Bosman's
Bush Telegraph - 30 November 2000
Hello
It looks
like we are well and truly on the fast track now - full steam ahead to reach
London by our self-imposed deadline of 5 December. All in all its not too much of a bad thing though as travel in
Europe at this time of the year is not really a very pleasant experience. After chasing the endless summer for eight
months we came down to earth last week with a rather nasty bang when we hit
chilly Turkey and Greece and are now venturing into positively freezing Italy
and France! Crossing through the Alps
yesterday, the temperature read 4 degrees centigrade - not much fun for warm
blooded South Africans who have been baking in the African sun for the last
while. In addition, most of the tourist
industry, except for the winter resorts, have closed up shop for the year and
its been difficult to find an open campsite - although, probably rightly so, as
camping under these conditions is ludicrous!
So its beanies and polar fleece jackets out for us and at least our
car's air-conditioning unit is up for a well deserved rest.
Our route
through Turkey took us along the breathtaking Mediterranean coast, through tiny
seaside fishing villages and across some of the most spectacular
mountainscapes. Each village was filled
with the most authentic looking cast of Turkish peasants, ancient men sitting
on their porches playing chess and drinking coffee, women in headscarves
picking olives in the fields and donkeys and oxen pulling ploughs. It was picture book stuff! At Antalya we headed inland and to the port
city of Izmir where we had hoped to catch a boat to Italy. Of course, the best laid plans never quite
work out as they are supposed to. As
soon as we entered Turkey we started making telephonic enquiries into the cost
of ferrying our car to Italy. We
discovered that Turkish Maritime Lines ran a weekly ferry from Izmir to
Brindisi (Italy) which departed each Wednesday. Perfect, we thought! Just
enough time to cross Turkey and get our Schengen visas from the Italian
consulate in Izmir before sailing. The
ferry was scheduled to take three nights and two days but we figured it would
be an overall saving as we would not have to buy the very expensive European
fuel and we would save the wear and tear on our very weary Landy. Wrong again - it was not going to be that
simple. Next enquiry was to the Italian
embassy about the requirements for Schengen visas and whether they could be
issued from Izmir. It was at this point
that our trip almost met with a very sticky end when we came up against a very
stubborn brick wall in the form of one Mrs Ranuchi, Italian vice consul in
Izmir, who put her foot down with all the weight of the EU behind it. It appeared that Schengen visas had to be
obtained in the country in which one holds residence and unless we were able to
produce proof of Turkish residency like the proverbial rabbit out of a hat we
were stuck!! We tried to explain to Mrs
Ranuchi that it was impossible for us to have applied in our home country as we
left there months ago and our visas would have expired. She was having none of it. Rules are rules and especially Italian rules
just cannot be bent, broken or have exceptions made to them. This was the EU we were talking about after
all and not some African backwater. She
became quite petulant about it and we
could literally visualize her stamping her sensibly shod feet and waving her
hammy upper arms (this of course is our interpretation as she would not see us,
she was always too busy. So we had to conduct our argument with her
telephonically and that was only when her aide (who redefined the term rude)
let us speak to her.
After a day
or two of negotiating, begging, winging and threatening it was clear that the
Italians were not going to make an exception on our behalf and our ferry to
Brindisi sailed without us.
In
retrospect it was probably a good thing as I have no idea what we would have
done on the deck of the ferry for all that time! It was time for plan B, getting the visas from the Greeks and
driving through Greece to Patras (or somewhere) where we could ferry to
Italy. It was at this stage in the game
that we met Mechmet, a swarmy Turk dressed in a three piece grey suit who
looked a bit like Danny De Vito and who spoke with a very alarming
Turkish/American accent. Mechmet tried
to convince us that he was an authentic businessman who helped American
military personnel find lodgings in Izmir.
In fact he was just a glorified tout and scheister of the worst degree. Mechmet told us how he had travelled to
London and knew just how difficult it was to find hotels, parking, etc and that
it was best if he helped us. We were
sceptical but at that point we were running out of options so agreed to have
him show us around. He helped us to
find "safe" parking in Izmir (which is difficult) - although we were
nervous that we would return to find our car having been carted off to some
sort of Turkish chop shop (Ay the stress!!!!!), took us to a flat that he
"owned" and offered us use of it until we got our visas sorted out
(for a small fee, of course). This was
very attractive as the flat was fully furnished, complete with washing machine
and was very centrally situated. He also offered to show us to the Greek
embassy and to help us on that score.
All of this, it turned out, was just a pretence for the usual carpet
selling and horse trading that one gets all over Turkey. Mechmet had problems, tourism had taken a
down turn with the problems in the Middle East and his American clientele were not
keen to visit Turkey. He also had a daughter who was 20 and still living at
home and needing to be plied with copious amounts of money. She could not work as all she could get was
a secretarial post which Mechmet felt was beneath her dignity. He was trying to get her into an overseas
university but as she had only completed technical school she was not exactly
academic material. To top it all he has
a greedy and demanding wife. Which
meant that he was determined to subtly (or not so subtly) take advantage of us
and fleece us for what we were worth.
Unfortunately he chose the wrong victims as we are not worth much - we are budget travellers who don't want to
buy carpets, paintings, second hand cell phones (???) and who are very
reluctant to part with cash at all.
However this
whole sub-plot only became obvious much later.
