TravelStream™ news feed for member jason_joyce on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jason_joyce en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:31:39 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1197372000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1197372000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1197372000/tpod.html Tue, 12 Feb 2008 06:31:39 -0500 Two years to dodge malaria, yellow fever, and anything else thrown our way

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Ruhengeri, Rwanda


Venomous Lakes and Expensive Chalets

On our first day near the national park our driver, Gaston, took us to see two nearby lakes: Lake Burera and another one, or maybe it was only one and he lied. The lakes don't have any fish in them as there are gasses from the volcanoes. The views from Virunga lodge were quite nice, but unless you have a lot of cash to burn, I wouldn't stay there. Our driver knew all the guys working at the lodge and quoted us $500 US dollars per night to stay there. It was nice, but no thanks!


Close encounters and flatulence

They call it tracking the mountain gorillas, but it is more like taking a walk through the forest. The real trackers will radio the guide with the location of the group and then you just walk towards them.

The experience was amazing. We had some close encounters, but mainly they stayed a good distance away.

We met the guides, our main guide's name was Olivier and was great, and were assigned a gorilla group at a little after 7am. Ours was the Umubano group, which means friendship in English. The current silverback of this group, Charles, left one of the other groups to start his own. A real gorilla entrepreneur. Either that or he was just sexually frustrated as only the dominant male of a group has the right to mate with the females.

The ride from the national park headquarters to the start of our hike took about 30 minutes. Most of it was on a road that gave us a wonderful "African massage".

We walked through some fields until we came to an opening in the stone fence that surrounds the national park. The fence is there to keep the elephants, buffalo, and other wildlife from ravaging crops. As we neared the opening, we saw a small troupe of golden monkeys in the trees. They fled before we could get close enough to get any decent photos.

The walk up into the national park started on paths made by the buffalo. It was quite a task to try to avoid stepping in the mud, the giant piles of buffalo dung, and the gigantic earthworms. The earthworms were easily a foot or more in length!

As we climbed, we entered into bamboo, which made the trekking a little slower. As soon as the guides told us we were close and would have to leave our hiking sticks and bags/backpacks behind you could hear the pop pop pop sound of one of the gorillas beating his chest. Only meters later we saw our first gorilla.

The guides tried to maneuver us around the first gorilla, one of the 8-year old males. Most of the group got by before he decided to show us who was the real boss. He pushed his way through the bamboo and the guide to me to stop. I did and the gorilla went right up to the guide and gave him a half push half swat. I was immediately behind the guide and Liliane was a meter away on the other side. I saw everything, even the hand hitting him in the chest. The gorilla turned and the guide told me to start moving. I didn't need to be told twice. The gorilla sat about a meter away from Liliane and stared at her for about three minutes. Liliane and one other person in our group had to backup and move around to find another route past him. Geez, we weren't there five minutes and he was already moving in on my woman.

The bamboo forest was very dark and it was impossible to take any good pictures while the gorillas were deep in it. I put the ISO on my camera to 3200, but I still needed to try shooting at 1/15th of a second. We watched the group for some time. It was amazing to see the babies playing in the vines and tumbling around. One of the group's babies was only around ten months old. The babies were also a cause for concern as they would approach without caution and should they get too close the others might move to defend them. As they babies approached we would often have to retreat.

After a while the gorillas had eaten enough and retired to an area of the bamboo that was more open. There we could take some pictures. Even there it was difficult at times as the distance was great or there was a lot of vegetation in the way. The negative part was this happened when we only had about twenty minutes left of our hour to watch them.

The silverback, Charles, was huge! His head was enormous. Because of the way he was seated we couldn't see the white on his back, but he sat there, three meters away, and just watched us. He didn't seem worried about us at all, and rightly so: he weighs about 200Kgs!

While watching one young gorilla clap his hands, beat his chest, and pick his nose, Charles showed his disdain by releasing a rather huge amount of flatulence. I thought he was growling! Well, he was, but not by using his mouth.

