Samos II

Well one word pretty much sums up this island.. HOT. This is the hottest we have ever been.. shops close down around 3pm because it is so hot and reopen around 5. Yesterday it was 37 degrees, not sure of the humidity, but i'm pretty sure it is up there too!

So this is our 3rd day in Samos, and it has been a pretty lazy last couple of days.. it is so hot that you are really limited to activities in the evening, so we spent much of the day yesterday in our air conditioned guest house! sounds pathetic i know, but after attempting to play backgammon at a cafe around 3pm and sweating right through our clothes (literally.. it was gross!), we decided it was better to stay in. So instead we did some laundry and watched some tv, venturing out for dinner around 8pm. We have had some really decent food here, the seafood is yummy, and i enjoyed eating swordfish for the first time! And of course, we are still eating Greek salad everyday :) We attempted to go to the cinema after dinner, but couldn't find it in time.. the streets, both windy and narrow, confuse us, and when it is so hot trying to figure out where you are is super frustrating! But from a city planning standpoint it is really interesting to see how this city is laid out! So we decided to leave the movie for the next night asking some of the locals where it is located.. getting an answer, but more confused than before! We decided it would be a good challenge for the next night.
So yesterday we decided to rent an air conditioned car and see the island of Samos (tough life eh?). The lonely planet guide stated that if you hadn't visited these 2 mountain villages then you really hadn't experienced Samos, so we decided we needed to do that. Needless to say we weren't prepared for the intense windiness of this excursion.. i don't think i can even explain to you how windy these roads were.. in the beginning we thought ok, this is windy, but kinda fun, but then the nausea set in, and it was game over from then on. Let's just say that it wasn't a pleasant drive in the country.. but on the positive side Samos is really green and forested! wine is grown everywhere and some of the little towns have super interesting houses and churches. We even went down a rocky dirt path to a clif.. we didn't know it would lead to a cliff, but it was a great view. I give props to josh's driving skills here, i have never seen anyone back up, turn around, or just overall drive on such narrow streets avoiding other cars and pedestrians!! We saw a sign leading to a waterfall, which we thought we could drive to.. haha... but little did we know it would turn into a hike up and down these man made wooden sketchy steps.. only to lead us to a place where you had to wade in waist deep to continue to the actual waterfall. unfortunately we were not dressed for this, and had wallet,purse etc, in hand. we didn't have any change of clothing, and thought that sitting with wet butt in the rental car on the drive back would not be very fun.. so we turned around.. we really would have liked to go.. especially since we were sweating profusely! ah well, maybe next time (as josh likes to say). So we drove to another port town and had dinner (apparently grilled shrimp doesn't mean shrimp on a skewer, it means the full shrimp tail and head/eyes attached that you have to peel..) so that was an interesting eating experience! We then figured that we could make it back to Samos in time to see the movie (spider man 3) which was at 9:15- but it was 8:40... could we weave thru the traffic and find this place in time?? i had doubts, but somehow, after going down a one way street, having to back up in between 3 parked cars and a building, we found the cinema.. both in complete shock, we ran in and had 2 min. till the movie started.. score! Apparently this is not what the older Samos-ians do on a Sunday night tho, cuz we were the oldest in the theatre, and sat thru the numerous kids giggling and laughing through all the "love" scenes in the movie.. We both preferred the outdoor cinema in Kos, but it was air conditioned so we couldn't complain!

So now here we sit waiting for our ferry to take us to Turkey at 5pm. We have bought our tickets and dropped our bags off.. It is 3pm now, so we needed an air conditioned place to chill.. sitting at a cafe is out of the question unless we want to sweat thru our pants again!?

So interestingly enough it is most expensive for Canadians to cross the border into Turkey.. it will cost us 45 US each, and this is on top of he 35euro we will pay for the one way across! But we think it will be worth it.. we read up on some of the government sites about Turkey and what to expect, it scared me a little, thinking about possible terrorist attacks.. proximity to Iraq etc, but i'm sure we will be fine. We have a plan of just sticking together no matter what! So we will head to Kusadasi tonight, stay one night and head to Selcuk tomorrow, where will will spend 2nights, exploring Ephesus on wednesday before heading to Izmir on Thursday in order to fly out to Keyseri on thursday night! it will be a new adventure for sure!! we are excited to go to a new country, with new food and new customs..

Wish you all well!!