23 October, on the way to Patras, Greece

I’m sitting on board the Ionian King, a massive ferry that travels from Bari, Italy to Patras, Greece in about 15 hours several times a week. I presume it travels the other way as well, but can’t confirm it. It’s a few days since I’ve written anything, and much longer since I’ve actually converted any of my writing into web pages that can be uploaded, but that’s mainly due to the fact that I haven’t been in places that it was possible to upload anything, so I’m spending this ferry ride going back and hitting all that stuff, getting it ready for “publication”. Happily, I found a couple lounges with power outlets, so I can spend more than the three or four hours my batteries allow bringing everything up to date. Hopefully when I get to Athens in a day or two I’ll be able to find a good connection for my laptop and put up the last few installments of this journal, and catch up before going once again into the wild. From Athens I’ll be hitting the Greek islands and then possibly Cairo (yes, it’s back on the radar), and I’m not expecting to be able to connect from any of those places, other than using the computers in standard internet cafes.



The Ionian King is the biggest boat I’ve been on, taking the place of the Marco Polo, which is the one that took me down the coast of Croatia as well as from Croatia to Italy. The Marco Polo was big, but this one makes it look small, with cabins on three decks, more restaurants and lounges than I can count, three decks for cars and buses and, yes, semi trucks, and a pool, though the pool is closed for the season. As I write this, I’m sitting by the empty pool, at a table watching them load another ship that is docked behind us, called the Iran Bam. It’s a cargo ship, but still doesn’t quite measure up to the Ionian King, so I’m looking down on it. Down into it, actually. It’s a nice sunset, but the weather is pretty hazy, and I’ve seen so many amazing sunsets in the past month, I’m letting this one pass.



Riding on ships is a great way to travel. Its also a great way to write. Somehow, sitting at a table in one of the bars, typing away as the whole room around you subtly rocks back and forth and vibrates with the engines is just conducive to creativity. I’ve always been good at writing on airplanes, and this is like that, but even better, with plenty of room to spread out, and more time. I’m still feeling very mixed emotions… glad to finally be on my way to Greece after so long getting out of Croatia, but still feeling a little beaten and wondering if my wounds are at least partially self-inflicted in terms of coming back to Austin without either the money or the research I was hoping to have when I got back. I’m going to try not to stress over it, and just enjoy the three weeks that I have left, see as much as I can in that time, and then enjoy coming home when its time to go.

I should say a few words about Bari, Italy, since I spent two days there. The trip along the way was fun, as I made friends with a couple Australians and a guy from Belgium. We say on the deck until it got too cold and then went in and played gin rummy for a few hours until we docked in Bari, at around 10pm at night. I had reservations in a hotel already, but the three of them were looking for the hostel, so I made my way into the old town with them, figuring I might find a cheaper place that I liked, and in the worst case, I’d see a bit of the old town before trudging off to find my own hotel (I had a pretty good idea where it was, in general). Little did I know that it was going to be such an adventure!


(Despite the dark clouds in the morning, there was no turbulence on board... )

First off was out attempt to get out of the ferry landing. Total confusion seemed to reign, as everyone got off the boat and had no idea where to go. Eventually we figured out that we had to go across the harbor to the passport control building, and we caught a van/bus there, which was nice. Walking out of there with our passports stamped, now officially in the EU, it wasn’t very clear which way we needed to go to get out, so we followed the street and the “Exit” signs – except that it became clear after a while that we were following the exit signs for the cars, rather than pedestrians. After walking at least the better part of a kilometer, we started looking for any way through the wall and fence that was separating us from the city, pedestrian friendly or not, which included eyeing parts of the fence that looked climbable. Eventually we came on a gate, but it was locked, and then another, pedestrian gate that exited into a parking garage, but attempts to cajole the guard on duty to open it and let us through went unheeded. Walking around the back of the garage, I found the best place yet to climb over, nothing but a four or five foot concrete wall. I mentioned it, but the guy from Australia obviously wasn’t too keen on climbing walls to get into town… and I admit it wasn’t entirely clear that we weren’t breaking some kind of border control law, at the time. A few minutes later, Eli, the woman from Australia found the same wall and all the arguments ended at that point as she jumped up on I and started climbing. I have to admit, I admire a woman like that, who will take decisions into her own hands and start climbing walls into foreign countries… especially in sandals with her backpack on… With her across, we started handing over items… Lauren’s backpack, my computer bag, the rolling luggage, and the boys started following Eli’s lead. As Lauren was climbing one of the truck drivers, of which there was a long line along the road, waiting to get on boats, yelled something at us and got out of his truck. Eli took this as a bad sign and I wasn’t really interested in finding out whether he was just curious what the hell we were doing, or really wanted us to stop, so I went next, scrambling over the wall and reaching over to help the last of our little party. With all of us safely on the other side, on the ramp for the garage, we grabbed our bags and started walking for the street, giving the guard who had refused to open the gate a little wave on the way out.

