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’.