Exploring the Island of Capri

After exploring Amalfi, we had no inclination to do much at all the next day. We walked down the rocky path to the private beach at camp, winding our way down the cliff and sending lizards running. We tested the waters but hadn’t brought our togs with us, and slowly made our way back up. We spent time at the swimming pool at camp, eating cheese and crackers, washing off watermelon juice from our noses and chins, floating in the cool water and baking in the hot sun.

In the evening, we made friends with a lovely couple next door, who were Australian, on their way home after years living in London. We shared the two bottles of 1.50 Euro wine we had bought, and they shared a bottle from their ice box. We stayed up until 1am talking about nothing in particular. Or rather, anything and everything. We slipped easily into conversation as though we had known each other for years, while simultaneously introducing ourselves.

The night was great, a lot of fun, but a headache swarmed around my brain for hours before we retired. I woke up several times during the night, trying desperately to get back to sleep knowing we had an early start the next day. We were off on a tour of Capri, the island off the tip of the Amalfi peninsula, and although we had booked it in advance, it couldn’t have been worse timing. Having had less than a bottle of wine each the previous night, we woke up extremely hungover and very very ill.

Courtney gave me dissolvable painkillers to skull back an hour or so before the alarm went off, but it was the desperate need to keep them down and the failed attempts at doing so that woke me up for good. I was in no state to board a boat but I wasn’t wasting 30 Euros (60, if Courts hadn’t gone either), so board a boat I did. I survived the temperamental rises and falls of the ocean, focusing on the water rather than the still points that didn’t move with it.

By the time we got to the entrance of the blue grotto, I was feeling well enough to agree to go into it. The blue grotto is a notorious rip off, a small cave reachable only by swimming or by paying close to 12 Euros to board a small gondola-type boat for 5 minutes. Inside, the water is bluer than you’ve ever seen, and the walls of the cave loom overhead. We only know this from stories however, because we were told the seas were too rough to take passengers on the boats. We happily agreed we didn’t want to wait for them to die down, seeing the gondoliers lay back flat in the boat and haul themselves through the tiny mouth of the grotto by a chain attached to the rock outside. The seas were so high that the edges of the boats scraped the ceiling of the mouth – we weren’t all that fussed to go in.

As I was feeling better, Courtney suddenly fell just as ill as I had been, and I took over the camera and the chit chat as the boat rounded the corner to show us the Green Grotto. Rather than being a full cave, the Green Grotto was an open topped crevice in the rocky cliffs of Capri, but with amazing coloured and clear water. The tour guides pointed out buildings and lighthouses as we swept away from it to dock at Marina Piccollo, or the small port.

At the Marina, the waters seemed just as clear and people swam around the dock, through a hole in the rocky formations that littered the beach. Saving swimming for later, we took a bus to the village at the top of the hill and explored the cobbled streets. Most of the shops were high-end designer stores, catering to the rich and famous that flock to the island. Restaurants boasted walls of photos showing the owners with superstars – Mariah Carey, Beyonce, Rod Stewart… sports stars, politicians and film stars.

Being unable to afford to even step in these stores and restaurants, we made our way to the town square, high on the hill overlooking Marina Grande or the big port. I spent 7 Euros on a small milkshake just at the thought of it easing my stomach and we ate pizza and sandwiches overlooking the port.

With waters as clear as this, I could no longer deny Courtney his snorkel. Knowing it would lead to a few supermarket meals, we bought a mask and snorkel and he set off to explore the rocks. I swam for a bit and then slept in the sun, stealing the heat of the pebbled shore through my towel. Courts saw a jellyfish before deciding to join me, and we slept in the sun until it was time to go home.

The tour guides showed us the White Lagoon and various points of interest around the island, and we marveled at caves high in the cliffs and the sheer drops that rushed away beneath them. The boat dropped us off where the tour had begun, the private beach at camp, and after a long day we slowly hauled ourselves up the cliff face. There was little energy left for anything after that, and a deeper sleep has not been had for a long time.

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Italian Butterflies Don't Know They Are Italian

A few weeks ago, we were riding through Italy in the early hours of the morning, as movement in the cities slowly roused the sun from sleep. We were on our way to the ferry at Ancona, ready for the overnight trip to Greece. There is little to do on the bike except think. I often think about my business at home doing acrylic nails and training new technicians to do the same. I come up with ideas for marketing or expansion and I often write them down on the phone when I have a moment free from GPS.

