my hand should look that way, so when Robin asked what had happened I held up my hand and said "I've broken my thumb."

He looked at it, the same confusion I'd felt at seeing it momentarily flashing on his face, then said in his Governator-style German accent "nah, I sinkeet ees joost deeslowcated."

I looked at it again, and assessing the pain, agreed with him. "Okay. Fix it," I said to him. It needed to be popped back into place. I had just tried to pull it right myself, with no luck. The adrenaline was pumping and I knew I'd be fine if we could get it set and iced immediately. Robin looked at me, doubtful that I could handle the procedure. "ahr yoo shu-ah?"

I nodded adamantly, in pain and lacking the capacity to explain that he didn't need to distract me, and to just get it over with!

He tried to tell me to focus and look at something on the boat, but I just held his gaze and said "Gogogo," trying to hurry him along.

With a quick pop, he pushed the lower portion of my thumb back down into it's proper position, un-kinking the extra joint I'd had temporarily gained. It wasn't any more painful than it had already been. When it was done, I exhaled and said "okay."

Skipper Robin looked at me and said "Wow, tough," then repeated it, "Wow, tough," before going downstairs to bring up the water bottle I'd placed in the tiny galley fridge's freezer only 45 minutes prior because I like cold water. It was the only thing we had onboard for an ice pack. But that was soon remedied by ripping up a dishtowel and soaking it in water. The parts were then shoved into the icebox to freeze and make mini-icepacks.

A couple of ibuprofen, ice as available, some great shipmates looking out for me and a couple of hours later, when we anchored in a secluded cove at an uninhabited Greek island, I was out swimming with the rest of my tour peeps. (Not quite right as rain, but good enough.)

Now, two days later I've got a stiff and somewhat swollen thumb with massive bruising, which I'm still icing, and also making sure to flex and keep as limber as possible. I've had to relearn the simplest of things - like how to put my hair in a rubber band with my left hand instead of the right, but everything is manageable, and this trip is simply amazing in every way. Is that masochistic or what?





How blessed was I? Seriously! Another millimeter to the left or right and my finger would have been gruesomely broken. And the lovely sailing trip would've been over before it began. So. Blessed.

More sailing stories to come. Probably slowly. Typing is rather difficult at the moment.


(Oh and I didn't lose my iPhone after all. It had only fallen under my bed. Phew!!)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

WONOCLOCK!

Today:

I woke at 7am from the most pleasant dream… I wish I could remember it! My alarm clock commanded my presence in the land of the wakeful, so I woke. Blast. I packed up my things and found the owner of the little Pension I was staying in had arranged a breakfast sandwich for me (standard fare in Turkey for Breakfast – a big hoagie bun with Tomatoes and tangy Turkish cheese) since I was leaving prior to the 8:30am breakfast buffet. Seriously. 8:30 am! Only in Turkey. Okay, probably in the Caribbean too. Anywhere else in the world you’ll find breakfast steaming hot and ready starting around 5am. Boggles the mind. Anyhow, nice of the man to give me a sandwich for the road. I was out the door by 8 and on my way to Bodrum’s ferry port. I believe I chose the hottest, most windlessly stagnant, muggy day in the history of days to shlup all my belongings by foot down to the Ferry port. It was a twenty minute walk and I was absolutely drenched in sweat five minutes in.

Have you ever ridden a Greek or Turkish ferry? It’s an interesting experience. The hotel owner (sandwich man, who, by the way, when I checked in showed up at the front desk wearing swimmers with a bare chest and proceeded to check me in. LAID BACK.) he says to me when I bought the ferry ticket from him “You ‘ave Eight terty be at poort. Nineoclock leeeve.”

Check. 8:30 and I’m still in line at the check-in counter at the port to exchange my voucher for a ticket, along with about 100 other people. By 9:00 I’m in line to get my passport stamped for departure from Turkey. 9:15, I’m onboard. 9:30, we’re still waiting for the rest of the passengers. 9:45, we leave.  The ride is only supposed to take twenty minutes and I have no idea if that proved true or not because the next time I looked at my watch it was 10:25 and I had just cleared Greek customs.

