In my last blog I mentioned that we had an absolutely savage travel day when we flew from Barcelona to Istanbul. We managed to book incredibly cheap flights, but a cheap flight always has a trade off and this case the trade off was a 12.01am departure time, then landing in Athens at 4am to begin a 10 hour layover. [Side note: Dave dubbed the flight from Barcelona 'The Rainbow Express' as it was chock-a-block full of big gay Greek men who had obviously all been to some event in Spain. I can guarantee that Grindr was working overtime on that plane.] I don't know if you've ever tried to sleep at an airport but it's not easy, nor is it fun. Athens airport is also very small and floor space was hard to find, as there were a whole lot of other travellers in the same boat as us who had taken all the best sleeping spots. There's actually an entire website dedicated to finding the best spots to sleep in every airport around the world. I now have it saved in my favourites. We eventually found a good spot and settled in for an hour of the least restful sleep ever. By the time we arrived in Istanbul we were shadows of our former selves, and struggled to even keep our eyes open on the 1.5 hour bus ride into the city. Istanbul is the most sprawling city I've ever seen. I could not believe how big it was and how long it took to get anywhere.
Knowing that we were going to be back in Istanbul in a few weeks meant that we were able to completely relax on our first night and day there, without feeling pressure to race around seeing the sights. We sought out the best gozleme and Turkish delight in our local area, went to a cute cafe for breakfast, planned our travel through Turkey, dropped into Carre d'Artistes (an amazing store selling works by local artists, we had bought a piece of art from their New York store last year), and found the holy grail of travel - a shop selling cheap books in English!
The next day we made the trek back out to the airport for our flight to Cappadocia. Our accommodation was in Uchisar which is like a little village, much smaller than Goreme where most of the cave hotels are. We loved Uchisar. Best gozleme we ever ate was in Uchisar at a place called House of Memories, where the owner was always either singing or calling out 'wonderful, wonderful' at anyone who would listen. We ate there three times. There is a 'castle' in Uchisar which is really just a giant rock formation that has been carved into so you can walk through it. From the top of the castle you get a fantastic view of the sunset. We were up there one evening, and just as the sun started to dip below the horizon a group of Spanish teenagers who must have been travelling together as part of a choir sang a beautiful song to the setting sun. It was one of those goosebumpy travel moments where you just think 'I can't believe I'm here'.
Unfortunately we also experienced that 'I can't believe I'm here' moment at our hostel. It was one of those god awful places where the owner treats you solely as a walking wallet, and will not give any genuine recommendations for sights or businesses that aren't giving him kickbacks. He told us that if we weren't prepared to pay for a hot air balloon ride (even the shitty ones where they cram you in with 20 other people were out of our budget) then we wouldn't see the hot air balloons at all. He also told us that the only way to see Cappadocia's landscape and the famous fairy chimneys was to pay for a bus tour. Again, totally out of our budget. We did some independent research and thanks to the magic of the internet and other cheap travellers sharing their tips we were able to find the perfect spot to watch the sunrise and see hundreds of balloons floating over the landscape. Really a special moment and I'm sure it's even better from inside a balloon, but we were pretty happy with our little spot. We also laced up the old hiking shoes for two days and walked all over Cappadocia, seeing plenty of fairy chimneys and some amazing cave churches that were only accessible on foot. Better than a bus tour, and totally free! It was hard work as it was very hot and there is virtually no shade out there, however we saw quite a few fellow hikers so it seems that this 'sticking it to the man and his overpriced tours' thing is catching on.
It was on one of these hiking days that we encountered a local boy selling freshly squeezed orange juice, and I will admit he caught me in a moment of weakness. We had been walking for ages and I was sure we were lost as the track kept changing and didn't seem to be heading anywhere (there are no hiking maps or signs or information or anything out there. They really want you to pay for the tours). We ended up walking up a massive cliff face to reach the road above and lo and behold here's this kid and his OJ. We bought one without even asking the price because I was so hot and cranky but he later told us it was 10 lira. Problem was, we only had a 50 lira note. I'm sure you can tell where this is going. He didn't have change. He tried to force us to buy a necklace with the remainder. We refused. He offered to take our 50 lira and run down to the hiking track to get change from a potential passer by. We refused. Obviously. We repeatedly offered to walk into town and swap the note and come back and pay him but he wasn't having any of that. In the end Dave got so fed up with the theatrics that he just walked off, with the intention of getting into town and swapping the note. Kid decides he is going to follow us and call out new solutions but we walk on ignoring him. He then stops me and tells me he has 30 lira change now (what a fucking surprise) which he got from 'a hiker who went past'. Okay mate. Despite the obviousness of his lie, I also tell him the change should be 40 lira, not 30. He says 'no the juice was 10 lira EACH'. This infuriates Dave and he keeps walking, now refusing to pay this scammy little kid anything. We are getting closer to town and it's like a weird procession - Dave in front walking faster than I've ever seen him do, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the kid; me awkwardly behind, not wanting to make a scene in town especially as we speak zero Turkish, and the kid running behind yelling 'please madam, please madam, I now have 40 lira. 40 lira ma'am, please. Pleaaaase!' I really don't want this to become a public spectacle so I eventually convince Dave that we should pay him and leave it at that. Dave reluctantly agrees, and he finally makes the transaction and tells the kid not to lie to people. I'm sure the kid really took those words to heart...
