Hitch hiking in the desert

My two days in Tel Aviv are fast and intense. After the first night clubbing I found myself crashed in somebody else's couch with my original host and another friend. The second day I awake in a couch full of sand without any clue. But for some reason everybody I meet seems to remember me from the beach party in the preceding night. I tend to associate this behaviour with the social capabilities of the arak :-)

Anyway, a series of coincidences — typical of the hospitality-exchange world — lead me on the next day to a small kibbutz on the Dead sea (the relevant photos are here).

But the amazing discovery is that you can easily hitch hike to almost every place in Israel! You just wait in a some big junction — even in the middle of the desert! (Check the picture and count the cars on sight :-)

And you will realise soon that all class of people can pick you up: from the young religious to the SUV-family to the hippie couple in a dark green Punto (by the way, a big thank you goes to the Indian girl who translated the hindi inscriptions on my yellow bag).

So I grab my casetta and I start flashing the drivers approaching my spot with big smiles, and in virtually no-time I found myself in front of the walls of Jerusalem!

Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò

And the quest for the sun leads me to Antalya, in the very south of Turkey, and my thirst of blue would eventually be satisfied (see photos).

But the curse of the Ramazan Bayram (see this post) is still there: both of my hosts in Antalya are leaving for the holiday, and I grab the opportunity of see Olimpos, just around the corner.


So i grab a dolmuş to the bus staion, there the dolmuş to Olimpos, that leaves us to the main street, and from there — guess — a dolmuş to the city. City? Oops! There is no city: the place is just an agglomeration of pensions and bars lined on both sides of the only street that leads through the ruins to the beach.


But some of the pensions are of a peculiar kind: tree houses! Feeling my age slowly flowing away, I climb on the ladder to my new home.

—
More photos of Antalya and Olimpos here.

Update

Thanks to Andrea, this post has new(?) photos.

Blue is my favourite colour …

… as in sky and sea!

The mighty SummerCamp in beautiful Naxos (Paros, Sexos) ended, and I moved my casetta to Syros, but it was only for having a real sleep — after a week between no-sleeping and sleeping-on-the-floor — and for doing the laundry.

After that was Samos! Due to the lack of CSers there, I opted for an hotel, made sure it had an internet connection, rented a small motorbike and went for the wild-and-deserted-beaches tour.

The results are posted here below :-)

For some reason the blue in Greece seems bluer than elsewhere, thus I'm planning a little come-back on the next week.

More photos of Samos here.

Stay tuned for more blue!

Greece, fifteen years after

I'm on the boat to Samos, trying to catch up with my thoughts and feelings after a couple of weeks lived with my whole body and soul.

What I feel now is a bit of loneliness — the least one could expect after such an intense social activity. But it is a good opportunity for recovering energies and preparing the Turkey trip. And update the blog :-)

I'm sorry, but I think that this post will be appreciated — almost — only by few of you, namely the participants of the 1993 El Harén mission.



Walking the same streets after 15 years make me feel like as no time had passed — although it was the other century — and at the same time I know that I'm a completely different person (eg: I don't feel anymore the urge of climbing that headless statue, yet I can't stop laughing my a** off remembering the museum guard getting mad at us!)

And next came Naxos (Paros, Sexos).

And that wind (I still have sand in my mouth after three days). So I had to take this photos also, although the lack of our friends makes me a bit melancholic.

This is how we looked fifteen years ago!

This hug is for you, my friends.

You can find more photos of Greece here.

Μέγας Αλέξανδρος

I have a list of things to do in Thessaloniki:

1. go to the Ano Poli


2. watch the sunset from the church with the peafowls


3. watch the sunset from the Λεωφόρος Νίκης


4. have a giros at Snoopy's

So far, I did #1 and #3, and I'm afraid that #4 will remain unchecked, because good ol' Snoopy seems to have moved from the waterfront :-(



I'm now in a bar on Leoforos Nikis, waiting to join a CSers mini-meeting, sipping the obligatory omnipresent frappé (technically, mine is a frappé skéto megála).

Take your time

I'm here in Varna since a week, so I can say that I know the centre very well — even if I think I've spent more time on the beach, anyway.

Back in my days we used to do some kind of brute-force tourism, seeing 20 cities in a fortnight.

But now I just prefer to stay more time in the same place, walk slowly down the roads, look at the people and the less important things, small shops, hidden corners.


I just sit in a cafe with my notebook or a book, observing the flowing of everyday life. And it's also nice to meet the same people in the same places, as we were neighbours.

Maybe the whole point of doing such a long trip is for me that I'll learn more from people than from monuments.

People from Treviso maybe will appreciate this photo of the street were I live in Varna.

Dead Sea vs Red Sea

Valencia, tres de la tarde

I've just discovered — or re-discovered — that in some southern cities the lunch-break is a bit longer than those I'm used to. Like tath you can't do anything before 5PM — except having a beer and some tapas.

¿Qué le vamos a hacer?

Thus I just stopped by a Lebanese tapas-bar for my obligatory kebab and started a chat with the customers and the owners, and it sorted out that they were actually from Jordan (but, as they told me, "All in all it's always middle-east!")

I was rapidly involved into an animated discussion about which sea was the hottest: the Red Sea or the Dead Sea. It was kinda funny because 1) nobody in the room had ever stayed at both seas, and 2) they all were arguing in Spanish for my own entertainement!

I told them I was going to Jordan and Egypt too, just for measuring temperatures … They seemed happy with that!

I think this is one of the main reasons for me having such a trip: the possibility of chatting with perfect strangers just about everything.

Random thoughts about Valencia

• Calatrava, wind, guiris pero no tantos.


• I highly recommend a good nap on the trencadis benches of the Umbracle.


• The ancient city is not so big, everything is in walking distance — if you can stand the temperature, though.


• Laundry with free wireless — otherwise it would be impossible having the time to write a blog!


• Wide deserted beaches, although you have to walk a bit for, it's definitely worth it: no loud music, no fighting for a towel place, no Hay servesa-cola-aguafresca-naranha-bíir!


• Horchata, of course! In Alboraya there's even an Horchata Avenue :-)


• For hours of entertainment, ask Valencians sabout the "Paella a la catalana" :-)
  

Barcelona, again

I can't help it.

This city has a special strength that pulls me towards her.
This time I bent westwards my counter clock-wise trip to see my old friends and spend some quality time with them.

First stop: La playa

The privilege of living in a city with a beach is something that you can't imagine until you actually try it. You have like a free hour so you just go down to the beach, take a dip, dry yourself under the sun and that's it! It feels like heaven.

On my way back from the playa I stopped by a kebab shop, and I had to take this picture. On the same street you can see those super-modern skyscrapers and 17th-Century buildings and roads. I love this city! :-)