2007-Nov-29 - Goodbye to Malta - I hope

Winter definetly has its advantages when traveling this end of the world with no crowds and cheaper rooms, but there are also the odd disadvantage too. Having had brilliant weather the last 10 days here, what of course happens the day I go to leave?? Yep another bloody storm! I rose bright and early at 4am to walk up and down the hills of Vallenta for 90min (no transport at this time of the morning) to arrive at the ferry terminal by 6am for check in. Just made it before a few squally clouds started to appear. The rain held off and we set off OK, leaving on time but once we left the Grand Harbour the swell really kicked in and the winds started to froth the waves up just nicely thankyou. The catamaran fast ferry used is top class and is only a year old (built in Australia) but cannot sail in seas over 2.5m. Result: 30 min into the trip the ferry had to return to base. Wwe were bobbing up and down like a cork and there were also a few green tinged passangers on board, although nothing like some of the Cook Strait sailings Ive been on.

Anyway we waited past two more deadlines till finally at 4pm they called it quits and said that we would try again tomorrow. The staff were pretty good about it - there were only two of us who waited it out on board - and they filled us up with free coffee and put on DVD movies for us to watch. So it was a wet trek to another place to stay (closer to the ferry terminal) but resembling a drowned rat by the tine I arrived looking like - and they were the last of my "clean" clothes. I knew I should have done the washing the other day as I now have to "recyle" the stuff that needs to be washed cos thats the only dry stuff Ive left. At the moment its bucketing down outside with peals of thunder and forked lightening - which really look quite neat with all this happening over the harbour and fortified city that this hotel overlooks :).

Apart from this little set back (I have another 5 days before I fly out from Sicily so things arent too "worrying" yet) Ive only had a few moments of excitment of late. The capital city here is made up of about 5 smaller fortress city's that have all over time merged into one big place, and the place is a maze of narrow streets, deadends, impenertrable castel walls and streets at varying levels. Trying to find your way around can be a nightmare - even with a map - as I found out the othe day. I thought Id better do a test run on the walking trip to the ferry from where I was staying but took a wrong turn several times before I ended up walking for about 4 hours in varying sized circles. Sign posts are of little help here too as they generally point out places miles away with no indication of how far away they actually are, and are often contridictory. Like at the T intersection with a sign to the airport - pointing both ways!! To top it off I was cornered by a pack of bloody dogs in one scraggy area of town just on sunset. No damage done other than a near heart attack and a nervous tick under one eye!! BUT I did remember the advise from Mongolia about using a flashlight to scare off roaming wolves .. and they were right .. it doesn't work!! A big stick and a charge at them with a lot of bravado and whooping did help though, and as these were more foxy sized than wolf sized they weren't too sure what to do and lite out of there nearly as fast as I did - thank goodness :).