Other times, I do a lot of reflecting – on mistakes I’ve made, ways I have changed, people I’ve hurt, other people I have just lost touch with. It is easy to get swept up in those thoughts, running through what-if scenarios and wondering what the people I have lost touch with are doing now and what I would say to them if I had the chance. Of course those people are far from the majority and I spend a good deal of time thinking about the people I am close to as well, the people I miss at home.

At this particular point I was thinking about my Mum and sister and how far away from each other we are at the moment. It is a romantic notion in many movies and books to think of seeing the same stars as each other but I realized at that point, that we don’t. When I lived in Australia, it was easy to look up at the same constellations as them and know we weren’t that far apart if we could see the same things. From the northern hemisphere though, those southern constellations are nowhere to be seen. It made me feel even further apart from them and, sat on the back of the bike with the sun starting to rise behind me, I sent quiet messages to the moon for them.

It’s funny the things you see and think of when your mind is on a journey of its own, having wandered with little to do for several hours. In Italy again, but weeks later and on the opposite side, a tiny white butterfly landed amongst the overgrowth as we rode past. An Italian butterfly, exactly the same as the butterflies that nibble on vege gardens at home. He has no idea he is Italian, or that other butterflies that look just like him are living differently on the other side of the world. Maybe they’re not. Maybe when you’re that small and that close to the flowers, overgrowth is all the same.

He has no idea that his life could be different. Neither do the dogs that lie in the shade of the Acropolis. They don’t know that they are sleeping on marble that has been there over 2,000 years, that has had emperors and pilgrims and warriors and mothers walk on it, that has seen death and blood and storms and destruction, war and peace, love and spite. Imagine the things the Acropolis has seen. 2,000 years of change. Imagine the time lapse video you would see if the Acropolis had been filming all that time, the rise and fall of times and eras, the expansion of Athens, the arrival of tourists.

Imagine for a second, that the Parthenon has a stream of consciousness. It was used to store gun powder during the war with Turkey, and a carefully aimed cannonball blew it half to smithereens with no respect for the age and beauty of the structure. The building, had it limbs, would have lost them. All this time later, people care enough to put it slowly back together. Imagine the bloody sacrifices it saw when it was young, and what it must think of the tour groups that trample it every day now. After 2,000 years of such vastly contrasting activities, how could it not look so strong, proud and imposing?

The dog sleeping in the shade knows nothing of this, or why the tourists flock with cameras. He only knows the marble is cold and the tourists are friendly, and that it’s a long walk down should he choose to leave. Maybe he had a home once, as many Athenian strays did, but he knows nothing of the activities of a dog on a farm in New Zealand. He might be curious as to what the dinnertime smells are, coming from the homes of Plaka, below his marble bed, but he has no inclination to travel to lands unknown. It is really only humans that travel and migrate for pleasure rather than necessity.

The kitten born at a campsite in Santorini knows the human inclination to travel, very well. He will probably never figure out though, why the humans that feed and play with him, all speak different words to him. He won’t learn a name, like the dogs up the path won’t learn to sit or stay or shake. There is no consistency in the words spoken to them, no chance to learn. They remain deaf to any understanding, trapped in their species more than any domestic dog at home.

My dog, Toby can pick up words in amongst sentences of human conversation. He will question them, wonder if they apply to him, ask for clarification. No, we will tell him, we were talking about walking to the shop, not the park. He will pick up the general idea of what we are saying, recognizing some words and the tones of voice they carry. Similar to us in France. We picked up words, we could communicate, we heard vocal tone with more clarity than ever before, by necessity. The Santorini strays will never have the awakening of that same understanding.

It is only the human level of communication and understanding that allows us to learn and question the big bad world, grow curiosities like they were daisies and pick away at them one by one. And yet, riding on the back of a motorbike at 5am, we might still send messages to the moon, and while knowing they won’t, secretly hope they make it back down again, and land in our loved ones arms.

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Living Like Movie Stars

Travel fatigue is slowly starting to wave teasingly our way, battering it’s eyelashes and looking on with a come-hither gaze.  When we were in London, we would leave the hostel at 10am and be home 11pm. Granted it was to avoid the horrible hostel we were staying in but it was easy done and we loved our time there. We planned our trip so that there would be plenty of slower rest stops among the busy see-and-do cities, which is probably why it’s taken 3 months for the 22 stops we’ve made so far to start affecting us. This last leg of the trip was planned at a slower pace than the first leg was, anticipating the tiredness we might feel, but even so, we’re getting lazy.

