Stu is up early this morning to take some shots of the town before most people are up and about.

 

 

Even Greg’s Place is quiet 🙂

 

 

 

Today we have arranged to rent a car from Luka’s. 10 Euro cheaper than anywhere else we checked. We have a Fiat Panda. We think we had a Panda in France in 2007. They haven’t changed much.

We get the instructions on how to drive in Greece. Since there are a lot of Brits, be careful of them driving on the wrong side of the road because they forget. Good to know!!  He also tells us that in Greece the driver on the right ALWAYS has the right of way. Even if you are in a traffic circle and someone comes up on the right, they have the right of way. At home, if you are already in the circle you have the right of way. Not here!!

We head toward Kos town as that is where the ferry we will be taking to Leros tomorrow is leaving from. We park where Kosta (who runs Luka’s I know it is confusing) tells us to park. From there we make our way down to the port. We find the Blue Star ticket kiosk and inquire about ferry times tomorrow. They are at 11 and 2 and are 1.5 hours duration. We say “can we just buy the tickets tomorrow?” We are told “No, TODAY. There are no more seats left for today” it is 10:45, 15 minutes to the first sailing. ooohhh Okay then. We buy the tickets for the 11AM sailing tomorrow.

From the Blue Star kiosk we decide to walk along the sea wall next the the Castle Ruins. We knew that migrants were landing in Kos Town, but now we see the evidence. The inflatable boats, some not so inflated any longer.

 

 

The life jackets floating alone in the water and the tents set up in the blazing sun along the base of the castle. Oh boy, this is not just a news flash!

 

We are seeing this first hand. Families with little children. So disturbing. These people are on the east side of the castle walls.  At this time of day and probably most of the day they are in the blazing sun.

 

I see people (aid workers I assume) talking to families, taking down information. I hope that they will be helped soon.

We see people walking in the direction of Kos Town. Caring luggage and wearing long sleeves and long pants. Very different from the tourists in shorts and t-shirts that they are passing. We assume that they have recently landed and are heading to the town in order to plan their next steps.

 

 

We go back to our car and drive a bit further south looking for a restaurant at “agios Fukos”  recommended by Jim Beck (Joan Carlyle’s brother).  We did not find it, but we did find a much different world.  Behind me is a very fancy resort.  Feels quite odd after what we have just seen.

 

 

We head back in the direction of Kardamena the town we are staying in. There are a couple of beach towns on the north side of the island. We decide to check them out and stop for lunch if it appeals. The first town is a huge resort town. Lot’s of beach clubs all with different colour scheme umbrellas. It is too busy for us.

 

We carry on to Marmaris and find a spot to park. The first spot we come to is Biggys on the beach.  Their greeter greets us and we sit in a shady spot order 2 beers and 2 gyros. Very nice.

 

We are directly across the street from the beach. Again colour co-ordination. We assume it is a pay beach, again 5 or 6 Euros for a couple lounge chairs and an umbrella. They seem to have showers as well.

 

I overhear an Australian woman, who I assume from the conversation, owns Biggys by the Beach. She is very concerned about the migrant situation. It is hurting her business greatly. As I mentioned before, Kos has been hit in the pocket book by people avoiding the island due to the economy and now the migrant crisis. She says (I have not checked any other sources, so this is just hearsay 😉 ) that there are only 8 police officers on the island normally. Now they are beefed up with military personnel and she says “the bloody Scotland Yard” Again not sure if this is true, but she is very concerned that her season has been affected negatively by all of the recent events. Hard not to sympathize with her and very hard not to sympathize with the Syrian people fleeing terror in their country.

Back we go to return our car to Luka’s. They close for a few hours in the afternoon, but we see a young man going into the office as we arrive. He gets a beer from the fridge inside ;). We ask when the shop will be open again. He says 5, I think. I will go ask, Kosta is my father-inlaw he says.

 

Next thing we know Kosta is leaning down from the roof top terrace. Asking if we are done with the car and if we filled it with gas. Yes and Yes we say. He laughs and then sends down a blue plastic bag on a rope for us to put the key into.

 

 

 

 

He says “the elevator is coming down” Haha. We pop the car keys in the bag and he pulls it back up. Cool!!

Off to Chris’s for a beer and a couple swims.

It is moving day again. Stu’s turn go bring home the caffeine. We are enjoying the little decks we have in this place. One always has shade. We drink our coffee with buns, cheese and ham on the West Deck.  This is the place.  You need to remember that Stu makes places look good for a living!!  Not as nice as it looks, REALLY.

 

From there we don’t see the folks in the NICE hotel enjoying their pool. Bonus!!

