track our trek

Two questions....
How does tomatoes, cucumbers, feta cheese, a few olives, some olive oil, white vinegar, salt and pepper, with a wedge of bread taste soooo good?
How come if we try and make the same greek salad back in the states, it tastes like crap?

Anyway, we jumped on a ferry from Ephesus, Turkey to Samos, Greece. We then immediately went to a ferry agent and found the next ferry or set of ferries to Santorini island. Well our ride went from Samos island to Mykanos island to Santorini. We were able to find a room in the town of Fira for about 20 euros a night. After visiting Greece, we are firm believers that all travelers at one time in their lives should see Greece. Santorini in particular!! There are not enough words to explain what you see with your own eyes. I would even go so far to say it is one of most beautiful places I've seen on earth. Seriously, the view will give you goose bumps. Santorini is probably the one island that all tourist of Greece migrate to....even for just a couple of hours. We heard that during high season it can become quite obnoxious w/the amount of tourists that flood the island. But in the off season; which we were in; there is only a trickling of tourists....which makes traveling quite fun.

Santorini is a crescent shaped, island formed by an ancient volcanic eruption said to have taken place in 1650 BC. The inner edge of the island plunges almost 900 feet into the sea and the outer coast has long black volcanic beaches.The most important characteristic of the island of Santorini is the submerged "active" volcano, which errupted, resulting in the submersion of the center of the island, leaving only the crater and the 300m cliff, here is where you see the traditional white houses with blue trim are built on the edges of the volcanic rock. Essentially, what you see is a jaw dropping view (caldera view) of steep cliffs with beautiful houses and a sea that looks like it goes on forever. Sunsets are incredibly beautiful and remind me of a the sun being a tea bag that is getting dropped into a large cup of water...that of course being the sea.  As the sun sets into the sea you can see the rays of it glow out of the water a little bit. Fira and Ia are the two towns with these type of dynamic views. Ia is more remote and secluded than its sister Fira. It was great to see the smile on Dawne's face when she saw that first view from Fira. Needless to say...we stayed here for a week, and we saw the caldera view everyday!
It was very quiet in Santorini, cuz we were there right before the holiday season got started. We even spent Easter Sunday their as many businesses closed early.

From Santorini we hopped on another ferry to Paros Island. We jumped on a quad bike and toured the island. The island is rather small and can be driven around at about 30 km/hr in about 2-3 hours or so. Stopping at beaches, marble quarries, and restaurants along our journey. Just like Santorini, there is plenty of shopping boutiques to take your money. Paros also has the same laid back feel of Santorini....just without the views. If you're into relaxing, sipping on coffee drinks, reading a book, laying on a beach; then Paros is for you. There is not much to do but just chill out and relax.

After hanging in Paros of a couple of days we headed to Naxos. Well, in Naxos we hooked up w/ another backpacker Jason; an Australian living in the UK. Naxos is similar to Paros but about 3 times as large. So getting around it you'll need a car. So, the next day we split the price of a rent-a-car 3 ways and proceeded to drive around the island. Our travels took us to one of the more impressive sites I've ever seen. There are mountains and mountains of marble throughout the island, with of course a marble quarry here and there. One of the main quarries is essentially a mountain that has been partially cut off. The marble is so dense and heavy that it takes a large tractor trailer to gingerly carry a piece about the size of car down the mountain.

After about 3 days on Naxos, we as well as Jason jumped on a ferry to Athens. We spent about 2-3 days there checking out the ruins. Athens is a proper modern city with a metro, traffic, sidewalks, restaurants.....etc. It doesn't really have much charm to it, and if it was not for the ruins, the fact that we needed to catch a plane from there to Egypt....we probably would have avoided it. All in all we loved Greece, we sure did have our fill of good food which included Gyros, greek salad, greek coffee, and lots of baklava. No doubt.....we'll be back, again....and again....and again!!