Our final day in Cappadocia we had big plans to see the Open Air Museum, literally the best thing in the area. Except after we'd bought our tickets we realised Dave's bank card was missing. This was actually a huge problem because my bank card had not been working for a couple of weeks, a problem we didn't deal with because we had Dave's. To compound matters the local buses weren't running due to road closures so to get back to our hostel we had to pay for a taxi to take us the long way home. We rock back into the hostel, turned our room upside down looking for this fucking card, before resigning ourselves to the fact that we'd need to contact the bank (eventually we determined that Dave had left it inside an ATM). Hostel owner couldn't possibly let us make a reverse charge call on his phone as 'actually, it only works for incoming calls'. Okay mate. We end up buying viber credit and calling the bank but it never quite works due to the shitty wifi. We are on an overnight bus this evening so we really need some resolution to this problem. We decide to head to Nevsehir as it has the most facilities, shops etc. We share the bus there with an Aussie girl from our hostel and her Italian travelling hookup and they mention they are on the way to the Museum. Score! We sell them our tickets which gets us some cash to use and is also literally the first positive thing that's happened all day. In Nevsehir we catch the luckiest of breaks and are given free reign of a mobile phone store after the SIM card they sold us doesn't work to call Australia. We are in their back room for an hour and a half, using their wifi, trying to call the bank and not only did they never once complain they even bought us water and checked in on us every ten minutes to make sure we had everything we needed. This kind of generosity was very common in Turkey and it was the reason why Turkish people were pretty much our favourites. Thanks to these guys we got in touch with the bank, got my card back up and running, and arranged for a replacement to be sent to our accommodation in Istanbul. Phew.
The overnight bus we took that night to Pamukkale was very unlucky for two of our fellow travellers who were robbed. A Canadian woman and an American guy both had stuff stolen while they were sleeping. Obviously we felt sorry for them and I was showing my concern to the guy, as he'd had a bag stolen containing some expensive electronics. I mentioned that it's so annoying because he will now have to spend all day putting in his insurance claims and he replied that he didn't have travel insurance. That was a complete conversation killer. Sympathy finished.
Pamukkale was a very uneventful place in comparison. We stayed with Erol an engineering student who hosts on Airbnb to practise his (already very good) English and for extra beer money. He will be finishing his degree in a year and told us that he really doesn't want to get a job in Turkey. When we asked where he wanted to move to his main criteria was 'somewhere where the beer is cheap'. Our type of guy. He was the perfect host, he cooked us dinner, was easy to talk to and fun to be around, gave us a great insight to what it was really like for young people in Turkey at the moment, showed us around his local market, helped us buy bus tickets to our next destination, and cooked us breakfast.
Pamukkale itself, although still beautiful, was unfortunately not as spectacular as the pictures we had seen on the Internet. It was very dry when we were there which was disappointing but not unexpected. There were still plenty of chicks in bikinis posing for ridiculous photos though.
Our onward bus was to Fethiye, the neighbouring town of Oludeniz. Oludeniz is renowned for amazing beaches and national parks but also for being absolutely swarming with the worst kind of English tourist. We were happy to stay nearby and bus in each day rather than immerse ourselves in that. Unfortunately our arrival was an absolute sanga. Our host Kartal spoke very little English and had not provided us with a complete address or directions to his home. His intention was to pick us up from the local mall after he finished his work for the day (he was a paragliding pilot) and drive us to his house. This message was completely lost in translation and we ended up walking the streets of Fethiye at 10pm in search of what we thought maybe might be his address (it wasn't). I resigned myself to the fact that we didn't have a bed for the night and we stopped in at Burger King for some food. Through the helpful translation of a cleaner at Burger King we were able to determine that Kartal would pick us up from there and drive us home. His apartment had gorgeous views over Fethiye and we all sat down on the balcony together, ate lokum and chatted. He liked the fact that we were Australian because it meant we were his brothers. He said about Gallipoli 'big war, but now, big brothers'. It was a very sweet moment.
