The joys of independant travel - Crete, Greece

Ups and downs are a fact of life, particularly when you're on the road, so I thought I should give you a taste of this bitter sweet fact by documenting our last few day’s events.

Firstly heading to Crete. It was an exhausting mission composed of two busses on Santorini to the ferry terminal; a 2 hour late ferry to Crete; a rip off cab ride 100m up the road on arrival to the bus station; a bus of unsure destination in the dead of the night across the island resulting in our being stranded in Sissi - a small, skanky, tank top wearing, 20 cm short skirt sporting, glow stick toting, budget cocktails named ' the head f*#ker' producing, general bad side of the Greek islands corrupted by tourists town where we tried unsuccessfully to hire a car to gain some control of our travels; and eventually gave in to another expensive cab ride to our little town of Milatos.

Milatos however was well worth the mission. We were offered a choice of apartments on arrival which for one blew us away as usually we're pointed to a room and that’s that, and opted for the very tasteful 3 b'room apartment with a deck with a beach view sheltered by palms. Yes sir!

We spent 4 beautiful nights there, cooking our own meals which is a treat for us, lounging by the pool, exploring the lovely beachside township almost totally devoid of other tourists, and Crete in our zippy little Chevy rental car, and drinking one day away with some Essex expats with a collection of reptiles in their apartment that would put Wellington Zoo to shame. No shit, they had 16 snakes, a few lizards and a cane toad - one of the boas was 15 feet!!

We meet these critters when we were half boozed (and expecting his boasts to be half hot air) and instead were blown away. I got some excellent photos of us snuggling them. Andy looked awfully Cleopatra like with his little snakey curled around his wrists, sorta like that princess babe in Conan.

Any who, we loved it there, I can honestly say it was the best accommodation so far and we were sad to leave. But exciting too, because as far as we know we were heading to Turkey the next day....we were wrong.

After a 12 hour ferry ride (supposed to be 10), a 75 euro cab ride that was not planned for in our meagre budget, after the planned 10 euro bus never arrived (as they don’t run on Saturdays, and the website timetable doesn’t bother to mention this!), which followed our prearranged cab driver demanding extra money for no decent reason and succeeding as we didn’t have the correct change we arrived in Rhodes. Straight away we were struck by the place and upset that we didn’t have any days planned here. Fate intervened however in the morning when our ferry was cancelled and we had to spend the next day regardless. A good turn of events!Woohoo

Naxos, Greece - Beach Buggin'

We are so glad to be here!
It's super hot, the beaches are absolutely stunning - actually the best I've ever seen - and to match the people are stunning too. The rumours are not true, Greek men are not all super hairy with mono brows and fob chains, there are some amazing specimens about and so far both Greek men and women are on top of my most attractive list for this trip.
Needless to say skin exposure is on a high and is the biggest relief after the middle east. To walk the streets in a sleeveless dress was my biggest kick on our first day, let alone all the nudey bathing since.
For the last two days we've hired a little beach buggy to tiki tour the island. Great call, each day we pack a little picnic and fire off around the coast to see the sights and sites.
The buggy scores high on the cool factor, being a low riding, open air bright yellow broom broom, but really low on comfort as its fricken loud, and offers no reprieve from the heat which reaches about 35 degrees with no breeze.
So, we zipped around and saw some beautiful old white wash churches, one as old as 600ad though you wouldn't think it, ancient marble statues, marble mines, one literally overflowing into an avalanche of white rock against a huge green peak - stunning, and also visited a Temple to Demeter which was the oh so classically Greek columned style I've been hanging out for in my minds eye of what I'll see in Greece.
The beaches are killer - we found one beautiful little bay amongst the white stone where we had our Greek picnic and lazed for the day. I looked so funny, swimmimng topless with my white goggles on checking out the fishes and old marble rock under the water. Its no biggie here to go topless so an ace opportunity to get a clean, no lines tan not to mention have the hippie sense of being one with nature swimming near nude in the med.
I see why people fall in love with this place!

Wadi Musa, Petra, Jordan - the search for the Holy Grail

At the moment we're high up in the hills of Jordan in Wadi Musa to visit Petra (yes, the place that Indie found and lost the Holy Grail in number 3). It is absolutely stunning and not to brag but our second world wonder on this trip.

We have 5 days here now instead of our planned 3, as the previous accomodation in Aqaba near the border tried to put us in a tent instead of a room at an exhorbatant rate for what it was, in 50 degree temps...so not an option!! So, after a 24 hour day of travel and some well worded business advice to the ahole hotel staff in Aqaba, we jumped ship early and hailed a cab to Wadi Musa.

To describe where we are now, it's a small mountain town where every house is made of stone and painted cream. It's surrounded by ancient, jagged, dry, erroded hills of rock and is visually to die for. We've been treated by crimson desert sunsets iced with a cresent moon the last two nights...awww.

The people are way freindlier than the first batch of Jordanians that I met last month, but that's pretty easy. But of course, they are more used to tourists here and our skin exposing ways. I am still carefull however not to attract too much attention, so have reverted to some strategic conversions of dresses to long skirts etc in a terribly daggy fashion, but worth it.

