Malta: The trip that didn't end

Alright. So Malta. Malta is a tiny country that is comprised of three islands: Malta, Gozo, and Comino. It's also in the EU and just changed over to the Euro in January of this year. It is also cool in that aside from Maltese, everyone speaks English. It actually is pretty much warm England. They get a lot of English tourists, so all you can hear are British accents, and there are red telephone booths everywhere, and red post boxes. However, once you look up and past these things, Malta is one of the most unique places I've ever been. It has been influenced by so many different cultures. You can see it everywhere, from the architecture to the ancient ruins, and perhaps most noticeably, in the language. The Maltese language is insane. It is officially Semitic, but written with Latin characters, sounds like Italian on acid, and is completely incomprehensible. And so, here is my tale of my experience on Malta.

Day 6 -> February 28th
Apparently Kevin is a coin enthusiast. All he really wanted from Tunisia were some coins that had Arabic on them. However, to keep their currency stable, the Tunisian Dinar is not allowed outside of the country. So when Kevin had to change his money over to Euros, he cried (internally). After we flew to Malta (it's an hour flight from Tunis), I realized I had forgotten to change over some coins. I withheld them from Kevin (because I get off on that), but felt bad as the poor bugger was so sad that I gave him a couple. I may have made his life. Also, in the above paragraph I made an arrested development reference. I can't help myself.

So we arrived in Malta, hungry as always. We had to wait forever for the tourist information lady, but were presently surprised in the meantime to find that the airport food wasn't crazy expensive. We were worried that Malta would be really expensive because before the Euro, they were on the Maltese Lire, and it was worth a lot (1 euro = 2.33 ML), and the Euro tends to make things more expensive. It wasn't too bad though. We had accommodation every night for fewer than 20 euros, which is pretty good for Europe. Anyway, we found a place we wanted to stay in Valetta (the capital and main bus terminus). And it was here we experienced our first ride on a Malta Bus. Malta is apparently famous for its public transportation. Some of the buses are quite old, and they are all painted red and yellow. So the ride can be quite bumpy at times. It's really the only way to get around the island. Needless to say, we all loved the buses even though they could make you nauseous and make you wish you had worn a sports bra. Their only downfall was that they only went from Valetta and back. You could rarely find connecting buses between other spots on the island. So you had to leave and return to Valetta, EVERY time. It wasn't a big deal though. Most things were within a half hour of Valetta. Back to the story. So by the time we dropped off our bags and got our shit together, we decided to eat dinner. It was around 4:30pm at the time, but Valetta shuts down at 6:30. Basically everything. If it's open late, it's till 9.
Aaand that's it.

So we found this restaurant where yet another unfortunate occurrence happened: Kevin may have accidentally eaten meat. Kevin, for those who don't know him, is a vegetarian, like Missy. So this was a sad time for him. For one of the first times ever too, I had ordered something with meat in it. I usually go for the vegetarian option as well, so I couldn’t just give him mine instead. So Kevin was quite sad, but c'est la vie. Because Valetta closes so early, we bought some wine and chocolate, and hung around in the guesthouse we were staying in that evening. Fun times. And by fun I mean quite boring. But you do what you gotta do.

Day 7 -> February 29th
We stayed in Malta 6 nights. And we stayed at this guesthouse for 5 of them. The owner, Charlie, was really helpful and gave us a slightly reduced rate. At this point in our trip, perhaps the saddest thing occurred; it was the day we learned Missy would be leaving us. She was quite distraught over the loss of her wallet, and even before we left on the trip, she was worried about money, so she checked out flights to Paris, and booked one for the next Monday. It was sad to see her go, but she felt best about this decision. And we still had 2 or 3 days with her. And a week of just Kevin and I. Joy. But anyway, what was done was done. So we decided to check out some tourist sites. We went to see the State Rooms at the Grand Master's Palace. Malta has such a crazy history, that I really don't quite understand. I think when I come back, I'm going to read about it. These rooms were pretty cool. The Maltese Cross was everywhere, and we saw some suits of armour and some tapestries. Tapestries blow my mind. I have no idea how people can even plan to construct these things. Pretty nifty. Next, we took the bus to Marsaxlokk. Or something. It was wicked. I pretty much love the luzzus, or the small fishing boats they had. They were everywhere, and every time I saw one, it made me so happy. The sky was doing some crazy shit at that point, so when I put the pictures up, the lighting is kind of odd in some of them. Then we went to visit the Three Cities, which are opposite Valetta on the Grand Harbour. We got dropped off in Vittorioso and walked to Kalkara. Malta has such cool architecture. It looks really old, and is surrounded by thick walls, but is so modern and clean at the same time. They filmed some of Troy there, and it makes sense. It certainly looks like it could be a ancient city. Well I guess it is. Anyway. That evening we went to Paceville, because it was open later than 6. We weren't too much in a party mood (as we're always so poor) but we had some grub in the QUIETEST Italian restaurant ever. Nobody was speaking. It was so odd. Then we had a 'pint' in an old man's pub. Maltese pints were also funny. The local beer is Cisk, and because it's an island, I guess kegs aren't common. So you'd ask for a pint, and they would either 1) poor a tall can into a pint class for you 2) poor two small cans into a pint glass 3) or on one occasion, bring a pint glass to you, along with two bottles of beer. I guess because they get so many English tourists demanding pints (because they can't drink beer in any other denomination) this seems normal to them. It was funny everytime it happened. Which was often. We got beer as much as possible as it wasn't in ample supply in Tunisia, and we figured it would be the same in Morocco. We were right.

