This car ride is a joke!

After having such a great time together in Dubrovnik, we convinced the Aussie girls to rent a car and caravan to Split with us instead of taking a flight (which they had planned to take, but had not booked yet.) I bet you they are wishing they hadn't listened to us! We woke up Friday morning a little hazy from the night before (the buck's night/hen's party). At breakfast Mika, the wonderful lady at our hostel told us that it was so smart of us to have rented a car! We would definitely be (about 200km north of Dubrovnik) in 3 hours no problem!  Well let's just say the day didn't go quite as easily as Milka had predicted... in fact it was quite the opposite. I think Laura said it best in a text to Nat when she said "This car ride is a joke!" Here are the top ten reasons (in chronological order) as to why:

Lia taking the wheel!

1)     So let me back track a bit and explain the driving situation. When Laura booked the car online before we left there were no options for automatic. For those who have traveled outside of the US you know that this is quite standard. Well neither Ashley nor I know how to drive a manual car and Laura's only experience was one week in Australia back in 2007. So needless to say she was a little weary about how the week would go. Our first night in Dubrovnik we decided as long as we didn't have to go up any hills we would be a-okay. Problem is, Croatia is ALL hills. Ok so, moving onto Friday morning. As I mentioned we were not in tip top shape, so driving into town to meet the girls was quite the task…. Quickly we realize Laura was not going to be able to drive that day. Luckily Lia, an experienced manual transmission driver, was kind enough offers to drive. Before we left Lia was freaking out because everything was backwards compared to cars in Australia. It took her a few moments to gather her cool and figure out the shift and clutch with her opposite hand and foot. After a while she got the hand of it.... We just had to constantly remind her what side of the road the cars were on every time the turned a corner.

2)     Hangover from hell + looking at photos on the very curvy roads of Croatia = Puke City

Looks like a cute pic of the girls until you notice me dying in the corner!

3)     After about an hour of driving we decided to pullover for lunch. After a few minutes Nat looks at her phone and says "Um guys? I think were in Bosnia..." Yeah right... then we looked down at the menu (that was extremely cheap) and noticed that the cover did read "Hotel in Bosnia and Herzegovina". Hmm ok maybe... Still not convinced we decided to ask the waiter probably the most ridiculous question ever, "excuse me, what country are we in?" Turns out Nat was right...we made our way into Bosnia, but on earth did that happen? Turns out there is a little sliver of the country that comes out to the coast in between Croatia. It should have dawned on us when we passed border patrol and they asked for our passports - but in the state we were in we just assumed that it was a check, I mean they didn't stamp our passports! We remedied that out the way out and made sure to ask for a Bosnian stamp on our way out of the country a few kilometers up the road.

Waiting for the cop to write the ticket...

4)    Back on the road, happy as can be... We didn't make it too far before getting stuck behind a huge truck going a snails pace. The roads are only one lane and really windy so we were following slowly for what seemed like an eternity...then we finally got to a straight road with enough room to pass! As we zipped around the truck we saw an oncoming car that appeared to be a police car. He flashed his lights for a second and then continued past us. We were all a little jostled, but figured that he was just doing that to be smug. I mean what did we do wrong... I will tell you - I guess the one time the road was actually straight (i.e. the ONLY safe time to pass the truck) the line center divide line was solid (i.e. a no passing zone). Did we realize this as we were passing.... of course not! We were thinking this is a good time to pass, as opposed to the other cars who were being deadshits (Aussie term for lowlife/retard) and whipping around the truck at any blind turn.

Well the same cop who passed us came back to pull us over about a mile down the road.... he didn't seem to see our reasoning. We were convinced that we could just play the "stupid tourist" card on him and he would let us go with a warning....but no. He said we had to pay him 500 kuna ($100) on the spot and if we didn't have it we would have to follow him to "judge." After pleading with him for awhile, and a couple of conversations we couldn't understand with his colleague, all of a sudden it was now 300 kuna we had to pay him. Fine. We didn't want to deal with the process of following him to a judge so we gave him 300 kuna and planned to get back on the road to meet up the other girls who were giving us "What the hell?!" stares from their car. Then, after we had already paid him (what I assume was a bribe bc who pays fines on the spot!?) he proceeded to take another million years to write us a ticket. Because that was necessary.