After our little holiday in Cormatin it was hard to get back into the swing of things and I anticipated Santorini to be the same. I mentally readied myself to jump back into exploring Italy, wanting to make the most of our time there. On our first morning though, Courts was not budging. We bought a pile of second hand books for 2 Euro each at the hotel in Athens and I’ll readily admit that while engrossed in them I would forget all about Italy. Courts is in the middle of the Wheel of Time series though and it will be a long time before he emerges from the depths of them. While I showered, he read.

When I was clean and talking about breakfast, he decided he wasn’t going anywhere without clean undies, and unbeknownst to me, he had none left. This was non-negotiable so as he kept reading, I took the washing up to the shop (nasty uphill walk through the massive camp we’re in) and got milk for breakfast as well. I made breakfast, he ate while reading. I made coffee and hot chocolate, he drank while reading. Eventually when the washing was due to be finished he closed the book for a minute – there was no way I was walking all the way there again when he could ride the bike.

While he was up at the laundry, I packed our daypack and then had little else to do but read myself, knowing once I started I’d be in an uphill battle to stop again when we wanted to leave. Our plans of getting to Pompeii were about as long gone as the sunrise but we were still wanting to get out and explore the Amalfi Coast. We eventually left at 1pm and set the GPS to take us to Positano, the closest of the well known towns along the coast (and the setting for the scenes in Under the Tuscan Sun when she follows the hot boy to the white terraced houses on the beach).

The GPS hates me and I’m deleting it off the phone the second we drop off the bike. It would tell me had driven straight past our next turn when the only thing we had passed was a foot wide alley between grape vines. I told it we were a car instead of a bike and it set us off in another direction. Despite thinking we were car-width it still took us down a cobbled winding alley that two bikes would have barely managed to pass each other in, let alone a single car fitting one way. When it broke out onto a main road, it was the same main road we had left 10 minutes earlier, just further down. Eventually, with little thanks to the GPS, we found the windy road that runs along the coast.

I was terrified of this road prior to leaving for our trip. The roads are narrow, corners sharp, drivers insane and cliffs steep. The guy at reception however said the best way to see the coast was bike because the bus was slow and hot and the stops just outside each town with a walk to get down into them. He said people hired scooters from him to ride the road so we would be fine. He was right, if only because Courtney is a good rider and, being the week after the 2 week Italian national holiday, the road was not too busy.

We intended to stop in Positano but it was stupidly difficult to find a parking spot on the windy one way road through town, with all the obvious spots already full of scooters. We kept going, past Praiano and eventually stopping for something to eat 1km shy of Amalfi town itself. Outside the eatery we were accosted by a very outgoing Italian man and his 3 much shyer friends. He fed us chips and got excited about New Zealand (the only two words he understood) and after I escaped to get us a table, he also grabbed Courtney’s crotch not once but twice. The man’s friends told Courts he was an Italian TV star, which I guess we’ll never know for sure.

Lunch was awesome though, real Italian pizza followed by real Italian gelato. We discovered for the first time that many Italian eateries charge a cover charge of 2-4 Euro so everything is not as cheap as it seems. We ate overlooking a bay with crystal clear water we could see through from the top of our cliff. A restaurant rented out loungers on the beach and we found out from our waiter the whole bay was only accessible by boat. We watched, slightly amused, as a couple found this out the hard way, walking down the steps that lead ¾ of the way down the cliff only to discover that after this point the steps had been washed away.

Continuing on to Amalfi town we found ourselves in the midst of a unique traffic jam. The narrow roads and arrogant driving of the Italians meant there were two busses trying to be inside a one-lane tunnel. One bus, the one facing us,  was more successful than the other and so we found ourselves backing up the road to create enough space for passing. Police were involved, directing the traffic, and one of the bus drivers in particular was rather vocal when cars were slow to back up.

We made it through the tunnel soon enough and finally found easily accessible beaches, near the ferry port. With full intentions to swim we looked for parking but needed to turn around to do so. Before we could, I spotted a sign for Ravello, a small town we wanted to visit and so it was up 5 km of windy roads into the mountains that we went. The entire coast is covered in lemon trees, clinging to the steep terraced cliffs and mountainsides, but nowhere moreso than Ravello. We wandered into the village’s main square but ended up sitting somewhere down an alley way nutting out the ramifications of the bad moods that had plagued us since the ferry incident.