The trip down was much faster than the one up. Thankfully so as the sky opened up and started to throw rain and hail upon us. We walked as fast as we could back to the cars.

We would whole-heartedly recommend this trip to anyone who doesn't mind the minimum of a one-hour trek through bamboo forests and mud at around 2700m above sea level. We would come back here and do this again in a heart-beat. They were so human-like that is it impossible to actually call them animals. Perhaps near-humans is better terminology.

For the trip, bring your raingear, good hiking shoes, gaiters (to keep out the safari ants and stinging nettles), a raincover for your backpack, and warm clothing. Bring more than one battery for your camera and lots of memory cards. A good, fast, zoom lens would also be worthwhile. I used a 100-400mm lens and had times that I wished I had an even longer zoom, but it would also have been nice to be a stop or two faster. Give and take.

Sleep and confusion

We stayed at the hotel called Gorilla Nest Lodge. It is a nice place, not too expensive, but not all that cheap either.

The rooms were quite large, but there isn't a lot in them either. The food at the restaurant is pretty hit-and-miss. Often they have a buffet, but the food can be cold, or gone. Also, take as many Rwandan Francs as you think you will need for your stay, and then bring a little extra. The hotel front desk told us that they could change US dollars for Rwandan Francs for us, then later changed their quoted exchange rate to one that was a lot worse. It didn't matter as they didn't have enough to change one hundred dollars, or twenty, or ten. Maybe they could have changed a five, or one dollar bill, but by then I got tired of the blank stare of non-comprehension. I would recommend the hotel to stay at, but bring enough local currency to tide you over, just in case. Oh, and bring shampoo.


Odd N Ends

The trip from Kigali to the Gorilla Nest Lodge was quite interesting. Everywhere you look there are people and farms. All the fields you can see are being worked. As well, up near the national park all the land is farmed. We were told that around 90% of the land in Rwanda is farmland. That doesn't leave a lot left for national parks and cities.

Strange enough, there was a lot of eucalyptus growing, and wheat. Who would have thought they would have been farming wheat in Rwanda.

There are also a huge number of children in the country. Everywhere you look kids are at the side of the road yelling: Hello mzungu, or bonjour mzungu, or just screaming mzungu and pointing wildly like we were crazed leppers.

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1188627060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1188627060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1188627060/tpod.html Wed, 26 Sep 2007 08:16:34 -0400 Two years to dodge malaria, yellow fever, and anything else thrown our way

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Maasai Mara, Kenya

We spent the long weekend at an eco-friendly bush camp called Mara Siria. Now, bush camp is used loosely.......very loosely. It was quite up-scale. We were provided with luxury tents, semi-hotwater gravity-fed showers on request, and great safari vehicles with drivers/guides. At night they wouldn't let us walk between the tents and the main dining area. They said it was for our own safety, but I think it was mostly to provide employment.

The number of animals we saw was astounding. I never thought you could get so close to wild lions. We practically parked the car on top of them. The safari vehicle was open on the sides (no glass or plastic) but it wasn't frightening at all. Lions sleep. Then they sleep some more. I think the most impressive part of the trip was seeing the wildebeasts cross the Mara river. As they crossed, a huge crocodile swam up alongside one and we must missed seeing the take as they passed right near where we were parked and there was a small bluff between us and the Mara river. There was a rather loud splash and then both the croc and wildebeast disappeared......never to return. The number of wildebeasts crossing was impressive. There were so many in the water at one time that they drove a hippo out of the water.

I would recommend the Mara Siria camp for those that don't mind doing all-day game drives. Otherwise, with only two game drives per day, you won't get very far into the park before you need to start to return to camp. Otherwise, look for places like Governors or Mara Serena.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1188299700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1188299700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1188299700/tpod.html Tue, 18 Sep 2007 07:44:19 -0400 Two years to dodge malaria, yellow fever, and anything else thrown our way

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Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Well, here in Ethiopia it still is 1999! In about two weeks they will be celebrating the new millenium. There are signs and advertizements all over for the New Year. They even have the Blackeyed Peas coming to perform.