5)      Deciding to laugh off our first incident we got back on the road. Mind you we were already 2 hrs in and only about a third of the way to Split. Oh well we would make up time. Or so we thought. We didn't really take into account any other problems. That was until all of a sudden we hear a loud boom/crash noise. At first I thought we hit something but Lia quickly realized we blew a tire as the car begins to swerve a bit. She miraculously pulls over to the side of the road into a look out point (I guess luck was on our side there?). "I know how to change a flat tire so no worries!" says Laura. So we go into the back to pull out the spare and found a warning triangle and reflective vest which we quickly donned. Half as a joke, but honesly it was a good idea - those Croatians drive sooo fast around the small windy roads.

We got out all the gear, but the bolts were screwed on too tight for any of us to make them budge. At this point it had been about 10-15 minutes since we had been on the side of the road clearly in distress.  Guess how many people stopped to offer help? ZERO. I would guess that about 30 cars passed without so much as slowing down. Keep in mind that we are 4 girls (in reflective vests!) on the side of the road with our spare tire out and our hands raised trying to flag down the cars....and still NO ONE STOPPED! And this included a cop car! Sure pull us over when you want our money but no need to pull over to see if we need help. We are just sitting on the side of the road in the blistering heat for fun! We finally found a man who was nice enough to help us (that is after I flagged him down and pleaded with him). He actually turned out to be really nice, despite the fact that he spoke ZERO English.

6)     So...off again! Heres where it started to get comical. As we were going about 130 km/hr on the highway, a MASSIVE beetle flew into the window and smacks me sqauare in the face. I immediately screamed as it bounced off my head and in between my seat and the door. Lia asked if she needed to pull over, but I said as long as the bug was dead it couldn't harm us... then it started squirming around and causing all 4 of us to scream in fear. Lia decided to pull over so I could flick it out the car.

7)    The other car thought we were cursed as they had to continuously wait for us. Though as they were leading the way I blame them (rather their GPS) for the next one. After about 30 minutes of driving on deserted and really treacherous mountainous roads (rocks were literally falling off the cliff as we were driving past) we come to a construction site where the road disappeared into a terrifying 3km shear drop... I guess they were in the process of blasting the mountain to build the road... "Thank you GPS in the future I think we'll stick to the old fashioned road map!" - Nat. Heading back out we realized we passed a HUGE sign saying road closed... Oops!

8)     Ok back on the road, we have rerouted where to go. New problem - we are almost out of gas. And of course we are in the middle of no where. When we finally come across one off the freeway only to discover that it is closed… of course! Luckily we were able to make it to another one before running out.

9)     After all that we made it to the airport to drop our Aussie ladies off. We decided it may be a good idea to rid ourselves of the crappy manual transmission car and no spare tire...and get a shiny new automatic car. It cost us 350 euro more to do so...but it was worth it. That car was BAD LUCK. Plus now we can all drive.

10)     So remember how Milka told us the car ride should only take about 3hrs tops? Well... We left at 12:30pm and didn't arrive in the main town of Split until 10:00pm.

Yeah so like I said.... This car ride was a joke! Yet despite all this, we can only look back on that day and laugh because we actually DID have a really good time!

Girls’ Holiday

While we were in Istanbul Laura noticed on Facebook that her Ausie friends Nat and Lia were in town. The trouble with traveling is we do not have cell phones to easily call or use internet on, so we had to rely on FB communication in our attempts to meet up. Needless to say, we were unsuccessful. Laura was excited when she saw that they were also in Mykonos the same time as we were, but again using FB only when we could make it to the internet made it quite hard to find them. Clearly it was meant to be as we ended up running into them on our flight to Croatia! The ladies were traveling with two other friends, Michelle and Ereni. From the moment we arrived in Dubrovnik it became a lovely little girls’ holiday! We had such an amazing time with these girls and were so sad to say goodbye to them!