There is no better way to resolve a tense discussion than free Limoncello. We had been told it would be far different than what we had tasted at home and they were right – it is way stronger. We spent a long time in the little Limoncello shop, picking out gifts to take home and watching them bottle the liqueur in the back room. An English family with 2 small boys came in to look around and we described the taste of Limoncello as they waited for someone to give them a taster.

Courts and I spent a good 10 minutes being entertained by their confident little boys, one of which turned to Courtney without so much as an introduction and said in his spritely English accent “Boys are supposed to be taller than girls!”. We spun stories about how he had stopped eating his vegetables and therefore stopped growing and were repaid with indepth discussion on the contrasts between each boys appetite. One ate eggs, one ate cheese, no one ate zucchini and so on. There was also debate as to why, if the younger boy ate more veges, he was still shorter than the older of the two. Eventually with little English and much arm flailing we were essentially told to purchase or leave. The English family left, and we purchased lots of carefully wrapped goodies.

The Amalfi Coast features in lots of movies, Under the Tuscan Sun and I think maybe The Talented Mr Ripley too. Kim Kardashian left her honeymoon on Capri two days before we arrived and Tara Reid left Santorini just before we got there too. Living the lives of the rich and famous are also animals galore. Just like our other Mediterranean experiences, there are strays everywhere, and friendly ones too. There are thousands of lizards, who happily pose for photos before scuttling off.

Still, even living a taste of the lives of the rich and famous, it’s the simple pleasures that make it worth it. The strays lie in the shade of monuments and in the way of tourists photos, not a care in the world. We meanwhile video the sunset as we drive away from Ravello, sip Granite di Limon (like a slushy) in the shade of the cliffs, and cook chicken on the Billy for our sandwiches at dinnertime, with views of the Bay of Naples. It’s hard to find fault in it, if you forget about the Italian drivers.

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Santorini to Sorrento in a Three Day Blur

Not the most interesting post today sorry, three days of travelling is rather uneventful when it goes roughly to plan. In the interests of keeping up our trip log though, I bring you: Santorini to Sorrento in a Three Day Blur.

Leaving Santorini was bittersweet. We were both about ready to go but at the same time when the tourist rush died down it was the sort of place where I could see myself getting into the day to day groove. We didn’t have to leave camp until about 1.30pm so we took our time with breakfast and packing. With our tight end-of-trip (nearly) budget we decided to eat lunch before we went and take dinner on board with us. I packed our gear, minus the tent, and then cooked up a packet pasta and added vegetables and spices that previous campers had left behind on a free-for-all table. At the same time I cooked up crumbed chicken schnitzel and layered it with salami, Santorini cherry tomatoes and cheese in huge bread buns to take on the ferry.

Courts was taking the tent down while I cooked and the kitten we had made friends with at camp took full advantage of the soft spot he knows I have when Courts isn’t there to scat him away. He feasted on crumbs and then while Courts ate I packed the bike ready to go. Despite not needing to leave until 1.30pm, we had to check out by 12pm and weren’t allowed to do so unless we could show our luggage all packed up. This meant after checking out we had very little to do so we ended up heading to the wharf early.

We made a rookie mistake seeing a sign for internet café and paying 3 Euro for an hour of wifi before going next door and discovering the café there had wifi free for customers. To kill time before the ferry arrived we took advantage of that too and then finally saw the ferry pull into port. In the scorching afternoon heat I could not have been happier when the guard let us through a gate, bypassing the huge queue of people waiting to board in direct sunlight. Vehicles are usually allowed on first but quite a few times we’ve been told it’s ‘Drivers Only’ and I’ve had to board separately. It’s never been a problem because we’ve never seen a queue like that, but this time I was crossing fingers and toes that I’d be allowed through with Courts.

As he parked the bike, I ran up to the Economy Lounge and nabbed the same seats we had had on the way there, right next to a window and a power point. Courts joined not long after and it’s a good thing his bum was firmly in his seat when the ferry pulled into the first stop, Naxos, because chaos erupted. The economy lounge is comfy but crowded, and everyone makes do and makes friends with the strangers they’re sat next to. At Naxos though, a group of crazy Greeks got on and decided to take over the boat. An overbearing old man told a couple of Aussies that it didn’t matter that their friend was on her way back from the toilet, his wife was having her seat. The poor woman was very apologetic as she was forced to sit in someone elses seat.

That was nothing though, because the man found another seat across the room, that was big enough to seat himself, his wife and all their friends. The only problem was, there were already two Aussie girls sitting there. He told them to move and when they politely declined (there was nowhere else for them to go), the Greeks decided to just sit either side and move closer and closer and the girls had no choice but to either move or be crushed to death. The girls gave in and crammed in elsewhere while fellow passengers watched in disbelief.

