Kos Cats and Hippocrates Hippy Garden

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In Turkey you see cats in places you would not expect to see them were you in the UK - they're in restaurants, sitting on beaches, at all tourist / historical spots, hanging out in shops and snoozing at bars. So it came as no surprise to find a ginger and white kitten chillin' on the Bodrum to Kos ferry. He got a lot of fuss from the tourists he deemed worthy of touching him (no children of course) and dutifully posed for photos.

We were headed to Kos for a friend's wedding which is being held in Kardamena on Thursday. Upon arrival at passport control we were really annoyed at seeing lots of people pushing in the queue, that is until an Australian lady told us that we too could push in due to being British, or to be exact, European. So we were ok about the pushing in after that.

The first thing we spotted was some trees surrounded by a variety of nationality of tourists, taking photos and in general excitement. It turned out to be a tree full of cats!!!! And kittens too!! Glyn soon walked off and I lost him for a while. (Note: I found it later that this was in fact Hippocrate's Tree).

We shared a cab with a Turkish business woman, explaining that we were going to fetch our hire car as taxis are too expensive. "Yes they are," agreed the cabbie.

Our aubergine coloured fiat panda soon arrived with an unusually helpful driver, who unlike any other hire company I have used abroad before, explained the controls, speed limits, road rules that are different to the UK and that the police are in plain clothes (apparently not to upset the tourists, although the uniforms never upset me, it's the beefy guns that I worry about.) He then got on his moped and showed us the way to our apartment in downtown Kardamena. It's nice enough, run by an elderly Greek couple - clean with a balcony but the wifi is there in name only.

We drove to the very south of the island, which isn't far away at all, nowhere in Kos is. The few winding roads led to just a beach or maybe a restaurant, I do wonder if these roads were built for just one crappy food place? There was not any signs of pre-tourism Greek homes or farms in the south. We drove to the highest southern point and found a few empty buildings, a toilet and one tiny church full of rich, colourful and gold wall paintings with a kitten having a nap inside - like Turkey, Kos is full of cats everywhere you go. The roads mostly contained other tourists, many going very slowly on mopeds or beach buggies.

Kefalos Bay was rather dull with pebble beaches and dull bars. So far all we had seen was stuff for foreign travellers, you would think the place had not been inhabited before tourism. We headed back up to Antimahia and then to Mastichari on the north coast. Here we started too see a little of non-tourist Kos, including a power station! Along the coast were many signs to a variety of beaches and the odd bar, but nothing else.

A few signs for Hippocrates Garden popped up and we went looking for it. And how glad we were to find it... hmmm. It is a replica of a Greek dwelling/place of learning from 400bc, or thereabouts. It was meant to be something similar to where Hippocrates trained medical students back in his day. Parts of it were pretty good and makes a change from seeing the originals of these types of things that usually are all but crumbled and you need to imagine a lot.

It was a bit of a hippy retreat/commune though and parts were utter shite. In an island chocca full of tourists and we were the only tourists there, so go figure. The person who took our over-priced entrance fee of 5 euros was a hippyish Greek woman who said she would make us Greek tea. We sat in an outside bar area that was looked like it had been painted by pretentious students on acid as she brought us two cups of cold brownish water. She claimed it was sage and rosemary tea, that it was healing and an antibiotic. It possibly was one of the most vile drinks I have ever tasted. Whatever plant it came from, it is a plant that was never meant for drinking. Glyn couldn't face his so I told him to pour it in the plant pot behind him but he decided to throw it over his shoulder instead. God only knows why, but I drank mine in a few disgusting gulps. We then ate grapes previously bought in Carrefour in a desperate attempt to get rid of the taste.

We spotted a couple of small fields with crops and a few cows on the way back to our apartment, so Kos is not 100% tourism...maybe 99%. We ended up having a 'traditional' Greek meal on the sea front that came with chips and rice. It was nice though and Glyn finally managed to eat something other than soup or icecream.

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Comments

[Stacey Conley]

Cats
Wow- amazed at how many cats there are in Turkey. Had no real idea. Did you guys know before going? They are all so pretty, Love your pictures and stories.

[RedPlanetClaire]

CAts
I guessed that it would be full of cats, because it,s not so far from Greece which also had lots of cats last year. Turkey cats seem more friendly though and let me fuss them more!