Compared to Kenya, there is a lot less available and the overall population is a lot less well-off. Mind, they don't have the personal security problems here, so there are some pluses.

One area where they seem more advanced than some other African nations, who seem to just disbelieve that the problem exists, is that they have condom advertizements all over for AIDS prevention. The Ethiopians are definitely making an effort to increase public awareness about the problem. I wish more African nations would do the same.

There isn't a whole lot to do in Addis Abeba. So, I watched a little of the African version of MTV. From what I saw in those videos, those jokes about white people not being able to dance........well, let's just say the people telling those jokes haven't seen any of these videos.

If Patu reads this he will be proud to know: on my first evening here in Addis Abeba I had the bartender make me a fernet con coca. They thought I was crazy!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/greece-2007/1181662260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/greece-2007/1181662260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/greece-2007/1181662260/tpod.html Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:17:58 -0400 Our fantastical adventure of hot sands, clear water, bad service, and forgotten ouzo experiences.

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Chania, Greece

June 12th, 2007

Our arrival in Crete was met with a lot of confusion. The taxi dropped us off by the large parking area near the harbour and we needed to walk about to find our hotel: Casa Leone. The old town is like a maze, and some of the streets don't have names....or at least ones you can clearly see. It took us half-an-hour of wandering about the old town to find the hotel. The walk was worth it as the room was beautiful. It has a huge private balcony that overlooks the harbour.

Our first dinner in Crete was at a restaurant along the waterfront called Amphora. The mixed grill for two was enough food for three or four people.

June 13th, 2007

We completed the 16km walk of the Samaria Gorge today. It took us four hours to do, including stops for photos, water, and snacks. I don't see why they allot seven hours to finish. It was not as difficult as they made it seem but you definitely need good footwear. All the way down the trek there are springs to fill your bottle from, and later on there is a small creek/river that forms from the springs that you can also drink from. It was probably the best water I have ever had.

Since we finished so quickly we had lots of time to kill. We didn't think we would have had enough time for a swim at the bottom, so we didn't bring our swimming suits. Big mistake. Always bring your swimming suit for this trek.

When we returned to Chania we secured a car rental for the next day.

June 14th, 2007

Today Lil, Papados, and myself headed to Elefanisi. Papados is the red Hyundai that we rented. The poor little bugger could barely make it up hills. The only time that car accelerated was going downhill.

Eleafanisi was a two-hour drive from Chania. The beach was soft, white, sand and the water never got more than a little over a meter deep. It was very pleasant for a day at the beach. The drive there was interesting once you got off the major highway. A lot of the signs were shot up by the locals and at times the road was just a little wider than one car as it weaved its way through small villages.

June 15th, 2007
Lil, Papados, and myself took off for Rethymno today. We were told that it was a beautiful city but it's not as nice as Chania. It is a lot more "touristy" and seems to be a bit more expensive.

While having lunch we managed to get filmed by some Cretan television people. They were walking about the restaurant taking footage before they did an interview. I hope I didn't have tzatziki sauce on my face. Who knows, maybe we have our own fan club now.

The fortress in Reythmno is interesting. If there is one reason to travel to the city, this is it. You can see for miles around once you are alongside the walls.

As we were returning to Chania, we decided to head off the highway and look for a beach to spend what remained of the day. We managed to find a small, quiet beach called Mastrali. I do have the waypoint from the GPS because it is kind of out of the way. There is a small taverna/café in a trailer at the beach.

June 16th, 2007

Today is our last full day in Crete. We got up early to see the central market. It was interesting, but didn't have as much in it as was indicated in the guidebooks. I remember reading about seeing every kind of fish imaginable. Sure, there were a number of types of fish there, not too many but more than ten types, but there were only about four booths selling fish. Now, the lambs head on a hook, that was interesting. They even had spit-roasted lambs heads.....yummmy!