Our few days here were filled to the brim with beach time, firstly at Oludeniz and the Blue Lagoon where we were able to afford to hire sun beds and an umbrella for the first time on the trip (cost $8 Australian - hey big spenders). We also took a day trip out to Butterfly Valley, a gorgeous spot with a pristine beach and a waterfall that you could climb up more or less to the top. Apparently you used to be able to go all the way up and over but then somebody died so they closed it. There's always that one clown who ruins it for everybody. The water here (and everywhere else we swam in Turkey) was the most pristine, clear, perfect temperature, medium salted, amazing water I've ever seen. Remember I was complaining that all the oceans were too cold to too warm? Well the Aegean was an absolute delight. You should all go there, now.
The taxi boat home from Butterfly Valley threw up a few of the aforementioned chavs who flock to Oludeniz. We heard a 10 year old girl accuse her mother of being on coke, and the mother's only response was that it was a 'pathetic and ridiculous' thing to say. They were accompanied by two of the drunkest men I've ever seen, one of whom had clearly pumped a lot of steroids in his time. Honestly, the best kind of Brits.
A trip to turkey would not be complete without a visit to Gallipoli and after yet another overnight bus ride (they are the bread and butter of the budget traveller) and a night staying in the world's worst hostel in Canakkale, we hit up the peninsula ready for our tour. Our bus was full of kiwis bro, and our tour guide was Turkish which we really appreciated as it gave us a different perspective rather than being focused solely on the Australian efforts. This was an unfortunate battle for all involved, and even though the allies were defeated the Turkish people certainly don't view it as a 'victory', just a really sad shared history that we have. The cemeteries and commendation sites we visited were really well looked after and very simply done, letting the emotion of the location speak for itself. It was hard not to shed a tear at the cemeteries or at the monument of Ataturk's speech, words that have always made me emotional. It was definitely a very moving day and an experience that we won't forget in a hurry.
The bus from Gallipoli took us to our Airbnb in Istanbul, dropping us off just after midnight. I felt so guilty that we were inconveniencing our hosts (Khan and Gülsa, a painfully cool Turkish hipster couple) but she had only just gotten home from an exam and was waiting for her boyfriend to cook dinner. They needed a couple of eggs for the dish so she pulled out her phone, called the local grocer, put some lira in a basket on a lead, lowered it out the sixth storey window and 30 seconds later she was pulling fresh eggs into the apartment. Best apartment ever. They also had a fabulous dog called Rush who I was able to get to sit through the magic of google translate. Turkish dogs apparently don't understand the English word for 'sit'.
Of course we visited the Hagia Sophia (amazing piece of history. Definitely one of my favourite sights in Istanbul, particularly the mosaics), the spice bazaar, the grand bazaar and all the shops in between. While we were lining up to see the underground cistern we ran into our friends Helen and Joel from back home who we had arranged to have dinner with that night. It was a lovely reunion and so good to see familiar faces! We caught up over beers and meze and the following day visited the Blue Mosque together and had more beers and meze.
Istanbul was one of our favourite cities to visit. It was a great place to just walk around, safe, vibrant, full of cool people and places. Alcohol and food are more expensive than a lot of places we've been but still cheaper than being home!
There are always pros and cons of staying in Airbnb places, many of which I've already touched on. One of the pros of our place in Istanbul was that the balcony overlooked a soccer stadium and one night we sat on our balcony watching the Olyroos beat the Turkish side in the Gallipoli Cup 1-0. Us watching pretty much doubled the attendance at the game, but hey, who's counting. One of the cons of the apartment was that the stove was hard to figure out. I didn't want to ask our hosts why it wasn't working so I did some detective work, found a plug on the stove and a powerpoint on the wall and decided that they must belong together. They didn't. I shorted out the power to the entire apartment and gave myself a very big fright. Khan probably got an even bigger fright because at that moment he was recording/making music (that was his job) and definitely lost all his work. Dave brings this up at least once a week. Turns out you just needed a match to get the stove going. #wellwhythefuckisthereaplugonit
Athens was the next port of call, after our longest overnight bus ride yet - 16 hours! We did nothing on our first day in Athens, except sleep, find a souva for lunch, sleep some more, then check out some local bars and eat another souva for dinner. We had a super friendly bartender at one of these bars who chatted to us for ages and gave us souvenir beer glasses when we were leaving. This was a lovely gesture but very awkward to carry in a backpack - we gave them to our Airbnb host. He probably didn't deserve a gift though. If you've been to Greece you will know that their sewerage system cannot cope with toilet paper being flushed so it all has to go in the bin. Super gross and unsettling but just a part of life for them. Most places have a very small bin that gets emptied regularly so it doesn't get funky. Not so our host. This bin was literally up to my hip and contained probably a weeks worth of shit covered toilet paper. He didn't empty it once while we were there. You feared for your very life every time you entered the bathroom.
