Managed to find a seat on a sofa in the ferry lounge that was also occupied by a local middle aged Greek man. Throughout the next 3 hours he would do his best to convince me that the sofa was no good to sit on as he obviously wanted to use the whole thing to sleep on later ….“its no good to cold to noisy it smells “etc …I was hoping that if I out waited him he might leave and I could stretch h out in peace ….in the end it was a stalemate and we both slept uncomfortably on 2 seat each …..at 4am we pulled in to Chios Harbour and I disembarked in a haze….watch the ferry sail off into the night then spent the next 2 hours sitting on a bench in the port waiting for the sun to come up. My first impressions of Chios in the dark were ‘“there’s nothing here why the hell did I come to Chios?” But as the sun rose it became apparent that there was a town here and a nice one at that. By 8am it was hot and the morning had revealed the clear blue waters of the harbour…..
After 9am I made my way to a budget hotel I found on line run by an Ex pat Kiwi called Don.. I rang the bell and was met by the antipodeans’ version of Howard marks ….think I came to the right place alright….Had to wait a couple of hours until my room was free so explored the town….It became clear after a short while I was the only ( to my knowledge) English speaking tourist in town…….just what I had been looking for ….in fact It turns out that Chios is a to9urist town for Greeks on holiday …its got its fair share of clubs and bars but people seemed to drink ice cappuccinos rather than jager bombers…
Once in the room I pretty much slept for the next 16 hours with a few breaks to eat and shower. The next day hit a small beach to the south of town where the swimming was really good….water was crystal clear and a good depth for about 400m got a bit of exercise in and then ate some much needed fruit. That evening watch Greece hold off Argentina before falling at the last hurdle…the mood in town was sombre ..congratulated myself on sticking to soft drinks and had an early night after listening to a bit of radio 6 through the bar downstairs wi-fi
Next day went to see a couple of medieval fortified villages in the south of the island on the advice of Don who had been a super cool host. Once I got there and had looked around for an hour realised I was still totally knackered despite spending most of the last 2 days sleeping….got the first bus back to town to have a nap….after sleeping looked in the mirror and realised I was starting to look and feel like Ben Gunn from treasure island ( see photo).Think it’s time to have a shave once I hit Turkey.. Watched England scrape into the last 16 in the afternoon and bought a ticket on the morning boat to Cesme in Turkey….decided to have a cheap night as I had just about blown my initial budget for 12 weeks in 5 week….....hmmm gonna have to do some re thinking hopefully things in Turkey will be cheaper….
Greece summary
A cool country but prob bottom of the fun list ….think the timing of Greece in my trip hampered my enjoyment a bit ….feeling drained + struggling to meet like minded travellers…don’t know if this is to do with chance or if I have become a bit anti-social now that the novelty of not being in work is wearing off a bit…maybe ill meet some cooler people once I’m off the beaten track……
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