Our first day we went to a little island off Dubrovnik called Mljet (pronounced Milyet – though I kept calling it Midget bc the l looks like a capital i). Mljet is considered to be one of the most beautiful of the Croatian islands. It is most known for its two salted lakes - Veliko and Malo Jezero that are located at the north end of the island. We rented bikes and rode around the lakes. So remember how I decided I was not a mountain biker back in April? Well add 1.5 months of zero exercise (unless you consider walking down the block to the beach as exercise?) and about 30 degrees more heat (~90°F). Luckily the ride was no where near as hard as Bariloche, but boy did I realize I am out of shape!

(Left to right: Michelle, Ereni, Lia, Laura, Nat, Ashley and Me)

After the ride we decided we needed to reward ourselves with some cocktails while we waited for the boat back to town. We ordered one of the Ausie girls’ favorite drinks (in Croatia it’s called a rattler, I forget the name of it in Australia) - half beer/half sprite (which I guess they call lemonade in Oz). They were quite refreshing and very delicious! We decided to keep the party going on the ferry ride back to town and then went for a nice dinner on the promenade near our hostel.

The next day was spent on the beach (gotta keep up our tans). That night we visited the amazing Old Town. Old Town and its many sights (including the well-preserved city walls along which you can walk) is the main sight of Dubrovnik. I was told that it would be ridiculously hot if we went mid-day so we decided to head over there a little before sunset. After spending about an hour window shopping around town we decided to head up to the walls.

After taking about 1,000 photos we were all ready to eat! Dinner turned into quite the night… at dinner Laura and I convinced Lia and Erine to extend their travels and meet up with us in Central America after they did The States. Clearly we had to celebrate – so every time our liter bottle of wine was empty I would yell “more wine!” In total I think we had about 7 liters of wine between 6 of us.

As we were about to pay our bill a group of guys dressed in yellow shirts came running past. One was in a super-hero outfit. We discovered that this was a buck’s night celebration (bachelor party). After putting on a show for us and taking several pictures, they convinced us to follow them to another restaurant where they would be meeting the hen (bachelorette) party and together the group would go to a “discothèque”.  It ended up being the most random hilarious night ever!

Can we stay here forever?!?

With every new island, I fall more in love with Greece.  It is really getting hard to pick our favorite island. While looking for accommodations in Mykonos (slightly hard to do when you arrive with nothing booked on a 3-day weekend) we joked that maybe it would be easier to just buy a place.  Too bad we all wished we could really do that!  We all just keep asking ourselves, "Can we stay here forever?!?"

After spending about 30 minutes at an internet cafe and finding that everything on Hostelworld and Hostelbookers was either booked or too expensive, we were starting to get a little worried  At that exact moment the man working at the internet cafe saw that we were searching for a place to stay and mentioned that the woman who lives across the street has an extra apartment available down the street.  He went to see if it was free... just our luck it was!  At this point we would have taken anything.  This place is wonderful!  The best part is the large balcony that overlooks Little Venice and the windmills!

Once we had our accommodation settled, we were free to explore Mykonos town.  This place is SO cute!  Its a relatively small town filled with narrow, white alleys…and easy to get lost!  Surprisingly it is quite easy to find your way around.  We have had no problem finding our favorite places such as the gyro joint where we often go to for lunch, dinner and/or late-night snack.  Emphasis on the "and" seeing as how yesterday we consumed 4 gyros in a 24-hour period!  Funny cause it's true. I swear I am going to gain a million pounds from all the delicious food we have been eating. And I am 100% ok with that! In addition to the daily gyros we also usually eat a Greek salad.  One guy in Turkey told us that in Greece, "you can really taste the tomatoes in the salad".  Laura and Ashley keep making fun of how many times I have brought that up saying it's just so ture!  The tomatoes and cucumbers are SO good here!  I sure am going to miss those when I leave here…

Laura was super excited to find one of the famous “Mykonos pelicans”.  It didn’t take long for us to come across one, except that when we did, she was scared shitless and would no get close to it for the photo op!  To her credit, it was HUGE.  When it turned around it snapped its beak (not at her - just in the air) she nearly had a heart-attack. 