The next day, we did the right thing and made our way to the Acropolis. It was so weird to just walk past random ruins on the street that are thousands of years old. The Acropolis itself was great, some things were remarkably well preserved and others clearly needed a LOT of restoration to ensure they will even still be standing in 100 years. The Greek government is spending billions of dollars on these restoration works and although I was disappointed that the monuments are not entirely 'authentic', once I learned that most of them would crumble without this maintenance I was 100% on board. This is a part of history that we can't afford to lose.
It was at one of these monuments that I ran into Emilia, the sister of Helen from the Istanbul part of this story. It was lovely and unexpected to see her, but also unnerving that the entire family was stalking me through Europe. You don't have to go to that kind of effort guys, you could just read the blog. But seriously, come visit please. All of you.
Athens was the most surprising city we visited. I was not particularly interested in going there, and did not have high expectations. Turns out, it's a super cool city with a lot more going on than I anticipated. The people were so friendly and there was much more to it than just ticking off the standard tourist spots. The New Acropolis Museum is the second best museum I've ever visited and really fleshed out what we had seen at the Acropolis. And the pork souvas are really really good.
We had signed up for Workaway while we were in Turkey, a website that is kind of like WWOOFing but with a much broader range of tasks and not necessarily geared towards farming/organics. Our aim was to spend a few weeks on a Greek island experiencing life as the locals live it. We ended up at a villa on Skopelos (famous/not famous for the movie Mamma Mia being filmed there) staying with a British couple in their late sixties. This stay differed greatly from the WWOOFing we had done previously as our main task was to repaint the pergola. Once that was done we were mostly doing bits and pieces around the house, helping with cleaning etc. It was not difficult work but nor was it interesting in the way it had been when we were working on farms. We didn't learn any new skills the whole time we were there (except how to polish silver, you can imagine how often I'll use that in my daily life) and we certainly missed the feeling of hands in dirt. Hopefully in the future I will be sharing many more stories about the fabulous farms and plots we find ourselves on.
What we did learn however, was a lot about Greek culture. Skopelos is a tiny island in the Sporades, population of about 4000 and no real export or industry to speak of. They are renowned for their plums (I can attest that they are delicious) and their fucking amazing cheese pie. The people were lovely and friendly and happy but a lot of them are really struggling to make ends meet, and have been greatly affected by the austerity measures. On our second night in Skopelos we were lucky enough to view a film made by an English director who has a home on the island, focusing on the unfair way that the Greek people have been treated and drawing parallels between history and what is occurring now. It was very eye opening and made much more sense by the time we were leaving and really understood what was happening in Greece. It's incredibly sad, but the people are very resilient (perhaps too resilient) and life seemed to go on as usual, even after Tsiporas was voted back into power.
The first ten days on the island were sunny, warm and perfect for tanning. We spent time by the pool, swam at a couple of local beaches (Dave was lucky/unlucky enough to see a couple having sex in one of the coves, obviously thinking that they were very well hidden!), we sunbaked, we read, we walked, we paddle boarded, we relaxed and we acclimatised to island life - slow down. We definitely needed this after the constant go go go of our last three months. On our second day at the villa our host Neil was showing me how to clean the pool and he said the most important thing was to 'just take your time doing it. There's really no point in rushing anything'. This was island life.
Our run of luck had to break though, and break it did with two days of constant rain and some of the most severe thunderstorms I have ever experienced. The thunder and lightning were terrifying. We were very lucky that the part of the island we were staying on was spared the brunt of the damage, but the main street in the main town was pretty much destroyed, with shopfronts and cars completely washed away in flash flooding. 286mm of rain fell in 24 hours. The island was not prepared for a disaster like this (they don't even have a police station) so a state of emergency was declared and the army called in to assist. We lost power in the storm, and the water was off for two days afterwards but this was very lucky in comparison to those who lost their entire livelihoods. Many people don't have insurance or the money to rebuild so it will be interesting to see what happens long term. A disaster fund has been set up and hopefully the funds will be distributed correctly. This was an odd few days in our time on Skopelos, as by the time we left it was back to clear blue skies, sunshine and the most magnificent sunsets we had ever seen. All considered it was a very interesting time and certainly not your regular tourist experience.
