Greetings from the Isle of Rhodes,
The Isle of Rhodes is a place that lives on tourists. In some ways it is a lot like
Santa Barbara or even Big Bear Lake (without the snow). As it is the
off-season, there are not that many tourists right now. Things are pretty
quiet here. The walled city reminds me of Dubrovnik with its ancient
defenses and cobbled stone walk ways (See this excellent
photo-essay.). The old city is full of gift shops
and little cafes serving Gyro sandwiches and other things soaked in olive
oil.
The ferry connecting this place with Turkey and Cyprus arrives/departs
only once a week, so I'm stuck here until Friday. It's not a bad place to
be stranded. The first three nights I splurged and stayed in a
truly deluxe boutique hotel called the Rodos Park: the rate was only $70 per night.
I'm now in the still excellent Hotel Mediterranean where the rate is but
$27 per night. I'm torn between just relaxing and enjoying everything and
feeling guilty for not hurrying on to Africa. But, this is a journey of
serendipity, so I'll just let it happen. I am delighted to realize I have
been living within my budget so far on this trip... and not really
suffering or feeling deprived at that.
Several of my friends told me horror stories about someone they know
that let some little spot on their skin go untreated too long and suffered
a catastrophe. As it turns out in my case, the swelling and blood I
discovered had nothing to do with the mole! Apparently some little hungry,
sneaky creature decided to make lunch out of me and chose a spot right on
the margin of that still unchanged brown marking on my back. It only
appeared that the mole had changed size, color and was bleeding! Now, only
a week after I got worried, the thing is back to its normal benign
unremarkable self, no bigger and the same brown color it always had. I
guess that is why doctors are cautioned never to treat themselves.
I took a lot of photographs during my weeklong stay on the island. Of
course, the little Pencam I'm using precludes anything approaching
professional, so "snapshots" will have to do. There are over 150 shots
in my collection for the Isle of Rhodes - available under the little
camera icon at the top of this page. Today is Tuesday and the ferry leaves on Friday, so it looks like I
have some serious loafing to do. Internet access is expensive here so I'll
cut this short.
Peace,
Fred Bellomy 20 March 2001
Greetings again from Rhodes.
I just finished processing the pictures I took today and decided to
make the link available for anyone who might be dying to see what it looks
like. I haven't had time to do much annotating.
I'm off to Cyprus tomorrow... traveling by ferry for 18 hours. It will
be my second trip to that divided island. The last time I went in by way
of Turkey and only could see the upper half of the island occupied by
Turkey. The Greek border guards were rather nasty when I tried to cross
down into the Greek side. This time I presume it will be different. I do
plan to once again cross the border, this time into the Turkish side.
We'll see. Should be interesting.
'Til next time,
Fred Bellomy 22 March 2001
PS: Missed the ferry! So, had to fly to Cairo by way of Athens after
another night in the Hotel Mediterranean.
FB
Enter Egypt
