We arrived in Rhodes probably early in the morning, I didn’t take many notes for this day. We signed up for an excursion to the Rhodes Acropolis and walking tour of the Old City. The Acropolis staircase was listed as 300 steps, and we feared for the worst after the staircase at Patmos, but for whatever reason, it was pretty easy going.

Please sir, don’t pay to ride me, my back can’t take it

After the Acropolis, we got dropped off at the Old City and walked through it, but there wasn’t much to see. I didn’t even take many photographs. The tour ended and the girls wanted to go swimming at a beach that was listed as 20 minutes away, however it took us around 40 to get there, after a wrong turn and a walk along a strip of land bounded by water.

I was in a pretty grumpy mood for the day, which I later attributed to my growing dehydration. Virtually everywhere we went, including the ship, we couldn’t drink the water, and we’d have to buy bottled, and I was having a hard time staying hydrated. Once we made it to the beach, we found many emplaced beach chairs and umbrellas. We, with some incredulity, thought that they were set up for the benefit of the tourists… until a guy came along asking for money. Later the girls wanted to get blended drinks and went off to a nearby bar-stand for daiquiris, and came back with drinks costing 9 euros, which is around 14 dollars canadian at the time. I just had some water, thankfully.

This better be the best daiquiri ever… *slurp*.. it wasn’t

After the beach we went back to the ship for dinner, and later on went to the casino again to use the internet kiosks they had set up there. We had to swipe our boarding cards so it could charge us. They charged per download-minute, so once you loaded and page and sat there, it wouldn’t just keep charging you. But even with that, the bandwidth for me to load up hotmail and then send an email to my parents cost 2.02 euros.

We were to have another early morning the next day, as that was when we were to disembark for Crete, our first island we would be staying at for longer than an excursion. So once again we went back to our tiny cabin for another rocky sleep.

To be continued

We had to wake up quite early this morning, as we hit Turkey at 6:30 and excursions would be starting shortly after. We were actually doing two excursions this day, the first of the ruins of Ephesus, and then later one on the island of Patmos. We had originally planned just for Patmos, but Hugo, our Transat guy on the ship, convinced us to do Ephesus too, thankfully.

We got up and had breakfast and then had to go through Turkey’s customs office, since we had left Greece. The armed guards were a nice intimidating touch. We went to the 3rd settlement of Ephesus, the first two having been lost. The ruins themselves were impressive, and Laura and I took a number of photo’s. Alicia couldn’t as her camera was presumed stolen at this point. One amusing ruin at the site were the toilets, which were a pretty social affair.

It must suck getting stuck in one of the corner seats

After the ruins, the ending of the tour was dumping us at a carpet salesroom. Specifically the two loop variety which is apparently an investment, and for the kind of money they are asking for, an investment you probably shouldn’t actually walk on. The head salesman was quite smooth with the pitch, claiming to be from Toronto and thus would not try to pull one over on us. We got a free beverage with our 20 minute commercial, and for a millisecond I was thinking of getting a very small silk carpet. The two other kinds were of no interest to me, I only wanted silk, and for one the size of a napkin cost over 800… I forget if that was CND or Euros, probably Euros, but eithr way, far more than I was willing to spend.

After that we headed for the Kusadasi Bazaar, where we were told ahead of time to haggle, no matter what. I kept that scene from Life of Brian in my head when I bought a fridge magnet for my mother. I didn’t go for a particularly good deal, they wanted 3 euros, I said I’d pay 2 and got it. I think Alicia did a better ratio with a necklace she got.

No comma means it’s a funny sign

The shopkeeps would be hanging around their shops, trying everything to get you to stop. For the girls, they had calls for jewerlery and such, but for me, they kept claiming to have clothing my size. “Sir, Sir, I have your size”, apparently that’s where all the clothes that fit me are hidden, Turkey. But I didn’t stop, since I already had enough crap in my suitcase, didn’t need more.

We returned to the ship around noon for the shoveoff for Patmos, and that excursion was pretty much a dud, and remained our Gold Standard of crap up until Athens. I can’t remember exactly what the problem was, I think the tour details were just uninteresting and overly based in religion, but as the only interest in the island is due to it being where St. John wrote the book of revelations, I don’t think there was a way out of that. But I think it was the bit where the tour guide told us about the magic healing powder they found in place of St. John’s body was where my mind checked-out.

Look at this weird powder left here in place of the dead guy,
Hey, I have an idea, let’s try rubbing it on our wounds.

I don’t even have many photo’s from Patmos, which is a shame since we had to walk up quite a number of stairs to get to the site, which tired me out quite a bit. The worst part about the stairs was that most of them had a grade, which to me seems to violate the purpose of stairs. After the tour we wondered for a bit, but it was getting cold so we took the overloaded tender boat back to the ship.

And I forget if it was just after Turkey, or after Patmos as well, but this is the day that Alicia recovered her camera. She asked our cabin steward if he had seen it, and he suggested checking the lost and found. And lo and behold, it was there. Alicia wasn’t sure when or where she could have left it, but no matter, it was back and intact, so that dark cloud was gone. We went for our 9pm dinner reservation that we had to make the day before, and we were seated on our own near the kitchen. During the breakfasts, they would direct us to tables, frequently with other people we didn’t know, but for the dinner, it was just us.

We decided to hit the small casino on the ship for a while. The girls played blackjack, while I opted for the socially-withdrawn slot machines, and lost my 15 euros in short order, and after watched the blackjack play out and had a drink. We again had another early night because we would be arriving at Rhodes the next morning and had an excursion to wake up for.

To be continued