Since arriving, our itinerary has been pretty much the same way as on all other islands:  the beach by day and bars by night.  Good thing Mykonos is famous for both!  Tonight we are taking the bus across the island to the famous Paradise Beach for a huge beach party- Laura is excited because Ministry of Sound (an Australian DJ collective) is performing.  

 

 Tuesday we bid farewell to Greece and head to Croatia.  Until then check out my photos on Facebook - I added a bunch in the album Greek Paradise. MUAH!

Naxos

Naxos can lay claim to being one of the most popular Greek Islands.  According to Laura's guide book (note: for the Greek Islands she ventured away from  her trusty Lonely Planet) the numbers visiting are higher and the average length of stay is also greater than that for other popular islands.  That isn't surprising given that Naxos offers a mix of gorgeous beaches, attractive port town as well as ancient ruins.

Just as Jay and I went to Punta del Este back in Feb solely to take photos with God's hand, I think the main reason Laura wanted to come to Naxos was to visit the "picture frame" officially know as Apollo’s Temple.  Only a stones throw away from the port, Apollo’s Temple is a massive picture-frame-esque structure atop a hill overlooking the water.  It is all that remains of what was once a temple honoring Apollo.  We were quite sad to discover that it was roped off (probably to protect the rocks from further decay) so we could not take a picture inside the frame as Laura's book showed.  None the less it was fun to see and take photos in front of.

We spent the first day walking around Naxos town wandering along the small boardwalk filled with restaurants and shops.  Laura was super excited to find a used book store that had a fantastic assortment of English books, something that was VERY hard to come by on our travels through Patagonia.  All three of us bought cute bracelets to add to our ever growing collection.  I forget who said this but someone in BsAs told me you aren't a true backpacker unless you have a lot of bracelets.... and here I was thinking it was the backpack and budget traveling that did it.  Well...I guess we've made it now? Laura said with her 2 from Naxos she's done!  I have a feeling she may give in (we do have 7 more countries to hit up). 

The next day we decided to explore the coastline with its succession of excellent sand beaches.  According to the guide book Naxos is host of some of the (self-proclaimed) best beaches in Greece. While that seems like quite an ambitious boast - I wouldn't be lying to say I could maybe agree.  Ash says they were def her favorite.  For me it is such a close call - they are all just so gorgeous!  I can say that the few beaches we visited on Naxos were are all very nice, peaceful, and great for swimming as most are protected in a cove.

 We decided Naxos was the town where Ash and I would face our fears head on and rent scooters! We did this even after reading the following sentence out of the guide book: "Sadly many of the island's roads are in positively lethal condition in parts (this is one destination where is is better to stick to buses rather than resort to mopeds)."   A little crazy?  Maybe...Needless to say I was a little concerned.  Luckily Laura was right and it was a piece of cake!  I am not sure what roads her book were referring to.  I am glad we choose Naxos as the island to learn on though because there was much less traffic than busy Santorini.  After spending a few hours at the beach we took the bikes on a joy ride throughout the island.  By the end of the day Ash and I were going up to maybe 60km/hr... we wouldn't know as both of bikes had broken speedometers.  But Laura said if she had to guess (based on her speed) that's pretty close. I'm happy to have gotten the first ride out of the way and hope to have other opportunities to rent scooters again!