Unfortunately, what we had considered to be a positive and enjoyable experience was punctuated a few days after we left with a long, unfairly negative review from our hosts. This felt like a complete kick in the guts and was incredibly upsetting, especially as they had not given any indication that they were unhappy with us while we were there. Sidebar: everybody knows that shit happens when you travel. There's funny shit (like Dave leaving his bankcard in a Turkish ATM) that's stressful at the time but will eventually become a funny story that you will laugh about. But there's also shit shit, like when you feel you've been unfairly treated and been set up to fail in your future endeavours with a review so bad that nobody would consider hosting you again. The funny shit is great, it makes for enjoyable reading and fun writing. The shit shit is awful. It makes me feel sick thinking about it and I need to stop dwelling on it and continue carrying the negative energy around. I have avoided sharing those kind of stories here for that reason. I won't go into further details about what happened but it certainly makes it hard to look back on the Workaway experience with fondness. Rather, we will treat it as a big learning curve and hopefully be able to seek out more authentic people in future, whose ideals and principles are more in line with ours.
But onwards and upwards, and Athens was calling our name again. First port of call (after a pork souva and a craft beer of course) was the Brazilian embassy where we had an appointment to beg them to process a rush visa for us so that we could board a plane to Rio in three days. We really dropped the ball on this one - we assumed it was a simple e-visa process like virtually every other country we are travelling to. Wrong. It's a full blown visa that requires you to send your passport plus all your supporting documentation to the embassy two months before you travel. Whoops. We called the embassy several times before we got someone on the phone who would agree that if we made an appointment and had all of our papers and photos with us, and all our information was correct then they could process the visa in 4 hours. You could tell they weren't thrilled about doing it but we got the stamp of approval and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Dave's replacement bank card had also made its way safely to our hostel in Athens after mysteriously not turning up in Istanbul. Everything was coming up Dave and Mel in Athens!
The rest of our time here was spent predominantly eating, drinking and making sure we were organised for South America. We managed to squeeze in a museum visit while we were waiting on our visas but other than that it was virtually free of tourist sights. We were staying in Monastiraki which is a pretty cool part of town, with a lot of bars and cafes and we were more than happy to hop from one place to the next each night.
One place we did spend a lot of time however, was the sports bar. The AFL grand final was on and there was no way Dave was going to miss out on watching it. Luckily there was a place in Athens showing it, and they advised us to get there early because it would be busy. It wasn't. We were the first ones there at 6:15am and I was absolutely cursing Dave for his eagerness. A couple of coffees and some bacon later and things were looking up. There was even a small crowd forming (those who were smart enough to sleep in). We were seated next to a table of women who were probably the most fanatical West Coast supporters I've ever seen. It turns out that they were the mother, aunt, cousin etc of a guy who was actually playing in the grand final. Well, this guy kicked a goal and the entire bar just erupted. Obviously she was disappointed at the result of the game, but shit, her son kicked a goal in a grand final. That's pretty special. It was really nice to feel part of a little Aussie community for a couple of hours and we met some lovely people. So lovely in fact that we decided to go back to the hostel and sleep off the early morning beers, then regroup for round 2 at the sports bar that night - Australia v England in the rugby World Cup. This was a different kettle of fish altogether. The place was jam packed when we got there, and predictably full of poms. Most of them were also lovely, and gracious in defeat (they all just said they would switch to supporting Wales now).
That was a very big day and we greeted Sunday with very big hangovers. Our flight wasn't until late so we had to check out of the hostel and awkwardly hang around passing the time, trying not to vomit, trying not to sleep on the street etc. I'm sure you've all been there.
We were really quite sad to leave Europe, it had been a long, hot (sometimes unbearably so), enjoyable summer and we had met a bunch of amazing people and seen some beautiful places. Europe was like a familiar friend to us and heading to South America which was the complete unknown was a little bit nerve racking but also incredibly exciting. We are currently in Rio and I can confirm it is nowhere near as dangerous as the papers would have you believe. BUT I will keep all of that for the next blog. Until then, be nice to each other and wear sunscreen! Especially all you tarts at the races. Seriously, even if it's cloudy. Trust me.
Eu amo todos vocês. x