 

 

We pack up and strap on the backpacks and head out. We knock at Maria’s door to drop off the keys. She is in the lobby, so we give her the keys. She asks if we think we will need her place on the way back. Ahhh….. Not sure, not sure how we are going back. “little white lie” she gives us her contact info in case we need a place in Kos for the return. She is a nice lady and obviously needs the income, but I don’t think we’ll be back.

The Captain Sun Apartments that Maria runs cost us 30 Euros ($45 CAD) per night. We are moving to Luka’s apartments for 35 Euros ($52.50 CAD). No, we haven’t seen the suite, but we have seen the building and the outside is miles ahead of Captain Sun.

We walk over to Luka’s, Stu stays with our stuff and I walk down to the Luka’s office to get the keys. Costas drives me back and shows us the room. It is still pretty basic. No shower curtain, no AC, no soap in the bathroom or the kitchen, no coffee maker. But this is the view from the teeny tiny deck!!! Yeah! And Chris Snacks and Cocktails is right next door and we can spend time in the sun beds under the umbrellas if we buy a water from Chris.

This is how we access wifi.  Chris has it next door.  If I sit on the deck I can connect, but then I can’t read the screen on my laptop.  So I shield the screen so I can download McKeen’s hockey stuff for Stu.  Hahaha!!

 

Off we go for a walk. Heading east from Lukas. There is very little development past 200 meters from our new place. Bare beach and a few people enjoying the Aegean. There are a number of “Beach Clubs”. You can pay 5 or 6 Euros for an umbrella and 2 sun beds. There are also places with a pool and a bar that you go to. Just buy a drink and you can enjoy the pool and other amenities.

We are noticing mounds along the beach and on further examination notice that they are bunkers buried in the sand with gun sights out to the ocean. We pass about a dozen before we decide to turn back to town.

As we go to our new favourite place with wifi, Chris’s I google “bunkers Kos”. A few hits come up, but mostly other people wondering what they are. We don’t remember much of Greece’s involvement in WWII, but that could be just our fading memories  🙁  😉

We ask our host at Chris’s (Michael is his name, we think he is Chris’s husband). Oh, the “Pill Boxes” he says. “That is in case those bastards come”…. and he tilts his head to the east. I say, “you mean the Turks??” He says how did you know? I didn’t say who!!!. I say “just a guess”. Apparently there is no love lost between the Greeks and “Those Bastards”.

Lessons learned.

 

Oh yeah. This is what we see from our room tonight. NICE!!

We wake up way too early. 🙁  Our place has a kitchen of sorts but no coffee maker, so I am off to find caffeine. As it was the middle of the night when we arrived I have no idea what is around us.

There is a nice looking hotel with a pool across from us. It has a sign welcoming anyone to the pool bar. If you buy drinks you can use their facilities. I walk towards the ocean and find a place that is open and offers full English breakfast. I order take away coffee, it seems to be quite an ordeal.

 

Caffeine in hand I walk back to our little place. We do have 2 little decks that are the best thing about this place.

 

 

With coffee consumed we head of to explore and to find new digs! We see a number of car rental places so we start shopping around for a car. In our wanderings we come across a fair sized grocery store, so stop in to pick up a few things for our place. Beer, wine, cheese and some great fresh buns. Decide to head back to the place as we need to eat some of this stuff!

We enjoy the buns with cheese on our deck overlooking the nice hotel pool.

Back out on the hunt for a new place. It is difficult as this place doesn’t have wifi, so online is hard. Laptop in tow we search out a bar with wifi as we have seen a number of them. We choose Chris’s Snack and Cocktail Bar.

 

We search online and find very little in Kardamena so we ask our host. He says there are apartments right next door. To enqire about them we need to go to a car rental place down the street called “Luka’s”.

 

So after enjoying the beer, the views and a swim, we head to Luka’s to find out if they have availability. We find the place. An older couple are in the office and they tell us they have a place for 35 Euro’s. We know the building, it is right on the ocean. SOLD!! We book it for tomorrow and the next night.

He has Visa signs on the door. So we ask if they will take Visa for the room. Ahhh no please. Another side to this story than what we see at home. If we pay with Visa, they can only get 50 Euros a day from the bank. So it is a Catch 22. The banks are controlling  the cash, the people avoid the banks, the government probably never knows about the income, hence CRISIS!

Now our lack of sleep is catching up to us and it is nap time.

Out hunting for a place for dinner. They all have their “people” out chatting us up and telling us why we should eat at their restaurant. After a few we decide on Alexander’s. We have been looking forward to Greek food. We share cheese Saganaki, Stu has a seafood dish and I have their chicken Souvlaki.

The woman who enticed us is from the UK. It seems this town has a lot of Brit tourists. She now lives here full time and tells us that it is beautiful, but there is no work between October and April. This year they have been hit particularly hard with the Greek economic crisis and the migrant crisis.

Lots of empty/closed businesses here.