Not a bad spot to be stranded

Trip Start Sep 01, 2011

Trip End Oct 27, 2011

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Flag of Greece Kos Town, Dodecanese, Greece
Tuesday, October 11, 2011

We had not planned on spending any time on Kos as it was just a place to change ferries and get to Turkey, but we were prepared to have a relaxing day on the beach as our information was that there were no ferries until the afternoon. As usual, our information was wrong. Ferries left in the morning, so we had some breakfast and a bit of a wander around town to admire the fortifications of the local castle. Then we get in the queue, went through customs and waited for the boat. Then we waited some more, and some more. By the time the boat was an hour late we had an announcement, only some of which we could hear but the gist was that there would be no boat today at all. So we queued to go back through customs and tried to figure out what to do next.

All the boats were telling the same story, which seemed to be that the harbour in Bodrum, Turkey was closed. Possibly this was because it was too rough, although our boat wanted to sail, or possibly it was too full of boats that had not been able to leave the previous day

Town square

. Whatever the reason, we had a ferry that wanted to sail but was not allowed into the harbour.
By the time we had found somewhere to sleep and had lunch it was already early afternoon, most of the sites were closed so we confined our activities to city sight-seeing: the ruined agora, the very same tree under which Hippocrates is supposed to have taught and the beach. It rained of course. But Kos seems a nice little town with very affordable accommodation. You could certainly be stuck somewhere far worse.

We discovered that the ferry had not gone the day before either. We met two Australians who had been island hopping on their way to a cruise and, despite allowing two days to get across the strait, were now in great danger of missing it. The cruise had promised to delay its departure until 11 am for them, but the crowd at the terminal was alarming. Everyone had a boarding ticket but surely they could not fit three days' worth of people on one sailing. Everyone must have had the same thought because there was very little queuing etiquette. We fought as vigorously as anyone else and finally cleared passport control again before fighting to get onto the boat. I think that they actually let everyone on but how it happened is beyond me. The boat was not that big and the crowd certainly felt enormous. We left late and the trip took a bit longer than normal (because the boat was so low in the water?) and the poor Australians docked with just 20 minutes to get to their cruise. We'll never know if they made it. We, however, had a simple walk to the bus station to head to Turkey's most famous ruin: Ephesus.

M.

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