After the market we went to the harbour-front and bought tickets for a snorkelling trip that left at 1330 and returned at 1800. We first circled an island that supposedly houses breeding kri-kri. It's not a big island but we didn't see a single animal other than birds. From there they took us to snorkel over the wreck of a German Meschersmitt that was shot down in the Second World War. There is not much left to indicate that it was a plane, but I'll take his word for it. The second snorkelling site was beside a small island where they used to dump people with leprosy before they were taken to a larger island with a hospital. There's no shade or fresh water on the island, so I don't imaging they survived for very long. On a happier note, there were quite a number of beautiful fish among the rocks around the island.

The captain of the snorkelling boat is British but had been living in Crete for seven years. He had a lovely saying: Never trust a Greek man, especially with women.

For dinner we went to a restaurant called Ela, which is supposed to have quite a good reputation. The food was excellent but the service was the worst that we had on the entire trip. There are better places to eat in Chania.

GPS DATA
Casa Leone hotel: N35 31.067 E24 00.960
Elafonisi: N35 16.328 E23 32.595
Mastrali Beach: N35 27.122 E24 10.707
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1186325040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1186325040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1186325040/tpod.html Wed, 22 Aug 2007 02:15:25 -0400 Two years to dodge malaria, yellow fever, and anything else thrown our way

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Nairobi, Kenya

Today we travelled to a small tea farm outside of Nairobi. It was a nice change. While there we received a whole history lesson tea in Kenya, and tea in general. Apparenly there are only two varieties of tea plant.

We had some tea before leaving on a walk with one of the guys working on the tea farm. He took us down the road and was explaining various types of plants, if they had medicinal uses. He was supposed to take us through part of the woods but there were a lot of safari ants, so he thought it better that we were not all bitten by the ants.

While walking back to the farm I found a small chameleon on the top of a fence post. It was so cute. I wished that I could have brought it back to the apartment with me. Alas, I didn't. I took a couple pictures of it and put it back into the bush.

Back at the tea farm we had a fantastic lunch with home-made ice cream. In the trees near the farm there were a few colobus monkeys but the dogs kept the sykes monkeys as far away as they could. The lady at the tea farm explained that the colobus monkeys never caused any problems but the sykes monkeys could be quite destructive. She said that she had been having quite a lot of problems with the sykes monkeys tearing apart her vegetable garden.

All-in-all, it was a nice change of pace from Nairobi lock-down.

GPS DATA:

Tea Farm
S1 07.012 E36 41.050
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1187436000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1187436000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1187436000/tpod.html Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:56:02 -0400 Two years to dodge malaria, yellow fever, and anything else thrown our way

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Naivasha, Kenya

We left for the weekend with Curtis and Annabelle to climb Mount Longonot, circle the crater, and then camp overnight in Hell's Gate National Park.

The climb was very strenuous, and at times, tenuous.

As we ascended towards the crater's edge, we saw a dik-dik briefly in the bush. The day had started out quite exciting!

All four of us were quite tired by the time we reached the crater's edge, but the view was worth it. After a quick lunch break we started out the path along the crater's edge. The best routing is to do the crater counter-clockwise. That way you get the hard climbing over with while you are still relatively fresh. Some of the paths are right on the edge of the crater lip with a drop of several hundred meters.

At times the path was just dusty gravel, and at other times it was a deeply carved channel in the dirt. There were even times where you had to climb dirt walls. All-in-all it was difficult but well worth the effort!

On the descent there was a huge group of Kenyans listening to a pastor making a speech. Then as we went further down we spotted two giraffes and a number of zebra and antelope far off in the distance.

As we headed into Hell's Gate National Park we started too see game. We were not two kilometres into the park and we were seeing zebra, warthogs and antelope near the sides of the road.

After we pitched camp we were staring at the number and varieties of birds and animals. From our vantage point we even saw a small herd of Cape Buffalo.

When night came, the hyenas started becoming active. We heard them call for quite some time in the evening. I started calling back to them: oooooOOOOO. They would respond to my calls and it seemed that they were even coming closer.