Mario Kart (the Santorini edition)

After a few days of lying out on the beach and getting baked (read fried) we decided to take some time to explore the island a little. Despite being small, the different parts of Santorini are quite spread apart. The best way to explore the island is to rent a motorbike. Laura was SO excited to get on a scooter again (she spent 10 days exploring the lay of the land in Thailand last year). Seeing as how neither of us had ever ridden one before, Ash and I were a little scared. Well, in the end we gave into our fear and rented ATV quads. It really didn't help that the lady at the rental shop insisted that if we were not experienced drivers we WOULD be in danger. The minute I showed a little hesitation she told us we would need to do a practice run in front of her to prove we were experienced enough to rent a scooter. Laura tried giving us a pep talk about how easy it was, but the lady was staring at us and I really felt under pressure.

While they did not go as fast as Laura's bike - Ash and I had a blast zipping around town on our four-wheelers. Ash hit it on the nose by saying she felt like she was in a real-life MarioKart video game! If you’ve ever played the game, just replace avoiding Donkey Kong’s banana peels with unpaved roads and potholes, and the Dungeon Racecourses with the Greek Islands and you can pretty much get a clear visual of the three of us racing around the island.

Add wine to the mix and the game gets even more fun. Despite hearing that Greece had notoriously bad wine, we decided to stop at one of the many vineyards - Santo Winery - to do some tasting. BEST DECISION EVER! We started sharing just one flight of wines, which turned into 4 additional half glasses…each. The views were so great Not only was the wine actually good, but the view was gorgeous! We decided we had to stay for sunset! I feel like my driving improved tenfold after I has a little wine in me (please note I do not condone drinking and driving).

Well I better log off as Laura and Ashley have already headed back to the room to pack. Tomorrow we’re off to Naxos Island (on the 8am ferry). Despite being on a beach vacay we have not had many days of sleeping in. One of these days we are going to do it!

Check-out my recently uploaded albums on Facebook to see more pics: Istanbul, Cappadocia and Greece.

The land of sun, yummy food and drinks

After just 5 days in Greece I have decided I never want to leave... Honestly this place is paradise!

We started the trip spending half a day in Athens. While I am so happy we checked it out visiting the necessary sites, the Acropolis and Parthenon, 5 hours is MORE than enough time to be in Athens. We were ready to leave the city and hit the beaches.

I have discovered that Laura's glasses take really cool photos... be prepared to see more

First stop: Crete. We took an overnight ferry which was basically a cruise ship. Laura was super excited as she has never taken a cruise before. We all decided this didn't really count (as it was just 7 hours) but since we splurged for a cabin with a bed (as opposed to just passing out on the deck like most other backpackers) it was pretty close!

Our original plan was to spend two days in Crete before heading to Santorini. The plan changed when we discovered that there was a slow (read cheap) ferry leaving the following day (Friday).  The following one would not be leaving until Wednesday, which would totally mess up our island hopping schedule.  So we decided to change our plans.  We ended up meeting a cool group of people at our hostel (in Rethymnon…a place I highly recommend for Crete…much better than Heraklion) that were also heading to Santorini.  The 10 of us boarded the 7:30am bus to the ferry (half of us were quite hung over from the night before).

While we enjoyed Crete, Santorini is what I picture when I think Greek Isles with the gorgeous blue water and all the white buildings on the hills.  We’re in the small town of Perissa Beach on the opposite side of the island from the main city of Thira at a cute family run place called Katerina And John Hotel. It is in a great location and we are only paying 8 euro per night for a private room!

Katerina And John Hotel

As this entry title states, our days have been spent laying out on the beach, eating amazing food (cheap gyros all for ~2euro, tzasiki, hummus, greek salads, etc...), exploring the island by motorbike and going out at night.  Today I got a 45 min back massage on the beach! This is the life. Like I said I do not want to leave.  Luckily we have 9 more days on the islands (that is before we head to Croatia to do more island hopping). Next stop: Naxos and then Mykonos!