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That's a lot of salt!
Entry 36 of 89 | show all | print this entry |
Day 38 - May 9th
Robbed!
Our campsite was robbed. Anshu had her ipod and 300 laka lakas stolen and Kiwi Jayne's shower bag was outside her tent. We guess someone did the rounds putting their arm just inside the zipper felling around the handbag shaped things. Hence Jayne's shower bag which was at the entrance of the tent was dumped outside when the thieves realized it was a shower bag and not a handbag. Unfortunately, Anshu wasn't so lucky.
We had seen some kids walking around in the middle of tents the previous day and told them to scram - but we have no idea if it was them or not.
We had to leave early this morning so there was no time to go to the police station - plus the language barrier would be way worse than my experience in Italy. I think Charmara and Anshu are going to leave it until Germany where they hope someone will understand English.
P.S. (Written several weeks later) I met someone in Lisbon who had also just finished a Topdeck tour. They were robbed as well. Same place. They were only a cabin tour and were staying in the hostel part of the same campsite. They were robbed on their 2nd night at the hostel (someone had gone into their dorm rooms and taken backpacks which were later dumped outside after anything of value was taken from them). Kinda makes me think it's more of a local job. The thieves see the Topdeck buses (bit hard to miss them); wait until the 2nd night and strike. There's no time to report it and they get away with it again.
Today was a drive day - Czech Republic to Poland. They are both part of the EU (still have their own currency though) so technically there should be zero problems at the border. At times you can just drive straight through, no stopping. But today wasn't one of those days. Today we had stop, get out of the bus, line up and get a stamp to say we were leaving the Czech Republic, get back in the bus, drive across no man's land, get out and line up for another stamp to say we were arriving in Poland. That's how it used to be... but not gonna argue with a man with a machine gun.
Along the way several people needed a bathroom stop (toilet on the bus was still full as we had been unable to find a place to empty it). We couldn't find a service station. Finally it got too much for practically everyone and we requested a bush stop.
Practically everyone jumped off the bus and scattered in various directions into the woods. There was 1 regular toilet we had stopped but it was very smelly, very dark and well, we couldn't wait.
Everyone got back on the bus and Angie was in pain. She had stood in stinging nettles and her legs were red and bumpy. Nurse Claire to the rescue - she knew that wherever stinging nettles grow, so does jewelweed - natures cure. She jumped out of the bus, grabbed some, crushed it up and placed the juice onto Angie's legs. All cured.
We arrived in Krakow at 3.30, got the campsite ready and then walked across the road to Carrerfour and the cinemas to check out the movie times. I wanted to go to the movies but Brad said he wanted to go tomorrow night (tonight he had to prepare dinner, tomorrow was a buy your own dinner) but didn't want to go alone - so I offered to wait and go tomorrow.
Day 39 - May 10
I slept in for the 1st time on the entire trip. Transport into the city was right beside the campsite so by getting up at 9am I wasn't missing anything. Although Brad was surprised when I crawled out of my tent - he (and everyone else) had thought I had gotten up early and already gone into town. Just because on drive days I'm up early and have my tent down (by myself) before everyone else (sometimes a few people beat me but I'm never last, I won't have people waiting for me) Brad thought I LIKED getting up early - HA!
Everyone else had left at about 8.45 and taken the tram into town together. I was on the tram by 10am but the map was ridiculous! It just didn't make sense - the tram station that we were supposed to get off at (according to instructions) was at the other end of town to where it was marked on the map. I had to ask about 5 people before finding someone who could understand where I wanted to go (probably not too bad considering 15 years ago Poland was still practically communist). Finally I found where the buses to the Salt Mines left from. The Salt Mines are located about 20 mins from the city and are probably one of the key tourist sites in the area.
The normal price to enter the salt mines is 70 laka lakas but with a big group you can get in for 46.50 (that's what everyone else paid) but my arrival was timed to perfection. I arrived on the tale end of another large tour group that had pre-purchased tickets. I was standing next to the tour guide and the bus driver and overhead them say they had too many tickets. I asked if they wanted to sell me one and they said - sure... how did 20 laka lakas sound? 20? Sure! Great! Thank you very much!
So I joined their tour. The Salt Mines are 11 stories deep but we would only see 3 stories. We were asked not to touch the statues but we could lick the walls as much as we liked. Apparently the human body can ingest 5kgs of salt and still be ok - didn't want to test that theory. Although I did touch the walls and then lick my fingers - yep it was salt.
Inside the mines, there are statues carved out of salt, 2 churches (yep churches) made entirely out of salt, chandeliers, even sculptures depicting the life of Christ - all salt. Very impressive.
Once out of the mine, I met Julia. She had also slept in but had left the campsite before me. We must have been on almost the same tour and finished at the same time - except she had paid more than me. We got the mini-bus back to the city and the main square and checked out the markets there. The centre of the city was under heavy construction so it wasn't too pretty. We had a late lunch (4.30) and I finished off my souvenir shopping.
I got back to the campsite, had a shower and then talked to Brad about what movie he wanted to see. Others were gonna come and then backed out so we went and saw Scary Movie 4... funny, but so like the first 3 that it wasn't anything new... but then I wasn't expecting the reinvention of the wheel.
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