"TirtySiven Euro." That’s the price for a taxi to take me from the port to my hotel across the island. Ridiculous. I checked with two other taxis in two other locations. TirtySiven Euro! RIDICULOUS!! That’s like fifty five bucks US! So I shlupped my backpacks through downtown, asking directions for the bus depot on the way. About two miles and two painful shoulders later, it’s 11:00 I make it to the bus depot and ask a driver when the next bus to Kardamena is.

WonOClock! He replied stoicly.

WONOCLOCK!
It was 38 degrees celcius with no breeze.  

WONOCLOCK!

The bus depot sat in direct sun, and so did I!  

WONOCLOCK! 

I wasn’t sure I was going to make it that long without a bathroom due to my run-in with the Sultan’s Revenge. (Food Poisoning). Unable to move again, I just sat in the sun, thinking to myself: 37 Frickin Frackin Bloody Euro!!! (PLUS TIP!) Grrr! Argh! And then I waved at the first taxi driver I saw, who was busy, but awesome enough to call up one of his mates and send him over. Thirty minutes later I’m at my hotel…

And was it worth the trouble?

See for yourself:

A nap and a dip in the ocean and I was right as rain. Followed up with a deee-lish greek-style buffet dinner and I’m good to go. Greek food is amaaaaazing. Just sayin’.

Greek Evening

I’m sitting under a sky that ranges from deep celadon to azure. Stars are just peeking out from the heavens in the darkest shades. The Mediterranean sounds from below, crash, crash, crash. Gently. 

A light breeze blows through the open front door of my little villa on a hill and lands on my shoulders at the other end of the room, past the flung-open French doors leading to the back porch.  I can see the last glints of oranges purples and yellows in the sky over the mountain to my right and in front of me, the dark outline of the island Nisyros, an active volcanic island.

It is a perfect evening.

Observances in Turkey

I have observed two things.

- I hate Turkish breakfast food. It is generally a buffet type deal with the same type of vegetables, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, weird goopy brown stuff in a bowl. Then some kind of breadish thing. The first hotel I stayed in had some decent bread-y type thingers (some delish bread-y cheese thing one morning and *be still my heart!* a turkish version of french toast another morning) but since that first hotel: dissappointment in all bread-stuffs. Yuck. Turkish people do not eat sweet things (apparently) for breakfast. I miss chocolate croissants! Or even cereal! (gag)
Sorry, I didn't nab a photo of the buffets. I was too busy being a picky eater.

-The Turks do not use Top Sheets. Just blankets or duvets or whatever. The hotel I'm currently in just uses a scratchy, rough blanket as a top sheet. I certainly found out how sensitive my skin is from it. I had to break out my sleep sheet (a kind of ultra-thin sleeping bag that weighs about a pound and is super comfy) in order to get any shut eye. Tip: Get a sleep sheet!! I use this one by Cocoon and LOVE it (Just be sure to wash on gentle cycle and air dry):

-The temperature here goes from a pleasant 74 to a scalding 1 million in under three minutes. (Okay, 95 with 99% humidity and a side of ridiculously uncomfortable. Seriously. I love summer on the east coast, this is an entirely different animal.)  I painstakingly hand washed, rinsed and wrung out six days worth of sweaty clothing (Travelers here live in a perpetual state of dampness. While the locals are perfectly dry. Amazing.) Then I laid every towel in the room on top of the dusty patio furniture on my balcony and proceeded to cover every inch of that furniture with wet clothing. Every hour or so I would go and turn the clothes around or over so they would dry faster/thoroughly. But by then it was dark out and the temperature was a coolish 74 degrees, and so it remained the night through. By morning I went to check on the clothing. It was still somewhat damp, which was unexpected. I mean, I'm in freaking Turkey in the summer! About 30 minutes after I checked it, the sun came streaming onto the balcony and it was immediately over 90 degrees! 15 minutes later: Ding! Dry as a Matzoh cracker in the desert.