from istanbul, we took an overnight bus to selcuk...a far cry from the overnight bus in laos, this one came w/ a steward who served coffee and tea & gave us sweet smelling kologna (lymicol) to clean our hands...not bad! we checked into the hotel artemis (not jimmy's artemis guesthouse which is mentioned in the lonely planet.) we were assured that jimmy's was the fake hotel artemis & stole the name...we're pretty sure our hotel was the fake one...but no worries, the room was clean and comfy. we napped for a few hours, then woke up and walked around the saturday market. selcuk is a charming little town, popular mostly b/c of its proximity to ephesus... a huge ancient roman city a few km away. we also visited the church of st. john...it is believed that st. john and the virgin mary lived out their last days together in ephesus, and the church of st. john houses st. john's tomb! the timeline at the church was a bit confusing...claiming that st. john died here at the age of 100 after writing his gospel in 95-97 a.d....hmmm....that would have made him a 3-year old disciple, wouldn't it? still fascinating to think of it! and startling to think of turkey's history as part of the roman empire so long ago...
we spent a day walking through ephesus...a city that had a population of some 200,000! it is overwhelming to imagine what the place was like when it was a living city, and even more amazing to imagine the work archeaologists have done to excavate and restore parts of it!
on our last day we joined a tour to visit 3 more ancient cities, priene, miletos and didyma...fascinating to hear the stories behind the pagan temples, like priene's temple of athena, goddess of wisdom & intelligence...in miletos, we visited the huge temple of apollo, which was never completed, but which scholars argue should have been one of the wonders of the ancient world...and to hear about things like the first central heating system that was invented so many hundreds of years ago...in the 5th century b.c. using hot water in ceramic pipes under floors! imagine!

from rome we flew to istanbul by way of athens...we spent the night on a bench outside mc donald's  in the athens airport...not the most comfortable digs, but it was free, & the guy from mc donald's even gave us free coffee at 6am! we decided to skip the 25 euro hotel pickup from the airport in favor of the 5 euro train ride to our hotel in sirkeci, istanbul. we rode the tram through the city past beautiful old mosques...amazing to see them with their minarets towering above the city...our hotel was only a few minutes' walk from the famous haghia sophia and the blue mosque.
it is one thing to study the haghia sophia in architecture school, and another thing entirely to see it in person! it was built in 537 a.d. during the heydays of the roman empire and was the largest church in christendom for nearly 1000 years! in the 15th century, when the ottoman empire took over istanbul (then canstantinople), the church was converted to a mosque...i remember reading about this conversion in school, but it is incredible to see some of the intricate mosaics which were plastered over now being restored! across the way, the architecture of the blue mosque is much more delicate, but equally impressive.
we spent a couple of days walking around the city visiting historic sites, indulging in turkish coffee and baclava & desperately avoiding carpet salesmen...jokes! on our last day we treated ourselves to a traditional turkish bath where we both got massaged and scrubbed down by two burly turkish men! it was quite a lot of fun, & we came out feeling relaxed and squeaky clean! after our baths, we met up with our dear friend hakan, who is from izmir, turkey, and happened to come home for a few weeks of mandatory miltary service. it was so nice to see him and meet his brother.

from chilly venice, we fled south to florence for a couple of days...we climbed to the top of the duomo tower to look out over the city, and we had the best pepperoni pizza of our lives just down the street from the duomo. (so good we went back for more the second day!) we stood in line for an hour (an hour less than we anticipated) to see michaelangelo's sculpture of david...impressive to see it in person as opposed to art history books...italy is an art history buff's dream! all over the country are centuries old statues and fountains by michaelangelo and boticelli and bernini...enough to make your head spin!

from florence, we travelled by train again to rome...ah rome! still not as warm as we were hoping...but just as lovely as we expected...we spent only 4 days there walking around, but we could easily spend another few weeks there.  i love the mix of old and new...watching the bustling city around the ancient coliseum and palatine hill...it blew our minds. my first glimpse of the pantheon down a narrow street took my breath away! this massive building just sits in the middle of its busy piazzo...it is beautiful and so obviously ancient! for me it was intro to architectural history - chapter 1...in real life!!! we stayed at roma camping village...a little out of the way, but cheap, & we had our own little adorable prefab trailer bungalow! there was a bar, a restaurant, and some kick-ass coin-op laundry facilities...3.50 euros for 90 minutes in a super-hot dryer! (after nearly 7 months on the road, we have a new appreciation for properly functioning laundry machines...lol!) from rome, we reluctantly moved on to istanbul...excited to see turkey, but sad to leave italy so soon...

