Perama Hotel

... a friendly (still heavily armed) Jordanian solider and are able to finish the border formalities within the next two hours, whilst our car is x-rayed.

Third ferry experience: Igoumenitsa (Greece) – Bari (Italy): approx 300km

Superfastferries is a company deserving of its name.

Tickets:
We arrive at the port at 23:00 and try our luck in getting tickets for the next day’s ferry. A very friendly and efficient ...

... Greek wine and their local Ouzo. I ate Pastitsia, a pie with layers of pasta and meat but I kept eating Stee's dinner of this fish cooked in peppers and onions. Vance doesn't do fish so he had a harder time with the menu options. Everyone was in a great mood so we ended up just sitting and talking and laughing and drinking and eating for quite awhile.

... I employed my Italian skills to find the right place to go. They employed their English skills to go where I went. Then there's the CA couple that I ate lunch with one day, that also were on the shuttle with us. There's the little Italian couple that I met at the Meringue Party, who I danced with the woman for 2 or 3 songs. There's the couple that sat on the balcony with me during the official cruise send off, who helped me climb up to the balcony -- okay, actually it was a ...

... the day looking at the old forts, the unique streets and of course shopping. Olivia has a pair of Dior (????????) sunglasses now for the mere price of $14NZ, so many terrible take offs here.

Next day - Santorini. Opened the cabins curtains to see a sheer cliff with a town perched at the top. The only way to get up was a zig zagging path or a cable car. We were ferried by boats to shore and Chris started making noises about walking up. Robyn ...

... actually allowed to do that....). Eventually docked on the main land at this little beach which had a random nightclub / restaurant / waterpark complex and nothing else. A bit odd but a pretty perfect combination really. So we showered and had drinks on board the boats before dinner of chicken souvlaki, more Greek salad, dips, chips... a whole lot. So delish. I looooved the Greek food. And we had the funniest thing happen at dinner. We'd just finished our entrees ...

... the bus full of our grocery bags and headed for the port. We didn't have too long to wait before boarding the ship and had actually pretty good little rooms. Dean, Dangerous Dave and I shared a little cabin and we had a tasty dinner on board the ship. After din dins we went up on deck and enjoyed the amazing sunset and chatted and chillaxed. It was such a nice night. We had cabin chats and then it was time for bed.

Next morning we were up bright and ...

... they spend a lot of time relaxing, because they live on an island. I have only one dislike. The water was too cold and dirty for my taste, but there are a lot of swimming pools around, so I didn't need to swim in the open. This journey was a fun journey and I will never forget it.

I awoke to an overcast and cloudy day, but  discovered that the Pink Palace is an extraordinary establishment. It is a compilation of a backpacker hostel and hotel. The whole place is painted a rather ghastly pink but one gets used to it! Breakfast was served in a large area dining area  down at the bottom of the hill close to the beach, and walking down I realised quite how large the establishment was and on subsequent enquiry discovered that during the ...

... scratch his head
Massive game of toga flip cup (started by us)
-Bosh being a hero by leading the disarray
-Battle of Crosby/Malkin (L-Bow and Bosh) vs. Messier/Gretzky (Callaham and Jess)
-Smitty instantly smitten with Jess upon her revealing she had a boyfriend, resulting in the creation of Smitty's fictitious girlfriend
Jess: "I have a boyfriend back home"
Smitty: "yeah me too" (web of lies continues upon her ...

Our first stop off on the boat trip was Perama Island just off the coast of Lombok. It was christened by the owner of the boat trip. Used to be deserted but now they have a little hut with BBQ facilities, salt water showers and a few holes in the ground for people on the Perama boat trips!