Tag: March 2003

Tour operators are worried: the Greek Islands are beginning to lose that
golden reputation as the place in the Med to chill out and explore the
ancient historical sites. Recently, there have been some high profile
sex attacks, reports of dirty beaches, racism and incidents in some of
the noisy rave type resorts. According to Noel Josephides, managing director
of Sunvil Holidays, a Greek holiday specialist, “the number of British
holidaymakers to Greece levelled off this summer, and the country cannot
afford to be complacent. This was the first summer in 30 years that we
did not have a single incident of hotel overbooking. Nothing is ever
full now.”

Other tour operators have criticised Greece as a holiday destination.
Abhi Dighé, a director of Kosmar Holidays, the biggest operator to Greece
said: “In Portugal and Spain, the beaches are raked overnight.
People there still leave cans and rubbish — but in the morning they
come back to a clean beach. This has to happen in Greece as well. People
don’t want to clear away rubbish and take it to an overflowing bin
before they put their towels down. It is not luxury that people are looking
for, just quality and safety.”

And yet, the Greek government recently announced that it would be building
more large resorts.

So what is there to do in Greece? Interestingly, most tourists
view Greece as a comparatively inexpensive sun-and-sea destination, rather
than for its classical sites. The number of visitors to the major
ancient sites and museums declined during the 1990s. On the other
hand, there were more visitors to archaeological sites on islands that
have become tourist
destinations. Alternative tourism, including ecological
and special interest holidays
is gaining ground, but remains a small segment of the overall market.

Who will I be sharing my plot of beach with? The latest figures
that the Beetle could get hold of show that 12.8 million visitors went
to Greece in 1999. The Germans and the British account for about an astonishing
50% of all arrivals. They are followed by other western Europeans, mainly
French, Scandinavians and Italians. There are comparatively few high-spending
US and Japanese visitors. The number of tourists from the former communist
countries of eastern and central Europe is increasing at a steady pace.
There was an estimated 15% increase in visitor numbers in 2000, mainly
of people going to Crete,
and Rhodes.

So where should I go? More than 50% of visitors to Greece stay
on half-a-dozen resort islands – Crete, Rhodes, Cos, Corfu, Mykonos and
Santorini. – with airports equipped to handle international charter flights.
In northern Greece, the main destination is the Halkidiki peninsula.

And how long is long enough? Most tourists come on package holidays,
flying directly to a resort destination aboard an international charter
flight. While the number of arrivals increased by over 30% during the
1990s, the average stay declined in length from over two weeks to about
10 days.

Is it posh? Um, well, no. If you go by the figures, Greece has
an estimated 1.5 million beds in hotels and rooms for rent. Of these,
only 30,000 are in luxury and first-class hotels – that’s
2%, and about a third of these are business hotels in Athens!

Greek officials predict that tourist arrivals will peak in 2004, when
the http://www.athens2004.comOlympic Games will be staged in Athens.

Statistics provided by the Greek
Tourism Services

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Next month on April 5^th 2003:

Ladakh: the last Shangri-la? “In the forbidding terrain of the
Himalayas, a robust people embellish their frugal lives with rich endowments
of faith” (Thomas J. Abercrombie, National Geographic). Experience
the beauty of this exotic land through a slide show by Kenneth Axen,
PhD, research scientist, graphic artist, and serious amateur photographer.

For details of forthcoming meetings email newyork@globetrotters.co.uk
or register for email updates at click here
at our website.

New York meetings are held at The Wings Theater, 154 Christopher
Street (btw Greenwich St and Washington St), to the right of Crunch Fitness,
in the Archive on the first Saturday of each month at 4 pm.

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Iris is a British lady of considerable character and pluck, on a 23 week
overland expedition from Quito in Ecuador to Caracas in Venezuela. After
this, she plans to do a 3-month voluntary placement in Ecuador, and then
visit Central America for another overland trip between Panama City and
Mexico City, ending up with perhaps another 2-month voluntary placement
somewhere in South America again. This amazing journey will take Iris
one year. Here is an extract from Iris’ journey notebook.

30^th November cont.: Cuenca

Onward, ever onward, to Cuenca. By the time it had reached 1845 and we
had been on the road for 11 hours we were all becoming increasingly impatient
to arrive. Darkness had descended, quite a lot of the time, after leaving
our lunchtime site, it was raining heavily, and for hours we had had to
make our own fun in the back of the truck, playing cards, some of the
lads giving us a selection of the music they had brought on mini discs
and mini disc players – most of it being quite presentable – Robbie Williams,
Abba, Kylie, to name a few, although when a Turkish member of our group
produced a CD of Turkish music, the reception was somewhat mixed, and
when someone produced a couple of CDs of Australian folk songs, there
were a lot of jeers, even from the Aussies amongst us, about songs like
“Tie my Kangaroo down sport!” or “Waltzing Matilda”
and others of that ilk.

