Chios

Well we have left Turkey and arrived on the Greek island of Chios. Chios is beautiful and has a nice promenade of shops around the harbour all circled by soaring mountains. It is very beautiful. The bus rides from Selchuk to Cesme were relatively painless. I had a long conversation with a Kurdish Turk from Sweden who had just left jail for punching someone and who was glad to again have his freedom. He was living on a Swedish pension of some sort, carrying only one small bag' along with the clothes on his back his sole possessions. A former bodybuilder who had discovered a pagan outlook of god is nature and all around us. The vagabond took to me and we chatted the whole way dancing around the political, praising god and an awkward I hate Greeks moment. Despite some of the weirdness he offered to be our guide to the ferry terminal and even told me about the free mineral pools of the area, clearly a closely guarded secret for him.

After a lunch and a trip to the PTT (post, Telephone, Telegraph) office we boarded our ferry almost. Got to the boat (which was not much bigger than the yacht we sailed on from Olympos) and we were met with awkward conversation that made us feel that we had missed a step to secure our spots on board. The captain collected our passports and verified with the authorities and we were permitted on board. Safely on our way we enjoyed the 45 minute trip across to Chios in the setting sun. When we arrived in Chios we were unsure of where the ferry to Athens left from and whom we got our tickets from (unlike Turkey there were no guys with cellphones expecting us) We asked a taxi driver about the Athens ferry and he explained that the ferry and ticket office were Allll the way on the other side of the port. We thought great other side of the island, asked how much for a ride and readily hoped in at the 5 euro offer. From here the kind cabbie dropped us off on the other side of the port, literally far enough for me to throw a football away. We were stunned but then easily found our travel office got our tickets and then had a relatively cheap dinner.

I think we are going to hang out at the ferry terminal and offer to carry peoples bags over for 2 euro each!