Last day in Istanbul so we decided to do some sight seeing.
Day 9 Istanbul > Turkey/Greece border > Alexandroupolis, Greece
It is time to leave Istanbul,Turkey and make our way over to Thessaloniki, Greece. We have plans to stay with a couchsurfer there. The plan is to hitchhike the 8 hour car drive from Istanbul to Thessaloniki. Neither Tanner or I have hitchhiked before.
This was a crazy experience and takes a lot of patience. We found out during hitchhiking that a lot of people are just going an hour or two down the road, not a straight shot to Thessa. So our first ride was an engaged couple from Turkey who were incredibly nice. They didn't necessary speak great English but they bought us lunch and gave us water/snacks. They took us to the edge of town.
Our next ride was from an English teacher who took us about an hour to the border of Turkey and Greece. This is where the fun begins. We were allowed to walk out of Turkey.
You can't walk across the border into Greece by foot, you have to be in a car. Of course we tried it anyway. We waited about 4 hours to try to get someone to drive us across the border. Seems simple, but with crossing a border being stressful enough, do you really want to pick up 2 complete strangers trying to get across? Finally, Tanner pulled some strings and 3 guys brought us across the border to Alexandroupolis.
It was late in Alexandroupolis so we just had them drop us off downtown and look for a hotel room. The bad news is, all the rooms in town were booked. So we slept at the train station on park benches. This isn't exactly how I envisioned our trip to Europe.
Day 10 Alexandroupolis > Xanthi > Kavala, Greece
Tanner and I got up the next day with some optimism that we would make it to Thessaloniki no problem. Turned out it was a long day with a lot of rejection by cars. Some dude gave us a ride from Alexandroupolis to Xanthi which was about an hour away. Then we waited on the highway for about 5 hours for someone to pick us up! Even a police car drove by and stopped and asked what we were doing and if we were ok. Eventually someone pulled over and said he could get us 20 minutes closer. In a point of disperation, we took whatever we could get.
He dropped us off at an overpass in the middle of nowhere. Another 2 hours went by with no luck. At this point, we have hit a huge low in the trip and going home to some office job sounds somewhat desirable. We are both tired, hungry, and not really big fans of each other. After about 8 hours of waiting for cars we have only traveled about an hour and a half. Then finally another guy comes and picks us up. He says he is going to Kavala. We don't care, just somewhere with a hotel!
We get to this town and it's incredible! Kavala is like what you see in brochures of small town Greece. Old houses on a hill, a castle, and everything is sitting on the Mediterranean . In the matter of 24 hours we just experienced the highs and lows of traveling. We went from sleeping on a park bench to staying at a 4 star hotel in a resort town in Greece! :)
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