One of our amusements, rather unkindly but not intended so, was our 68
yr old, Judith, my room-mate in Baños. Poor Judith, she had been very
jet-lagged when she had arrived in Quito, but she had had four nights
to recover, so everyone was very amused when she proceeded to fall asleep.
She was sitting with one of our younger men (Matt is about 33, I would
say, and he is a quiet man) and he had an inflated neck cushion and had
dozed off leaning against the window (the seats are like public bus seats,
there are no head rests and support ends at just below the shoulders)
so poor Judith was lolling back with mouth wide open, catching flies.

Kindly, our policeman, Paul, who was sitting sideways on behind Judith
decided she had to be given a cushion and so a sleeping bag, rolled up
in its sack was produced and placed strategically behind Judith’s head,
which seemed successful, but as the sleeping bag roll was in a large empty
cavity between Judith’s front-facing seat and Paul’s side-facing seat,
every movement of the bus sent it sliding away from Judith, or Judith
sliding away from it. Another sleeping bag roll was produced but then
Judith would gradually slip between the two rolls! Then it was decided
to wedge the sleeping rolls in place with a water bottle and this did
the trick but then Judith found Matt’s shoulder and snuggled up to him!
This just went on and on throughout the day. Both Matt and Judith would
wake up at intervals but gradually both (Judith more than Matt) would
drop off into slumberland once more and the whole pantomime would be played
out again, very much to everyone’s amusement!) We reckoned Judith slept
for at least seven of the 13 hours we were on the road!

Eventually, after many small disappointments as one large town vanished
into the darkness to our rear which had been mistakenly identified by
us as our destination, we arrived in Cuenca and got to our hotel. But
we had all to share 3 or 4-bedded rooms, although that is par for the
course when so many have to be accommodated in large city hotels. I shared
with three other ladies – Alison, Eren (our Turkish lady) and Judith,
and after we had all got settled we went off across the road to an Italian
restaurant for a meal (as our last meal had been some 8 hours previously
on the side of the road), however, at 2130 we were not too keen to eat
anything too much and Judith and Eren just had soup and a roll, and Alison
and I had pasta.

Today, the rain has vanished and it is quite sunny in Cuenca. We had
a light breakfast (rolls and jam and scrambled egg) and then I decided
to go my separate way. Judith and Alison and Eren wanted to go to an archaeological
museum out of town, but I wanted to wander around on my own. Unfortunately
Eren is ill today, being sick and feeling poorly so in the end we left
her in the hotel room bedded down. I don’t know what she had eaten and
neither did she, that had made her sick, but it is not diarrhoea, just
sickness, so hopefully, she will be recovered by tomorrow for our next
366 km journey to Punta Sal where we will be camping on the beach for
3 days.

I think this first week is being used to break us in gently to the rigours
ahead of us – the jungle trip and the Inca Trail – so some long journeys
have to be faced and some hotels are used so that we are not faced with
too much hard work putting up tents every time we arrive at a destination,
and camping to show us what we are in for when there are no hotels to
stay in. So think of me on 1 Dec 02 having to face putting up a tent after
a 12 hour journey!

Today in Cuenca I have just walked round the city centre, looking at
the local shops and populace. I got to a little square and realised there
was an art museum there so went in to have a look round. The young security
guard, who watches over everyone coming in, got me to sign the book and
put my passport number and name in the book and then was determined to
practice his rather limited English on me. Anyway, to cut a long story
short he ended up giving me a guided tour and I asked him if I could take
his photo, but although he agreed he was determined the photo was going
to have me in it as well, so I obliged him, when he produced a young friend
to do the honours! After the guided tour I told him that I was returning
to Ecuador next year for maybe two stints of 3 months and 2 months and
asked him for his address so that I could not only send him the photo
but also perhaps visit him when I return. He is a university student working
as a guard at the museum during the day and has another evening job as
well to bring in the money while he is studying. He is at Rio Bamba university
and hopes to travel round the world when he has finished his studying.
He is about 18, I would say, and demanded that we kiss each other on the
cheek before parting to show our new-found friendship and the hope of
it continuing in the future, so I obliged and insisted we do it the French
way of kissing on both cheeks! Then as I left, he ran after me “I
don’t know your name! What is your name?” And I said: “Francisco,
you have it in your book, remember, I signed in?!” And he was so
relieved!

If you’d like to contact Iris, whether to wish her luck with her
trip or to ask questions about her itinerary and places visited, I am
sure she would like to hear from you. She can be contacted on: irisej2002@yahoo.co.uk

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The March meeting of the Ontario Globetrotters was held on March 21st.
Jim Low presented “Chasing the Midnight Sun,” a slide documentary
and personal commentary of his recent motor trip up the Dempster Highway
through the Yukon and NWT to Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk.

For information on Ontario meetings, please contact: Svatka Hermanek:
shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca
or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259.

Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September
and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton
Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.

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