Nopa!

We came up with that saying sometime during our lack of sleep phase. It's like Opa, but the negative of it... not that we actually know what Opa means, maybe we'll ask later. So where to begin, I guess where we left off... So after enjoying a decent lunch under grape vines in Sulcuk we boarded a minibus (not the same as a bus therefore no puking) and got driven to the port city of Kadasi. But not anywhere near the actual port of Kadasi, up the road a bit and all we got for directions was a wave in that sorta direction. So we set off fully loaded in the super hot sun in the direction we were pointed. 15 minutes and 2 buckets of sweat later we found the travel agent and got our tickets. We had a bit of time to kill, not no where near enough time if they though we could have actual done that tour they tried to put on us in Selcuk. So we went in search of some water and a way to blow the last 12 lira in my wallet as there was no exchange booths and I took out a little too much in the morning because I thought lunch and the ride to the ruins and the internet would be a bit more money. Anyways after turing down 3 lira water we found a little mini market that had ice cream and water which we bought. (Sara: Umm that was Tyson who turned down the 3 lira water i would have bought the damn water if it was 100 lira i was so thirsty!!!) Water is usually 1 lira for tourists. Anyways next to the mini market was a carpet shop, and they were being the uber friendly turkish variety they called us in. We said "you have anything for 10 lira because we are leaving really soon." And to our surprise they said yes. So half to have a look and half to sit down in the shade without our packs in we went. They showed us some cotton seat cushins Sara liked them but I wasn't sold. So then they brought out something else small that I had spotted in the corner. They were hand made from central Turkey and they were rough to the touch, but we prefered them and ended up getting one. I gave everything in my wallet something like 12.35 lira and I'm not sure if it was a good deal or not, but whatever, I'd already taken coin samples so the money would have gone to waste otherwise.

So we boarded our ferry and it was a bumpy ride to Samos. The boat was small and we were pounded from the front for most of the trip. Waves crashing over the deck, making all the windows remain closed. But we made it safely. We arrived in Samos, got our passport stamped, and headed across the road to the travel agent. The agent got us a place to stay, 2nd to last room in the place, we hummed and hawwed over spending 1 or 2 days there before heading to our destination island of Ikaria. We decided that evening to go to Ikaria the next evening. We showered which was sooo nice, enjoyed a great meal on the terrace of our hotel, me with a glass of white wine which I thought tasted great and was the cheapest thing on the menu to drink.

The next morning we got up, took our bags down to the travel agent where we stored them, bought our tickets for the ferry which left that evening at 5:30 pm, and bought some bread, taziki, pita chips, speculaces, and water at the little store and headed off to the beach.

15 minutes later we had spread our beach towel out on the pebble beach and had already hit the water once. The rest of the day we read, swam, and sun tanned, I think Sara probably even had a little nap. I burnt worse then Sara but even then it wasn't too bad. We stayed till about 4:30 before collecting our packs and heading for the ferry.

While waiting for the ferry we meet a mother daughter pair from Sydney who were taking the ferry to Mykinos, so they could catch a plane onwards to Athens. They siad they had spent hours searching the internet for a room in Mykinos, for just one night. We thought this was because it was such a popular island. We laughed as we were headed to the quiet laid back Ikaria. We were also telling them how easy our travels in Turkey and Greece had been compared to everything else we've done.