Once safely into Bari, more or less, we were much further North than we wanted to be, so we walked into the new town and started looking for some sort of civilization… a center square, populated street, etc. Heading south we found our way into the old town and started looking for the hostel, which was in there somewhere. Now, most of the old towns in the various cities I’ve been to are a bit confusing to navigate, with small, winding streets that curve and end at random. Bari makes them all look modern and simple. It’s a massive labyrinth of narrow streets, dead ends, and cut-offs, and even when we did eventually find a map of it, none of the street names would fit on the map. Lauren, the guy from Belgium (I don’t know how to spell his name, but that is close, I think) knew the street the hostel was on, but only the name. He didn’t have a map, or a number, or a phone number to call it. Not knowing the extent of the maze we were walking into either we figured we could find it, or maybe ask around and find it that way. Well, Lauren spoke a bit of Italian, and asked a few people that we came to, but no one was really sure. And then in a square that he thought looked familiar because it had an arch in it (I think that might be the same arch as in the picture… we might be close… ), he asked a group of teenagers who took on the job of being out guides. They had no idea where they were guiding us, but they were willing to fan out and look in all the directions, and ask everyone they ran into who looked like they might even have a clue about where to go. Eventually this lead us into one of the main squares, which at eleven o’clock on Saturday night was one massive crowd of people celebrating the weekend. Incredibly, all of them were young (in their teens and twenties) and beautiful, and I think all four of us thought we’d found some kind of hidden Nirvana, obviously THE place to be in Italy on Saturday night. Sadly, we all still had our bags, and needed to find rooms to sleep in that night, so we kept going through the square and incredibly, came to another one, with a similar party going on. Unfortunately though, much of our group of teenage guides started peeling off at that point, leaving us with only a couple who obviously still had no idea where they were taking us.

Finally, after walking around with the kids for what seemed like close to half an hour with absolutely no progress, I was getting a bit tired of the search. I suggested that my hotel might be easy to find, and perhaps from there we could find a map of the city and some cheap accommodation for the other three, and maybe even the hostel itself. Everyone agreed, and when I showed our guides the address of my hotel (Hotel Boston) they seemed to know just where to go, and took off North once more, leading us back out of the old town and along one of the streets. It seemed like a long way, but I think that was because all of us had been lugging our packs (or rolling luggage) around for better than an hour at that point, especially Eli, who had the largest pack of the four of us (why is it always the woman, and the smallest of the group with the biggest pack? That isn’t strictly true, but I can say that most of the women backpackers I met on this trip had packs much larger than I would be interested in carrying).

Eventually we did get there though, and while it was clear that the guy at reception wasn’t too keen on having his hotel invaded by four scraggly looking backpackers, he did at least offer some cheap options for the other three and showed the locations on a map of the town. The price of the Hotel Boston was more than I wanted to pay, but since he did help us, I went ahead and took my room and ditched my stuff, then headed uptown, towards the train station with the other three (Which cemented my rule of thumb… when looking for cheap, but clean hotels in Europe, head to the bus or train station, then do a search out from there. The neighborhoods aren’t always the best, but you will almost always find something appropriate).

From there it was a pretty simple process of asking prices and checking places out. I served as a scout, since I had no baggage to carry, heading up the streets to scope out places that weren’t along the direct path we were traveling. The closer to the train station we got, the cheaper places were, and eventually about a block and half away from it, they found a place that only wanted 85 euros for the three of them. Still more expensive than they wanted I think, and more expensive than most of the places I’ve stayed on my trip, but it was Italy, and my single room in the Hotel Boston was 90, so that wasn’t too bad. By midnight or so, they had settled into their room, ditched their bags, and we made our way back to the old town to try to find the party again. Except that by that point, all of us were more interested in sitting down than dancing, and so we found a table in a groovy looking café, got some beers (and some bruschetta for myself and Lauren… I’d barely eaten anything the entire day) and spent another hour or two just soaking up the good vibrations of Bari. Finally around two thirty or so, all of us were clearly tired, and had a couple large beers in us, and decided to call it a night. It was amazing how many people were still on the streets as we headed out of the old town, and somewhere along there… either in the bar, or on the street on the way back, Eli stated the thing I’d been thinking for the past two hours… “Have you noticed how incredibly attractive all the women are here?” And yes, its true… that is the second thing of import that happened in Bari. I’ve never had much desire to travel in Italy before, but even compared to the other places I’ve been, Bari on a Saturday night had more beautiful women than maybe any other place I’ve been, and so now, I must say friends, I’ve been converted. I want to travel to Italy… sometime soon. I should note that in the ensuing two days, when I was stuck in Bari, Sunday and most of Monday, it wasn’t so much the case… I think perhaps all of the beautiful people were out on Saturday night, and hanging in old town, but even so, it really was a fantastic collection of attractive people. LA has nothing on Bari…

Anyway, as we walked away from old town, the time came to separate, and I said farewell to my traveling companions. We were all headed different directions the next day (I thought I was, anyway) and so we said goodbyes. I took one picture of the three of them, grainy because it was taken at 3am by the light of the streetlamps, but they all look happy, which is good, because it was a fun night.



The rest of Bari is a typical story of the last part of my travels… All the ferry schedules say that they leave for Greece at 8pm daily. So Sunday morning, after sleeping in for a while (a long day traveling and a late night) I headed to the ferry landing around noon to buy my ticket for that evening. Unfortunately, when I got there, the woman informed me that the ferry to Greece was leaving in ten minutes.

“But the schedules all say 8pm daily!?”

“Yes, but not on Sunday. It leaves a little after noon on Sunday.”

“But that’s not on the schedule… either online, or the one right here!”

“Nevertheless, it is leaving anyway.”

And sure enough it left, closer to half an hour than ten minutes, and if I’d run to the hotel and grabbed my backpack and run all the way back, I might have just made it, but of course I didn’t know that was going to be the case. She’d said it was leaving in ten minutes. So I watched my ferry leave and tried to figure out what I was going to do in Bari, Italy for another 32 hours. There wasn’t much… I got a different (cheaper) hotel, walked around a lot, watched some television, and the next day bought a ticket with a different ferry line, partially because theirs left at 6pm instead of 8, and partially because it meant I didn’t have to give money to Blue Line ferries, which leaves at noon on Sunday despite all their schedules saying 8pm daily. Bastards,

Which is why I’m just now making my way to Greece, on the 23rd of October, traveling overnight on the Ionian King.

I'll tell you about Greece when I get there...

much love,

Stephen