We met a stunning Bedouin man today in Petra who chatted with us while we smoked hooka. He lives in the caves, is 27, and unmarried. For that reason, Rachael Lowe, we've decided you should never visit here as you would be too tempted to stay and marry a local! He told us a few tales of western woman who come here for a week or so holiday and instead married and never left! One is a NZ'er who married a Bedouin man here 27 years ago, and has written a book on her experiences. We'll have to met her tomorrow to get her last name and look her book up, should be interesting hearing how she adjusted to the cave dwelling nomadic lifestyle here. Funny though, you see these guys, wearing their long robes and thick eye makeup and can easily see how women get swept up in it. Dont worry though, Andy is enough of a gorgeous nomad for me to ever be tempted by those boys!

xxxxx

Jerusalem - Holy!

I'm sitting in a beautiful and of course very old, as are most things here, stone hostel about 200m away from the 'Old City' part in Jerusalem.

I love the Old City area, it's a labrinyth of ancient white stone with everything you hope to see in Jerusalem in one place: amazing historical sites, fantastic markets, and of course great cafes. It's completely walled in by huge crusade style architecture and is divided into four quarters: Muslim, Armenian, Christian and Jewish, each as you can imagine, with their own unique character on offer.

The markets are brimming with gorgeous fabrics, glass works, ceramics, colourful stone beads and handcrafted jewelery to spices, teas, dried fruits and arabic sweets (my favourite is by far rose and pistachio...mmm). It's all so tempting but sadly apart from the cafes, too pricy for me and for that matter not the sort of thing to squash in our packs for the next 9 months to get home, so ba humbug!

We have however bought a frankincense burner, arabic coffee and pot and a sheesha (hookah) pipe so we can continue the arabic lifestyle down the line. Here's hoping we can get it all through customs... Sheesha was always predicted to be an indulgence for us in this part of the world which today we had in the Muslim Quarter with the perfect partner - mint tea. Quite the scene, being the only woman sitting amongst robed men puffing away, eyebrows raised and a little boy giggled.

Jerusalem is holy to three major religions; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It's the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual center of the Jewish people since the 10th century BCE. Some of the holy sites in the Old City are: the Temple of the Mount (where the Jews believe Adam and the world for that matter was created) and the West Wall (the Western Wall is venerated as the sole remnant of the 1st Holy Temple and a place of pilgrimage for Jews, as it's the closest permitted accessible site to the holiest spot in Judaism), the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, (where Jesus is said to have been killed and buried) - we had no idea of this when we were in there, bad uneducated tourist! will go back today to take it in, and the Dome of the Rock (where the Muslims believe Muhammad ascended to God) which is absolutely beautiful and of course I took copiuos photos.

Needless to say its pretty amazing seeing these sights. I couldnt help but think of how many other people would love to see them as it would mean so much more to them than they do to us little atheists, however the history, the art and amazing architecture was pretty moving. I often find myself watching the pilgrims as much as the sights because they're so swept up in it. I find it amazing that they believe in it so passionately when the other religions and sights and contradictory tales are so nearby. Thats just me. Oh to be so one sided - life would be so simple.

Given this history, there's no wonder there is so much conflict here. Yesterday as you probably read, a Palestinian charged a bulldozer down a busy street close to where I sit now on a rampage, killing three Israelis and injuring over 40 people. I was surprised by the Prime Ministers response to this which was; "I think we need to be tougher in some of the means we use against perpetrators of terror. If we have to destroy houses, then we must do so, and if we have to stop their social benefits, then we must do so. There cannot be a case where they massacre us and at the same time they get all the privileges that our society provides". An interesting response when the bulldozer attacker was shot dead on the spot, so he would only be punishing the family by a cruel and clearly unfair form of collective punishment, and is dangerously teetering on the edge with that statement of speaking about the Palestinians as a whole not the family?! Argh. I dont know what the answers are here but that's an example of the chaos of both the actions and reasoning underlying this complex, beautiful, and ancient waring area.

It's definately a bizzare feeling when we stop and think about where we are and what does happen on these streets but I can honestly say we feel safe. I saw that bulldozer article, see huge tanks being transported by night, see gun towers and the gun toting teenage soldiers, but I also see a country striving for the normality of daily life without conflict, trying to find a way ahead on a person to person level.

On a completely different and cherrier note, I can't believe it has been less than 3 months since we left NZ. It feels like so long ago. I'm already having fantasies about catching up with all of you, holidays around NZ, a flat white from Fidel's or a Chargrilled Pineapple Caipirinha from the Matterhorn on my return!! Way ahead of myself there. Come on Emma, you still have the motherland of Caipirinha's to go - Brazil.... let alone half the world.

Happy Birthday (Month) BRETT!, I am desperatly looking for a cool milestone bday present for you but they are all so holy and biased in that way that I've had no luck yet... it's like searching for the holy grail...well we are going to Petra on Sunday so I'll see if Indy left it there. That'd be a sweet present eh? I'll try xx