9pm that night we arrived starving, tired, and ready for a hot shower and a great dinner in the town of Agios Kirykos on the south side of Ikaria. We started searching for a hotel, and we were not having any luck. This town is not big and we went to also 10 places that rented out rooms or were hotels. No luck. We were really hungry as this took an hour by this point. And had a good dinner. After dinner we continued our search for a while with the same results. Then we looked for a beach to sleep on, but nothing was close and the one by the harbour was dirty and very rocky. WE ran into 2 guys who had searched the island and used the internet for the past 2.5 hours with no luck either. We thought of walking 2.5 km to Therma, but I didn't feel safe walking there, not knowing the way really that late at night. AT midnight we ran into the waitress from the resturant who suggested a school courtyard for us. So we took off up there. It had one light, was clean, and was near the top of the town, and was concrete. We chained up our bags, laid out or beach blanket and our sleeping bag and tried to go to sleep. The wind was howling this night, and the concrete wasn't that comfortable. Just as I was getting to sleep around 1:30 am two women came by and were shocked to see us. Sara woke me up and I said "hello" Sara wispered "don't be stupid, don't speak english." I"m like oh, right. Well after that I stayed awake until around 3:30am expecting them to return with either some thugs to beat us up and steal our stuff or the cops. I was hoping for the second group. Plus ever time I closed my eyes the sounds that I could identy with my eyes open changed so I had to see what it was. By 3:30 I had all the sounds worked out, and I finally convinced myself no one was coming back so I feel asleep, until around 6:30ish.

Lucky for us the school courtyard had a washroom (which was locked) however the bottom panel for the door had been kicked in, so we had access to a washroom with running water and a sink and a squatter toliet that was better than most. We decided to go to the north end of the island that day, more out of the way, but the beach area with more hotels and more beaches. At 7:30 we found out the bus left for the other side of the island at 12:30 pm... so we waited. At 12:15 we got our stuff together and got on the bus. Sara picked out a little kid and said "we got ourselves the puker." At sometime around 1:15 the bus left overfull, and we switchbacked our way, way up the coast. We had great view, almost vertical views back down to the water. 45 minutes later just after the start of the decent, the little girl Sara pegged as the puker, lived up to her title. After clean up the mess the aunt supplied her and her sister with cracker and water. We've gone over this before, but she's a know puker and you feed her more? When the milk run finally arrived in Armenistis the beaches looked great. Two long golden sand beaches each less than 1/2 to 1/3 full and good looking water and some waves to play in. However before we could do that we needed a place to stay. We were basically laughed out of town. You don't have a reservation? We're booked solid until the end of August. The town was full. There was nothing for us. We thought okay, we'll buy a tent and sleep on the beach. The small store had a tent for 20 Euros, and we went down to the beach and found a quieter stop just in the grasses to set it up. The tent was a piece of crap, but what can you expect for 20 Euro. Plus it actually turned out not to be a tent but a shade, or 1/2 tent or something. There was no door, just kinda like a lean-to. We didn't really have a problem with it except we didn't like the idea of putting our stuff in there. No way to protect it from sticky fingers, so we thought, okay we'll store our stuff at a hotel and just go in the morning and afternoon to get what we need from there. We'll no dice on that either, the hotels were unwilling to store our stuff, too many requests from others to do the same. So we went to talk to a travel agent about our options. You see no one on one island has any idea of the situation on any other island. So the situation was this, there was a ferry leaving that evening from the close by port Evidilos then not again for 2 days, which would go directly to Athens. Tomorrow there was a ferry from the south port, but Sara was not taking a bus again, under no circumstances. So we thought about it and decided sleeping in a lean-to for 4-5 days before we can catch a ferry to another island did not sound fun, especially with all the memory stuff we are carrying that would break our hearts to lose. So I ran back to the beach, got the lean-to (good sun blocker for the next island) while sara bought food and tickets. We got on the bus, and then enjoyed a dinner of bread, taziki, and greek salad along the peir while we waited for the ferry.

At 9pm we got on the ferry, and we knew we were the second stop after Mykinos and would be about 3am when we got in. Sara thought we were the last stop but I had my suspicions. We got two benches together on the deck (what we paid for) and lay down to sleep. We slept okay but by the time we reached Mykinos we were cold, so out came the sleeping bags. We crawled in and both enjoyed a great sleep on a metal bench. Which was better than the concrete. We slept as if we were being watched over by angels, it was a peaceful rest, all we could hear was the constant hum of the engine. (Sara:You see when you are reaching a port a very large speaker talks and says in Greek and then English you are now approaching the port of blah blah blah and i cant tell you how loud it was but it was loud and i thought for sure i would hear it for our stop because i woke up to hear the Mykinos stop.) I also woke up from the Mykinos stop sound.