In the mean embassy. We arrived
there fifteen minutes after closing time and were told to report back the next
day. Mechmet was having none of this
and jumped in saying that we had an appointment. Nev and I looked at each other nervously knowing that we had
nothing of the kind. Eventually a
friendly Greek attaché (of what we never discovered) poked his head out to see
who we had an appointment with. We
explained the long sorry story and he ushered us inside. Thankfully he ordered
the irritating Mechmet to stay outside.
The attaché could not believe that we had driven to Turkey
overland. We spent the next half an
hour taking him through all the stamps in our passports and telling him where
we had been. Despite the fact that the Greeks have the same policy about not
issuing visas to non Turkish residents
he was not going to be the one to put a stop to our travels at this late stage
and he agreed to help us. Phew! Without his help we were certainly up the
proverbial creek! He told us that it
would take a day to get the visas as they needed to be processed through the
Schengen system.
The next day
we picked up our passports complete with shiny Schengens and waved goodbye to
Mechmet who by this stage had become quite nasty after having had all his
attempted sales rebuffed. He kept
reappearing on our doorstep, his suit looking more and more ruffled, bemoaning
his fate of a dreadful daughter, a ghastly wife and financial hard times. The bottom line was that we did not want a
carpet, or a painting, or a silver necklace or his blasted cell phone which he
thought we
could sell to make a quick buck in London.
Eventually when nice refusals did not work we had to be firm and after
that down right rude but nothing seemed to penetrate his thick skin. Definite rule for Turkey - avoid swarmy
Turks offering help - there is always a carpet subplot in the background!!!!!
From Izmir
we headed north along the coast and crossed into Greece at the Ipsala
border. We did not get to Istanbul this
time which was a real pity - we will definitely need to come back to
Turkey to
take in all the tourist sites when we are less tired of travelling. The border crossing to Greece was a
breeze. We were dealt with by a very
camp customs official who had a neatly coifed head of grey hair and was
festooned with gold jewellery. He
literally glanced at our passports and stamped the car into Nev's for six
months. I did not even get a stamp in
my passport. Feeling a bit worried we
went back to him two or three times and he kept insisting that a stamp was not
necessary if we were travelling together.
Eventually, to humour me, he stamped my passport as well. Our trip through Greece was short lived
unfortunately (another one for next time) and we headed west across the country
down to the port of Igomenitzia where we had been told we could catch a cheap
ferry to Italy. It costs about 100 dollars for two people and a car to Venice
which takes about 24 hours (or is supposed to). Having pushed on through the night to get to the port by last
Saturday evening in time to catch the Sunday morning ferry we were most
disgruntled to find that our ferry to Venice was running behind schedule due to
bad weather conditions. Two hours they
said so we had some breakfast, did some email, wandered the streets of
Igomenitzia and reported back to the ferry offices at lunch time only to be
told that there had been further delays.
In short, we spent a very frustrating day at the Igomenitzia port
literally waiting for our ship to come in.
In the end it arrived at around 5 in the afternoon after being scheduled
to leave at 10h30 that morning. The
ferry was pretty amazing. They must
have loaded in about 40 cargo trucks into the hold (you know those massive
refrigerated ones) - at one stage it looked like there would not be space for
us but luckily we were last on making for a quick getaway in Venice. The 24 hour ferry to Venice took 26 hours
and we were literally suffering from cabin fever when we finally arrived. Our woes were not assisted by the fact that
we did not in fact have a cabin so were confined to the deck or the bar. The latter was preferable as it had seating
but was also popular with the Greek truck drivers who seem to be surpassed only
by their Turkish counterparts in their
nicotine
dependency. Not the highlight of our
trip I must say!
No customs
or immigration in Venice - its all wide open now with the EU and all. In fact, no more border formalities until we
arrive in Dover I suspect! Of course we
couldn't not spend a day or so in Venice and so we spent Tuesday wandering
along the canals, checking out the awesome St Marks Basilica, having a very
overpriced but totally delicious cappuccino at a cafe in the square, checking
out the Rialto Bridge and, of course, the Bridge of Sighs. Nev decided that when in Venice it is
fitting to feed the birds so he got himself a packet of bird seed from one of
the local vendors. Those pigeons are
sneaky buggers though and they know only too well what's coming the minute they
hear the rustle of plastic. No sooner
had Nev opened his bag of seed when the whole thing degenerated into a bad cut
from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds".
These tenacious feathered lot sat all over Nev - on his head, shoulders,
face. He was forced to unceremoniously
dump the seed and bolt for safety sporting some very scratched hands. I, on the other hand, got some great
photos! The best part about Italy was
the food! After having been subjected
to months of African cuisine we literally gorged ourselves on the authentic
pizzas, pastas and pastries on offer in Venice - each looking better than the
next. Of course, we were reminded about
the dangers of foreign travel when Nev ordered an unpronounceable pizza off the
menu and it arrived complete with some very slimy objects on top – they could
have been mushrooms but within minutes Nev had convinced himself they were
sliced up pigs testicles or something equally abhorrent. Nothing like a bit of squeamishness to ruin
your dinner - next time we stuck solidly to the pizzas we knew!!!!
Anyway, we
are in France now and headed for Paris.
Our journey is almost over. Will
keep you posted on the next leg.
chat to you
soon
love
Penny and
Neville