The rest of the ride was uneventful and we set foot on the mainland just after midnight. Barricades meant we had to go the long way to the hotel but it was nearby so it didn’t take long. Taking advantage of the free wifi we set our photos to upload to Flickr while we slept and fell deep into sleep with rubbish – but English language – TV playing in the background.

After a continental breakfast at the hotel we took our sweet time leaving which meant we ended up in a rush to get to Patras for the overnight ferry to Italy. Good traffic and straight highways meant we beat the GPS predictions by well over an hour and it was a good thing we did because the ticket office kept us waiting over an hour. Superfast Ferries had previously treated us well but this time they served the two people in front of me in record-slow time, and then when it was my turn, they took my reference print out and said ‘One minute lady’ and then kept serving the people behind me. 50 minutes later I was told they had a computer problem and were waiting for another office to open and close my booking and it was 15 minutes after that that we finally got given our boarding passes.

We were still one of the first on the ferry though so we parked and unloaded and reloaded the gear on the bike, taking with us our carefully planned cabin bag. We (I) had done a lot of rearranging to fit our sleeping mats and sleeping bag into the bag that usually has our tent, having learnt from the last overnight ferry that it was unlikely to be a comfy night. We were the first into the aircraft seat room but this time the seats were allocated and looked a lot comfier than the last ferry.

We only sat in those seats for a few seconds though over the entire ride because we took over the corner behind the last row of seats, on the floor. We were in overnight ferry heaven with the bottom shelf of the luggage store on one side, a powerpoint behind our heads, the perfect amount of room to put our mattresses side by side, and the privacy afforded to us by the seats in front. We put all our gear on the shelf and went and had a coffee and later some dinner before returning later to our camp to sit in bed on the wifi and reading books.

In the morning we had another epic ferry breakfast – I already miss the inch thick French bread and bacon – and then the debate of the century started. When faced with a queue or crowd, Courts likes to remain in his seat or wherever he is comfortable until the very last minute and then walk through behind the last people in the queue having done little to no waiting around and standing. Although I have no issues queuing if it’s the only way, like at theme parks, if I don’t have to queue I’m generally the same as Courts. I’m the last to stand up and queue at airport gates and I’m happy staying seated on a bus until it’s near empty.

On a ferry with a motorbike, I’m the opposite. First of all, I’ve seen the way idiots treat other peoples bikes in the cargo hold when they think no one can see them. One guy sat on our pannier, the weight of which we have to watch as it is, as he waited for the bike next to his to be untied (they all get tied together). Second of all, while Courts is happy being late to anything and everything, I hate being late and I hate feeling rushed. If I have to go out for a particular time, I’ll get ready an hour early so I know it’s done, and then watch TV or relax till it’s time to go. Courts will watch TV or relax until it’s time to go and then start getting ready.

When the ferry docks, the crowd of people trying to get off is insane. I’d be happy staying seated until everyones gone and then meandering off except I know there are idiots touching the bike that’s in my name and I know the bike has to be repacked before we can leave. The ferry workers want everyone off ASAP so it’s a rush to do this as it is. I’d rather go to the door to the garage the second we know we’re nearing port, wait until it’s opened and be the first one out. I may have to wait longer but no ones in my way and I have plenty of time to take packing the bike before we are rushed off.

I never once told Courts he had to come with me but of course it’s natural to assume it’s expected so while I tried to get to the bike he got angrier and angrier at not being able to wait till last. It didn’t help that when I got to the bike well before he did (having separated to find the easiest way down when Court’s procrastination meant we were at the back of the queue) and repacked it myself, I didn’t realize we needed tools from under the seat to tighten the chain before we left. I tried to remedy the situation with jokes and kisses and it worked – until we got off the ferry and the way out was clear as mud and everyone was in our way and it was hot and Courts got frustrated all over again.

It wasn’t the most fun of rides but when we eventually arrived in Sorrento 4 hours later, the incredible view and abundance of lizards was enough to turn his mood at anytime. He went off to the bathroom and I pitched the tent and set up our stuff, on the edge of a (fenced) cliff with a view of the sunset over the entire Bay of Naples, all the way to the city itself. We sealed three days of travel with a bottle of Sorrento wine and real Italian ravioli at the camp restaurant overlooking the now twinkling city lights.

It’s not all bad now, is it.

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