having rearranged our itinerary to fly from johannesburg imstead of accra, we made it to london at 6am after a long overnight flıght...we knew already it would be too cold there to suit us, so we'd booked ourselves on the first thing smoking to venice, in hopes of finding warmer weather. we were in town only long enough to transport ourselves out to stansted airport (where the discount airlines fly) and meet up with the lovely natassa for lunch and some walking around. (we'll come back to the uk at the end of april for stef's wedding...give things some time to warm up!) natassa seems to be adjusting well to being back home after her 19 months of world travel & it was great to see her for a few minutes on her home turf! after a quick turn around, we headed off to italy, where the weather turned out to be equally dreary and cold, much to our dismay! but what a beautiful city venice is!

we spent a wonderful 4 days riding the water busses and wandering the streets and canals exploring...& we didn't even scratch the surface! there is a beautiful piazzo or square around every corner and across every little bridge. it is fascinating to see how venetians live their lives on the edge of all this water...and sadly it really does seem true that the city is sinking. we'll definitely have to come back to this country again! we soon realized a few days in italy would be bad for our waistlines after a few days of walking with long breaks for italian coffee and pasta to warm up...one night i had to wear my pj bottoms under my pants to keep warm!...but then the rain came & all was soaked through...sigh...nothing to do but buy a liter of wine and take it back to our b&b to wait out the storm... tons of fun, but trouble for the diet conscious! jokes...

what can we say about our trip into zimbabwe? it was brief... and we travelled only to vic falls, which is so driven by tourism, that it is not much like the rest of the country. we hope to be able to return one day to see more of the country...the political situation is rather unstable there at the moment, and many many people are suffering. inflation is so outrageous, that the bank notes have expiration dates! the bank rate is 250 zim dollars to the us dollar, but the black market will yield 7,500 zim dollars to the us dollar! the situation is so bad that you cannot pay for most services w/ zim dollars! they won't even take their own currency! people are required to present bank receipts for their zim dollars, which of course are not available if one has changed money on the street (which is highly illegal)! it is mind boggling to be charged 40,000zim for a $5.00 taxi ride, then go into a 4-star hotel and be offered a 90% discount for using foriegn currency! (in the hotel a 40,000zim cheeseburger would actually be $100.00 if it weren't offered at the 90% discount!)

economic issues aside, the people we met were lovely, and the falls are magnificent! we spent an afternoon getting drenched in the spray! it was a blast! and surreal to get drenched in a downpour on a bright sunny day! the water from the falls is so powerful, and the spray is so high that it can be seen from kilometers away! incredible! it was the last 2 days of our tour, so we drew out our goodbyes & went to dinner as a group & out for a little dancing...we held mac to his promise that he would dance with us at the end of the trip.

at the border to botswana we saw our first baobab trees...there are scores of these huge ancient trees along the ngoma border post...what a sight! we camped for a night in chobe and went for a sunset cruise...what an amazing experience! we saw a huge family of elephants drinking together from the river. and we got our first look at an enormous family of hippos...they live in families of up to fifty, and i'm sure there were at least fifty in this one! after all the stories we'd heard about how dangerous they are (hippos are reponsible for more deaths in africa than an other wild animal!) it was wild to be on a boat so close to them! they are notoriously territorial and their jaws are powerful enough to snap a mokoro in half! (a mokoro is a conoe-like boat hollowed out of a tree.) we were on a boat a bit more substantial than that, but it still gave us chills thinking about it. wow! they are such peculiar animals...they have no sweat glands, so they must live in water to stay cool. they come to land at night to graze, but they will attack anyone unfortunate enough to get between them and the water, or too close to their young...and as huge as they are, those suckers can run! yikes...you can imagine how unsettling it was to hear them walking around between our tents that night! there had been so much rain, that the bar was nearly flooded, the swimming pool was under 15cm of river water, and that made our campground perfect night-grazing ground for the hippos!! thankfully i sleep like the dead, so i was spared the experience of lying awake listening to them grunting and shuffling around. but daryll was awake on watch. and i did hear susie and brett bravely venture to the bathroom in the middle of the night...i'm afraid i'd have had to hold it til morning!!