So at 6am we woke up to the announcment. The ferry was late, which is typical. We enjoyed the sunrise as we pulled into port. When we got off the ferry I had some trouble matching up my map, but our first and only goal was to find a place to stay. Quite quickly we found a place, but the room wasn't ready yet, so we dropped our bags and set off after internet. I was still having a lot of trouble with the map, and usually I am really good with them, Sara would agree. We did find a light railway station for people, which I found strange because it was a small island, but a commercal one so I thought okay. Sara laughed at the map because there was Athens in the middle of it, it must be a subdivision here we thought. We were somewhat disappointed that the light rail line didn't go to any beaches, and only stayed in the city. So we continued on in search on internet. Twice we walked down streets where I thought we would run into this large square, on which at one corner there was internet. Sara started bugging me that I couldn't get my bearing. I lined things up with the sun, but still things weren't matching. "It should be right here, I swear it." At this I thought what the heck I'll check the map for Piraeus. Well as soon as I flipped to that page, the map and the street we where standing on made perfect sense. I knew exactly were we where. We were standing beside the port of Piraeus, some 10 km from Athens, which the light rail/metro line ran to. Sara was awe struck, she kept slapping and pinching me and saying "you've got to be kidding me? Does this hurt" "Owe" was my reply. We had slept through our stop and were now looking north towards Athens.

So we waited till our room was ready, napped for an hour or so, then flooded the washroom with the shower... again... (We've actually started taking the TP out of the washroom before we shower now). We then took the metro into Athens and went in search of a travel agent. Most stores and travel agents turned out to be closed, as August 15 turns out to be a holiday here. We finally found one, which said that everything on every island was full. The only thing they could offer was a one day cruise. That's it, there is nothing anywhere avaible near any island, or beach on the mainland until after August 21 or so, maybe. Their only suggestion was to go to the island and hope for a cancellation. GRRRR.... So then we started to seriously look into going home early. This was suppose to be a vacation now, and it has become the most stressful tiring time ever. The travel agent couldn't help us with that, and said to go talk to the British Airways counter at the airport because our first flight home was with BA. We then found some internet, had only 2 emails that we read, sent Colin and Colleen a warning about Greece, hopefully they get it in time, and tried to figure out what to do. The internet place was attached to a travel agency and we asked them too. Nothing anywhere agian. This is the busiest they've ever seen it. No where near any beach can be bought for any price. Well they did have one night in Santorini. 9.5 hours each way for one night, no thanks, we want a solid week of nothing but sand, water, and a quiet room with a decent resturant close by. Is that too much to ask? Okay how about a room witin 2km of a beach, a shower somewhere in the place, and enough food to buy to survive? Well that is too much to ask too.

So off to the airport we went. We had to wait an hour till the British Airways office opened. One step forward, three steps back... that's the way you get home. The BA guy was helpful, but our ticket was through Air Canada so we had to talk to them. Air Canada doesn't have an office here, they work through a travel agency. We got the address of the free internet in the terminal and I thought I found it on the map, but decided to ask the greeter lady at the door. She agreed with where I thought it was, but added that that company also had a office downstairs at arrivals. Downstairs we went to find out that only the main office deals with this kind of manner, so upstairs, along the Johnny Walker Android Ad filled cordoor to the metro which we rode back into the city. (Note the main office was closed today because of the holiday). I got my picture taken with the soldier guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier, and we found a place for dinner. Now we're writting this. Tomorrow we'll put our bags in a storage locker and try and get back to Canada. Wish us luck, and if we don't get back to Canada tomorrow or start coming home anyways hope that we can get a room somewhere, and that we will be home soon. We'll have to take a vacation some other time. (Sara: Hawaii here we come with rooms pre booked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) When we have money again of course.

Tyson and Sara