Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016--Triane to Kastraki
I thought it was nice not getting up in the middle of the night to catch my bus. I read the news on the computer. I ate a good breakfast from the hotel buffet. I walked to the location the bus would depart in plenty of time.
As soon as the bus left, however, I realized there was going to be a time problem. We headed NORTH out of Triane, then we headed WEST toward Durres. Greece is to the south and the east! We went an around-the-way route through Albania stopping to pick up more passengers. Every time we stopped, it took more time, because not only did we load more passengers, but all the men on the bus would get off to smoke a cigarette and then would have to be herded back on. Five hours after departing, we were still in Albania, yet Google maps shows that a car can drive all the way to where I was headed in a little over 5 hours (but not following the route we were using)!!
At every border crossing on this trip, it has gone fast and smoothly getting a busload of people checked and approved. But not today. On the Greek side, they took our passports and spent much more time than usual for checking OUT of a country. Then we started waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Finally, I asked a young lady who speaks English what was happening. Somehow, a woman had gotten onto the bus with no passport and with only a piece of paper (like the Turkish man who was taken off our bus going from Montenegro into Kosovo). How it happened is mysterious, since the bus company photocopied passports as a part of issuing tickets and wrote the passport number on each ticket. Anyway, after about 45 more minutes, we were told she would not be going with us and we were free to cross.
The two checkpoints are built so that buses have a special lane on the right. But to get from one checkpoint to the next, the bus has to pass through the line of cars, take a lane on the left, then cross back through the line of cars to get to the special lane on the right at the next checkpoint. That took a long time to maneuver.
There had been a long line of seldom moving cars between the two checkpoints. When we got to the Greek side, there was only one lane open. A cherry-picker device was being used to do some repair work to overhead signs. The bus got us to the right lane, but there was no one there to take our passports. Suddenly, the driver told us to get out and walk through the procedure at two booths that were manned. That ate up more time as each person was checked (and even more time as the one who checked my line kept trying to carry on a conversation on his cell phone while processing us).
That was 19:00 Albanian time, but Greece is in another time zone, so we had jumped to 20:00 Greek time. The reason the time mattered so much is that my guesthouse had told me that they close reception at 22:00 and re-open it at 7:00 each day. I needed to be at my guesthouse by 22:00, and we were just leaving the border!
The bus actually went fairly fast for a while, since we were on expressways in Greece. I began to think maybe I would make it within my time limit. But then the bus exited onto a two-lane, winding road through the mountains at 21:00 and things really slowed down. I started to worry. My phone cannot be used to make calls inside Europe, so I asked the young lady who speaks English if she had a phone I could use. She didn't, but she said that she was sure we could use the driver's phone. Then she dropped a bombshell: She said we would be stopping soon for 30 minutes so everyone could eat dinner. I suggested that I would wait until then to try to use the driver's phone.
By 21:45, we had not made much progress--we had not stopped yet for eating and were still at least 45 minutes away from my destination. We borrowed the driver's phone and called the guesthouse to ask if there was a way to leave a key for me when they closed in 15 minutes. Fortunately, the lady said she could leave a key with a tavern that is 30 meters away if I could be there by 23:30 when they closed. Otherwise, she said, I should find somewhere else to stay for the night.
The place the driver intended to stop for dinner was closing, since it was 22:00 when we got there. He drove on, and I hoped he would continue all the way to my stop. Unfortunately, he pulled off at 22:15--just 15 minutes away from my stop for everyone to have a 30-minute dinner break!
It was 23:00 when the bus stopped to let me off in Kalambaka. But my guesthouse, Guesthouse Vavitas, is in Kastraki--2.6 km (1.5 miles) up the steep hill toward the Meteora mountains. There was no taxi at the stop, so I rushed to a nearby bar and they tried to call one. They couldn't get anyone. So at 23:05, I started running uphill knowing that the tavern where they were holding my key was scheduled to close at 23:30! My throat went very dry, and I was breathing heavily. Not only was I rushing uphill, but I was pulling my rolling suitcase and wearing my backpack.
I kept checking the time. And I had to keep one-handedly opening my phone while continuing to move to make sure I was following the right road. As a car would pass, I would stick out my hand and try to hitchhike. It was 23:20, and I was only a little over halfway up the hill to my hotel, but a car stopped. It was two men who were searching for their own hotel. I jumped in with them and used my phone to figure out that their hotel was just ahead on the left and that mine would be a little bit beyond. They drove past theirs. I looked at my phone map and could see we were almost to mine, and I saw an empty tavern with a man standing outside. I asked, "Do you have keys for an American staying at Vavitsas?" It was the right place!
The men in the car let me out and turned back toward their place. The man at the tavern walked me up to mine and let me in. He has apparently done this before, because he took my passport number and brought me to the room to show me the details. I was so happy to be in the hotel, but I felt bad that he had been waiting for me; it was obvious that the tavern business for the night had ended earlier. Anyway, at 23:25, I was able to get into my guesthouse and be in my room. Maybe the man would have waited longer at the tavern for me, but I was so glad I did not have to continue uphill with my luggage that last part of the way and did not have to worry about being later than the time I was trying to beat.
This was a third day in a row for problems. I hope this will be the end of it! I want to spend my last week on the trip enjoying myself again.
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