As I got higher, I was given more superb views of the Saronic Gulf. I could see the island of Aegina, and an even further Athens off in the distance. I could also see the Peloponnesian mainland in the other direction.
I hiked all the way to the Temple of Poseidon, situated on the top of this island. I passed a few locals on the way, had a chat, and bought myself a large water bottle from a very small shop, which was essentially a house. When I got to the Temple of Poseidon, there was not much to see. It was pretty much nothing but ruins. There was nothing tall standing, just column bases scattered along the ground. There were good views from up here, though, and I took what I could of the area.
I headed back into town, along the same twisty road whence I came up. I took shortcuts between hairpin bends and shaved off a bit of time. I've been walking for about three hours.
When I got back, I headed to an internet café and tried to log onto TRF. I realise that I have been banned. I was stunned. The message displayed was 'No longer welcome'. I'm guessing this has something to do with the crisis that happened recently on my forum. I will have to leave it aside for now, and find out more later. This problem did convince me to cut my trip a little bit shorter.
Nonetheless, I purchased an onward ticket to the island of Hydra. I rode the hydrofoil, also known as a flying dolphin. The trip took only forty minutes. It was an enjoyable ride.
The island itself was incredibly amazing! The town was situated on the foot of the mountain, and there were no cars at all. Main transport here was by donkey. You don't need cars on this island, as everything is within close proximity. This was one awesome island to be on, and very different from what I have experienced in Greece so far. I'm loving it! I explored what I could, and was accompanied by dogs, cats and donkeys. I had myself a meal at the seaside taverna as well. What a day, despite my unfortunate situation with TRF. I enjoyed it as much as I could.
By afternoon, I started heading back to Athens. I took the flying dolphin back to the port of Piraeus, and enjoyed the scenery from the back of the boat along the way. It sat back and relaxed.
After arriving back at Piraeus, I tried to make my way to the internet café in Pagrati as soon as possible. I ended up taking three hours to get there. I was getting very frustrated. I got on a bus that had it's destination as Dafni. I thought that this would take me to the metro station near Con's workplace. I ended up going to Elefsina. I knew it was going wrong when I could see the island of Salamina. I had to get off, and head back in the other direction.
There were no metro services available, when I got to the nearest metro station. This was crazy, and it made it even more difficult. I made my way around by bus, which took forever, and I arrived at the internet café by 9pm.
So, I tried to resolve the situation I was in on TRF. I sent an email to Justin, the forum admin, and asked why I have been banned. I then visited my forum, and found out that there has been a huge ruckus between this forum and TRF. Some of the moderators from TRF stumbled across my forum and found a thread titled 'TRF OC Spamfest'. They thought that it was a conspiracy to spam their forum, so Justin banned everyone involved immediately. I knew the problem now, and fired off another email to Justin. I got the situation resolved and explained that it was a huge jump to conclusion and misunderstanding. We didn't intend for that title to be taken literally.
So I stayed online till midnight, getting everything sorted. There were no more bus services at this hour, so I walked my way closer to the city, and got myself a taxi. The rates were set to Tariff 2, and I didn't have enough money on me. I told the driver to stop whenever the meter reaches the amount of money that I have on me. I said my final destination was Aghia Paraskevi beforehand, and the cab driver was kind enough to drive me the whole way, regardless of not having all the money. It was very kind of him. I gave him every cent that was left in my wallet and thanked him.
From here, it was still a long walk back home to Glyka Nera. I walked on for another hour, arriving by 1:30am, when I could finally lie down and relax. I've had a busy past two days, and I was overwhelmed. I had a great trip! Except for that last bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment