I
was up in time to see the sunrise today. To be fair I’m usually up in time to
see the sunrise, but today I went and did it. Very pretty. And then I went back
to bed for a bit.
Once
we’d had our brekkie "er indoors TM" smuggled out some
sausages to feed to the local feral cats. We then got ourselves organised and
spoke to the nice buggy-hire man and hired three buggies. On Kos you can hire
little petrol-driven death-traps and scoot all over the island. They wouldn’t
come close to being road-legal over here, but (it would seem) that Kos has very little time for health and safety legislation.
We
got our buggies and drove to the petrol station in Kardemena. The nice
buggy-hire man had suggested we ought to put some petrol into the things.
There
was a little hiccup coming out of the petrol station as the throttle cable on
one of the buggies had got stuck at full power. We phoned the nice buggy-hire
man and as luck would have it we were only fifty yards from his head office so
he sent out someone to sort the problem. We got chatting with the Geordie
fix-it man (so many Brits live on Kos)
who told us that the buggies were all home-made out of bits and pieces of other
vehicles.
We
were soon on our way. We had the freedom of the island, and no real idea about
the place. So (if all else fails) the
geo-map usually finds the pretty places that the tourist information misses.
We
started off at the bubble beach; where the local volcanic
activity causes the sea to bubble. Or so we were told. Admittedly there were
bubbles in the water; it did look impressive with the snorkel face-mask. But I was
under the impression that the sea would appear to be fizzing like a jacuzzi; it
wasn’t.
We
then went to the far end of the island
where we found a mountain overlooking the town of Kefalos. There were some
rather pretty views including one of an island in the bay. We *could* have gone down and swum out to it…
Our
next stop was in the village of Antimacheia. We hadn’t intended to stop there,
but if we hadn’t stopped one of the back wheels would have fallen off of one of
the buggies. Some of the wheel nuts on that wheel were gone, and the remaining
ones were rather loose. We phoned the nice buggy-hire man and he arrived within
a few minutes with another buggy.
In
England a wheel falling off of a hire-vehicle would be a major issue; in Kos it
just seemed to be a trivial inconvenience. It’s another world out here.
We
then carried on to the nearby castle. I
suppose I was a bit disappointed here. I was probably expecting something along
the lines of English Heritage or National Trust. At the very least I was
expecting some sort of information board. Instead we found an old fort which
was slowly falling down, and an old bloke posing in Greek national dress in the
hope that people would give him money for doing so.
But
the old bloke recommended a restaurant in Kos Town that did a good dinner, so
after five minutes in the castle we set off to Kos Town.
The
Salt & Pepper bar
lived up to expectations; excellent food with friendly service. And once we’d
had dinner (and a discount because the
man in the castle sent us) we had a look around the harbour.
But
it was a hot day; people fancied a dip. So we got back into the buggies and set
off to the thermal springs.
We
parked at the top of the cliffs and walked down a track to the beach where
volcanic action causes hot water to emerge from the base of the cliffs. There was
a little pool being filled by the springs, and we played about in this pool.
Or, to be accurate, we played in the edge which was being cooled by the sea water.
The stuff coming out of the spring was just too hot.
We
went back to the hotel for dinner, and realising we had the buggies until the
morning we drove into Kardamena for the evening. We played tourist in the shops,
I got a fake Levi belt. "er indoors TM" and Cheryl
had a go in the fish-foot-spa thingy until the fish nibbled Cheryl’s foot. She
screamed, and "My Boy TM" took her place.
We
didn’t get *that* lost on the way
back to base, and with everyone else off to the beach bar, "er indoors TM"
and I sat outside our apartment ostensibly babysitting whilst listening to the
same singer who had been on yesterday (and
pouring brinks down our necks).
Having
taken
one or two photos today we finally rolled into bed at about 1.30am
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