 |
| A cliffside shot of Ia |
| Erin's Santorini Journals 5-13-02 After an uncomfortable night with a queasy stomach, I had a hard time getting up early enough to be packed and ready for the shuttle by 7:15. Glenn was nice enough to shower first and give me a chance to sleep an extra 20 minutes, but by 6:25am I was in the shower and preparing to go. We made the shuttle, and took the quick ride down to the port for the ferry. The water was pretty rough, with big waves crashing all around and the car ramp at the back of the boat lifting and slamming down with each swell. We left our bags in the hold and went up to the deck to take last views of Santorini and the volcanic island, a bit clearer today without the gray hazy mist of the day before. The spray out on deck was brisk, but the sun felt great, and I was enjoying the roll of the boat. After our first stop in Ios, however, I was getting wet and decided to use the day trip on board to catch up on journals finally. So I went down and found a place to sit in the cafeteria, and caught up on about 20 days of journals! The swells lessened the closer we got to Athens, and by the end of the trip was pretty calm. We arrived in Athens a little after 6pm, over an hour past our scheduled landing time, but we didn't worry too much. The plan for the evening was to quickly find the bus to the port town of Patras on the western coast, which other travelers had told us would take about 3 hours to reach. If we had taken the train, it would have taken 5 hours, apparently - very strange when a bus goes faster than a train! So we arrived in Athens' port, Pireas, and found the Metro to a transfer point where we could find a city bus to take us to the main bus station. We finally got to the bus station around 7:30pm, and bought tickets for the 8pm bus. We gulped down a quick meal and were on the bus in no time. The ride was uneventful and straight, none of the mountain passes we'd endured on our way from Igoumenitsa! We arrived in Patras around 11pm and immediately went to the ferry dealers to see if we could catch a boat that night over to Italy. But the unanimous answer was NO. There were no boats departing for anywhere but Venice that night, which was further north than we wanted to go, so we asked directions to the local hostel and walked the 1 1/2 km to get there. It was pretty scary down by the waterfront, with seemingly endless groups of bored young men standing around either smoking or talking or staring! But with Glenn by my side, nobody bothered us. We arrived at the hostel at 11:30pm hoping to find it open, as most do close down by then. There was no light in the yard and the place looked deserted, but there was a phone, and we were given instructions to go to room 2 and knock. We did this and were let into the room by a nice young Canadian girl, who quickly went back to sleep. The place was an absolute dump! There were no lights in the toilet I tried to use, and the showers looked unfit for prison inmates. The room stank, and the bed smelled so bad I could hardly sleep. Plus each time I moved, I released a fresh bout of odor. Ick! Not much sleep for me that night! |