The next day was just as incredible as the one before......except that the car battery died! Annabelle and I walked down to the main road area (we could only do so because there are no lions in the park) and we had a very close encounter with three giraffes. We finally got some Kenyans to drive up and give us a boost. Soon after we were on our way.

After many wrong turns and getting lost we travelled a great deal of the park but never did find the spot we were looking for. I did learn a lesson: Kenyan park maps are nearly always wrong.

Through the park on the last day we came very close to a number of dik-dik, more zebras, antelope and warthogs. It was a fantastic experience.

On the drive home we stopped at a floating restaurant on the Lake Naivasha. Walking along the boardwalk to get to the hotel we saw a hippo in the water with a baby and a number of waterbuck in the marsh. The restaurant had an all-you-can-eat curry buffet. Yummy!!

GPS DATA:

Campsite at Hell's Gate
S0 52.064 E36 20.991

Hell's Gate NP Entrance
S0 51.148 E36 22.139

Edge of crater at Mount Longonot
S0 54.408 E36 27.601

Peak of Mount Longonot
S0 54.970 E36 26.835

Floating Restaurant
S0 45.125 E36 25.475
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/greece-2007/1182094500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/greece-2007/1182094500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/greece-2007/1182094500/tpod.html Tue, 21 Aug 2007 06:43:57 -0400 Our fantastical adventure of hot sands, clear water, bad service, and forgotten ouzo experiences.

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Athens, Greece

We arrived in the evening at Athens airport and headed over to the Sofitel. The Sofitel is directly beside the airport. We had a very early flight, so it was a good choice.

We ate dinner at the Karavi bar, which was the most money I have ever spent on a meal. It was also the best meal that I have ever had. The restaurant is shaped like a boat and there is a glass window to see into the kitchen. This is the place for a fantastic gourmet meal, but it comes with a fantastic gourmet price too.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1186412040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1186412040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1186412040/tpod.html Wed, 15 Aug 2007 02:07:55 -0400 Two years to dodge malaria, yellow fever, and anything else thrown our way

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Kampala, Uganda

I arrived in Uganda today. It's like a poor Nairobi. The airport is about 40kms away from the downtown and you drive through areas where they are selling anything and everything that's already been used. Used truck axels, used boat motors, etc.

The downtown area looks like downtown Nairobi as well, but there are maribou storks on every building top. I have no idea why there are so many, buy it's kind of eerie to see these large birds swoop in and land on the building edge.

August 9th
Well, it's been a few more days in Kampala. It's a nice change from Nairobi. It's fairly safe to walk around.

We went for dinner one evening at an Indian restaurant called Khyber Pass. It was quite a nice restaurant and the food was great. The best part was that we could walk there and back to the hotel in the dark without having to worry about being mugged.

Last night we tried to go to an Italian restaurant but it didn't open until 7pm. Instead, we headed around the corner to another place with the same name but they only served pizza. The service was great but the pizzas were even better.

Today was spent driving around the city looking at hotels. We almost trashed poor Boney's (our driver's knickname) car. Through so many pothole and dragging the bottom of the car over speedbumps, I don't think his vehicle has much life left in it.

Tonight we will try to head to a restaurant that serves Ugandan cuisine. They cook the meat inside of banana leaves. It should be quite good.

August 10th
We had a very interesting time getting to the restaurant last evening. It became obvious that our taxi driver didn't really know where he was going. We ended up causing a traffic jam on a narrow street while he attempted to turn the car around. We ended up with some stranger at the side of the road offering to use his moped to show us where the restaurant was. After finally arriving, we asked about the meat steamed in banana leaves and it turned out that they only offer that for lunch. In the end, we ended up three white guys sitting alone in the middle of a grassy field. The food was good, and the service was outstanding. I would whole-heartedly recommend their goat curry with rice.