in contrast to the hyper-arid namib desert, etosha national park is almost lush...i think it's classified as semi-arid, but in any case, there is more plant life, and game animals abound...we spent several days camping at various sites in the park...some of them very swank, complete w/ lovely swimming pools and bars to pass the afternoons. the camps were situated near watering holes, where we could go and sit quietly and wait for animals to come drink...it was awesome to sit in silence watching scores of springboks drinking and grazing, then see them all turn in one direction and scamper off b/c they knew something was coming...a few seconds later, an enormous elephant emerged from the trees. wow! it took our breath away! mac took us on a few game drives, one in the afternoon, and a couple of morning drives to try our luck at spotting the big five...and any other exotic african wildlife we were lucky enough to happen upon. we had great luck, despite the fact that plentiful rain made it unlikely that animals would venture close to the roads for water. we saw gorgeous giraffes, hundreds of wildebeest and sprinboks, herds of water bbuffalo, and even a spotted hyena that was so far away we needed mario's high-powered, image-stabilizing binocs to see him! (disney's depiction in the lion king is quite good.) on te afternoon drive we were lucky enough to see a lioness hiding in the brush after killing a young springbok... the poor springbok's leg was unceremoniously tossed across its body, and she was guarding her kill from a few curious jackals after snacking!...speaking of jackals...they are ballsy little wild dogs who have no qualms about lurking in the shadows in the evening then wreaking havoc on trash cans at the camp sites during the night.

we spent a night bush camping in spitzkoppe, a georgoeus part of the desert full of dramatic rock formations...we took a short hike to bushman's paradise, where we could see old rock paintings left by bushmen who used to live out there...daryll opted to stay behind and nurse his broken ribs...a wise decision since it turned out to be quite a steep climb to the caves. spitzkoppe was one of the only campsites which offered no amenities, except a bush toilet...hilarious. but as the truck was amply supplied, and we'd stocked up on spirits, there were no worries as we watched the sunset from the rocks drinking amarula. as the weather was perfect, we opted not to pitch tents, and to sleep out under the stars on top of  a huge rock instead (i must admit i was a bit wary of scorpions or other desert creatures crawling into my sleeping bag in search of a warm spot, but i decided to give it a try)...around 2am we regretted that decision, when we had get up and scramble down the rock in the rain! the only shelter we could find out there was peter tosh, so all 12 of us laid out our sleeping bags under the truck to pass the rest of the night...ahh the smell of diesel...jokes! that's the last time we decided against pitching tents!

we spent two nights in swakopmund, namibia's adventure capitol, at a hostel where we could sleep in beds for a change. the first adventure stop of the trip, there were tons of optional activities to try, like sandboarding, paragliding, skydiving, parasailing, and quadbiking. dp signed up for paragliding...(i declined b/c i didn't think i could master steering on my own, and a little out of laziness as i wasn't interested in climbing up more 50m dunes repeatedly!) after some shopping around, i decided to go all the way and try skydiving! unfortunately, activity day started out rainy, so the paragliding trip was cancelled...dp and the others decided to try their hand at sandboarding instead...standing up you get boots, and it's much like snowboarding...laying down, you slide on your belly on a flexible board...off the 50m dune, they claim you can reach speeds of up to 80km/hr!! yikes...dp got out there like a pro, but he took a nasty spill during the standing up part, flipped a few times head over heels, and landed on his back, convinced he'd broken his ribs! (he had broken ribs in college, so he knew what it felt like.) he was a trooper though...he caught his breath and switched to laying down...had great fun in spite of the pain!
by afternoon, the 4 of us who'd signed up for skydiving were ready to go. unfortunately, mike from canada had had a guide and a quadbike flip over on him in the morning, so he also had a set of broken ribs & opted not to harness up for skydiving...(who knew jumping out of a plane at 10,000 feet would turn out to be the safest adventure sport of the day??) we met our tandem dive masters, suited up, and jumped in the tiny plane. as we took off, i prayed for a safe landing, then wondered if you forfeit your right to a safe landing if you voluntarily throw yourself out of a plane? jokes... the jump was incredible...35 seconds of free fall, then 5 minutes to reach the ground. the air rushes past and is really loud during the fall, but once the chute opens, it is silent while you drift down...we did a few turns and roller coaster stunts on the way down...i loved it!! and i've got the cheesy dvd from derick's wristcam to provide many moments of entertainment in the future!