After dinner another member of our party showed up while we were having a beer in the hotel restaurant. He suggested we go down to the Rock Bar, as he had gone the previous night and said it was a pretty good place. Well, it was not my kind of place. I no sooner had a beer in my hand than I was being harassed by "working girls". They were very graphic in their offers and became quite angry when I shoo'd them away. The bar could be nice, but it is not my kind of place. As I left and walked back down the road in the inky darkness, there were other "working girls" whistling and trying to catch my attention. When I wouldn't respond I instantly became mzungu.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1184132280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1184132280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/kenya/1184132280/tpod.html Wed, 15 Aug 2007 01:11:44 -0400 Two years to dodge malaria, yellow fever, and anything else thrown our way

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Nairobi, Kenya

July 11th, 2007
Just a short note here. Upon our departure from the Montreal airport, about five minutes after takeoff, our plane was struck by lightning. One point of impact was on the wingtip right beside our seats. It was just at tiny bit un-nerving.

July 12th, 2007

Our arrival in Nairobi was plagued with a four-hour delay. It was a shock-therapy introduction to what to expect in Africa. Nobody knew exactly what was needing to be done, but they were always sure that there was a required payment missing and a stamp missing. It got to the point where the airport vet had to be called back and bribed in order that we could get the cat released from the airport.

July 13th, 2007
Today was very eventful. We managed to get locked into our apartment. One of the keys that I was given locked the steel gate behind the front door, but in the morning it would not unlock the gate. We had to call the maintenance personnel from the embassy to come and see if they had keys, or tools to force the lock. It took 45 minutes to force the door. From there we were told that we didn't have the key for that lock.....but then how did I lock it? Well, a new lock was put on and everything is now good. At least it was a little confidence-booster knowing that it took someone with the right tools a long time to force the door. The only way into the apartment for them was for me to open the balcony doors and for them to use their ladders.

It's difficult already. It's a strange feeling knowing that you have to basically lock yourself into jail to protect yourself from the criminals. We have a locked gate outside the front door, two locks on the front door and then a steel gate with a lock and industrial padlock. All the windows are barred and any access point is locked with a key and second padlock. There is even a second steel gate blocking the way to the bedrooms that we need to lock at night. On top of all that, there are emergency panic buttons spread around the apartment and in each bedroom, a short-wave radio and an alarm system.

July 14th, 2007
We took a walk to the mini-market near our place. We didn't really need anything, but we did need the walk. It was nice to know that there is an Italian and Indian restaurant there, as well as a small grocery store, butcher, and green-grocer. It's basically the only place we can safely walk to during the day. We can't walk there at night.

Horace, my new boss, invited us over to his house for dinner. It was a beautiful house with a huge yard with avocado trees and banana trees. Both he and his wife are so nice.

July 15th, 2007
While lounging around the apartment today we were treated to a lovely new Kenyan sound: gunfire. There were a total of seven shots fired from what sounded like a semi-automatic rifle. At first there were two quick shots, then silence for a minute, another shot, three fired in very quick succession, a final departing one and then silence for the rest of the day.

To keep from going a little stir crazy in the apartment, we walked down the road to the mini-market again and had lunch at the Italian restaurant. The food was pretty good. Around Canadian prices, but good.

July 17th, 2007
Well, I've forgotten how many little earthquakes we've had in the past few days. I'm not sure if this is leading up to a bigger one, or just that all these small ones are normal. Guess we'll see. Some of them have shaken the apartment for about a minute to a minute-and-a-half. Nothing to spill your drink, but make you feel a little uneasy.

I guess I spoke too soon. We just had another small quake that managed to rattle the glasses a bit.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/greece-2007/1181511240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/greece-2007/1181511240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jason_joyce/greece-2007/1181511240/tpod.html Fri, 03 Aug 2007 00:54:32 -0400 Our fantastical adventure of hot sands, clear water, bad service, and forgotten ouzo experiences.

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Santorini, Greece

June 7th, 2007

Today we arrived in Santorini. Our hotel (Hotel Ira) is in Fira Stephanie which is just outside of Fira (ÔHPA). This is the most beautiful place that I have seen. The only negative thing I can mention is the donkeys on the stairs to the old port area. They have left a wonderful trail of "land mines" the whole way. If you're headed down those stairs and it starts to get windy, keep your mouth shut tight and wear sunglasses. There's a lot of "particulate" that gets blown around.

The way down the stairs was tiring but the way back up was insane! I went in flat-bottomed sandals. I would recommend good walking shoes instead.

We spent the first of many nights watching the sun set from our balcony.

After the sun set we headed into Fira to have dinner at Nicolas. They don't have menus there and the waiter will tell you what is available. It's nothing fancy, but the food is great.

June 8th, 2007

Holy crap, I'm tired!!!! Today we decided to walk to Oia on the path that follows the caldera. The views on that walk are so beautiful that they could imprint themselves on you for life. If you decided to take that walk, do it with good walking/hiking shoes. You will enjoy it much, much more.

The town of Oia is also quite beautiful. The streets seem much narrower than Fira, but there so much to see. It seems that there is a blue-domed church on every street corner. What really shocked me is the price of fish. Many restaurants were charging 45-50 Euros per kilo for bream. Santorini is an island. There should be lots of fish. Seafood should be much less expensive than beef.

Of course, after the long walk to Oia, walking around in Oia (including a walk down to the port and back up again), we HAD to make the walk along the caldera back to Fira. The walk was just as beautiful the second time as it was the first......and just as tiring.

June 9th, 2007

Today was our first beach day. We got up early and took the bus to Kamari. The sand was coarse and black and became unbearable hot under the sun. The beautiful water made up for the scorched soles of our feet. I was amazed by the clarity of the water. Getting into the water was infinitely easier than getting out of the water. There are a lot of large stones and gravel at the water's edge that make you feel like you are walking on broken glass.....and then you have to step up onto more gravel to get out. Still, the swimming made the pain worthwhile.

Lunch was at Hooks taverna, which had pretty good service for Greece. They came to the table quickly, served the food quickly, and were always available if you wanted something else or the bill.

The bus ride back was painful. Not for the 1.30 Euros it cost per person, but for the obnoxious Brazilians on the bus.

Tonight was party night at Murphy's. Yes, the most popular bar on this Greek island is called Murphy's. The place was packed! Well, it's not a very big bar, so being packed is very subjective. Two rum and cokes set us back 15 Euros, so after that it was on to 4.50 Euro beers. Lots of fun and dancing, but after a bunch of alcohol you have to watch out for the extremely narrow spiral staircase down to the bathrooms.

June 10th, 2007

We stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant where the waiter gave us shots of a liquor called mastika. He told us this history of the liquor and how it all had to do with love. I'll bet that after a few of those shots love will be found :)

We managed to get some tickets for a sunset cruise. The first stop on the cruise was at the volcano where we climbed to the peak and passed by the craters. You could smell sulphur from some of the vents. Kind of spooky seeing the history of the location. One small vent even had a little smoke coming out of it.

From the volcano we sailed to a hotspring. The water wasn't exactly hot, but the swim was refreshing. The boat anchored in deeper water and we had to swim the 40 meters to the spring.

After the spring it was wine and Greek appetizers as we sailed towards Oia. We met quite a few people on the boat. One was a Canadian who had been living in South Carolina for quite some time, another was a lady whose family owned a large vineyard in South Africa, and there was also Jerrod and Phillip who are part of the family running Fairview Estates vineyard in South Africa. They were all such friendly and amazing people.

June 11th, 2007

Today we headed to Red Beach. To get to the beach you need to walk for a few minutes from the bus stop. As you climb up a part of the hill and reach the peak, the whole beach looks stunning below you. The beach wasn't that busy, but that may be due to the walk and that there were no services available there. No vendors, nothing. The swimming at Red Beach was the best that we had in Greece.

After the day lounging in the sun we decided on dinner at Socrates' View and went to Murphy's for some after dinner drinks and fun.

GPS DATA
Ira Hotel in Fira Stephani: N36 25.651 E25 25.643

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