Day 8 -> March 1st
This day, we went to go check out the Rabat and Mdina (from the word medina, which I explained earlier). This was quite tiny as even though there was Arabic influence on the island, it disappeared a long time ago. Mdina was quiet and pretty. Pretty tiny. We walked to Rabat. We went into St. Agatha's catacombs there. St. Paul is the most important saint on the island, the story being that he got shipwrecked there and converted everyone to Christianity, but St. Agatha is highly respected as well. It's a staunch Catholic country. It's fairly evident in that every street corner has some saint or statue of Jesus popping out to say hello. But back to the story, Malta was pretty lax (much like Tunisia) with rules regarding safety or protection of ancient things. We were given free reign to roam around some of the catacombs. It was pretty cool. That day we decided to dine Maltese style and have a large lunch and a small dinner. Around 2pm, we returned to Valetta to try this restaurant that had a lot of vegetarian options. There was a menu that included a starter, main course, dessert, and free glass of wine. The main courses were all meat based, but we thought we could just substitute a vegetarian option, as they were actually cheaper and this is a normal practice. Which explains why we were all shocked when she said no.

She actually said No.

We were dumbfounded. Firstly, finding vegetarian stuff was kind of hard. Secondly, we weren't asking her to pick out meat from some sauce or prepared meal herself. And thirdly, it was actually cheaper to give us the vegetarian option instead. Still, it was a no. We almost left on principle, but again, vegetarian stuff was a bit harder to find, so we just ate in disbelief. To finish off the day, we went to St. Paul's Bay, which is supposedly where St. Paul was shipwrecked. It was a nice beach, but it was quite windy and cold at that point, so we took some pictures and headed home. Malta has a lot of beaches, so when the weather is nice, it can get quite busy. It was quiet around the time we went. Just us and the old people. Again.

Day 9 -> March 2nd
We decided to go to Gozo for a couple of days. Gozo is smaller and more quiet than Malta, and has a lot of undeveloped land. We lovingly called it Middle Earth. Because it was. But yes, we took an hour bus ride to the ferry port, and crossed the tiny strait. The buses on Gozo were ridiculous. The last bus every day I believe ran at 5pm. And then no more buses. It also has a main terminus that all buses come and go from. This was in Victoria. Oddly enough, there wasn't really any place to stay there, so we went to this town called Marselforn. It was only an hour walk. Gozo is TINY. Marselforn was right on the coast, and is largely a tourist town. I'm using the words 'town' and 'city' liberally when I describe places in both Malta and Gozo. It's more like, 'group of houses' in Gozo's case, and Malta is essentially one big city as opposed to a country. But I digress. Our guesthouse there was quite nice, and we might have been the only guests. While we were waiting for the bus to there, we met this nice, old Scottish man who taught us about the bus system. We had arrived too late to actually do anything we wanted to because of the buses, but we were able to see the Citadel in Victoria. It was amazing. It gave us such great views. Gozo, because it has very few inhabitants, is quite rich in natural beauty. It's just wicked coastline all around, with cliffs and grottos. So this was a good call by our creepy and overly nice guesthouse owner. He had suggested we go here. This was also the time we bid adieu to Missy. Her flight was the next day, so she had to leave us around 5:30 to catch the ferry back to Malta so she could get the bus to Valetta. Kevin and I waited outside the bus until she left.

And then there were two.

Day 10 -> March 3rd
Since the bus system was so ridiculous, we had to get up quite early and rush around to make sure we could see everything we wanted to. We had decided we were going to return to Malta that night because our accommodation there was cheaper, and Gozo, as pretty as it was, was quite boring in the evening. So we got up early to go see Dwerjra, which is basically a grotto. A wicked awesome grotto. We had to take a bus to a place near it and walk down. It was quite far down. Dwerjra was amazing. I loved it. I do have soft spot for grottos, so maybe that's why I loved it SO much . It was on the coast and because it was so windy, the waves were insane. I loved watching them crash against the rocks. It made you feel like you were at the edge of the world. I'm so lame. Anyway, we got there around 9:30. According to our interpretation of the bus schedule, there were buses from Dwerjra at 10:30 and 11:30. We needed to take the bus because taxis on Gozo and Malta are so expensive. And the drivers try to rip you off. So when the bus didn't come at 10:30, we got worried. I looked up at the giant hill we had climbed down and felt the heat of the day on my back and weighed my options: sweat profusely, or pay for a taxi? Turns out I'm a cheap bastard, and upwards we climbed back to Gharb so that we could make sure we got the bus. The bus did come at 11:30, and the first stop once we got on was in Dwerjra. So we climbed up for no reason. Better safe than sorry I guess.

That afternoon we went to go see 'probably the oldest freestanding structures in the world"; the il-Ggantija temples. They are older than the pyramids! They weren't exactly free standing (they had a bit of support) but they sure were old, and in decent shape. That day we also saw Calypso's cave. Calypso was the sea nymph from Homer's 'The Odyssey' that kept Odysseus as her love slave for seven years. It's next to Ramla Bay, which is quite beautiful in itself. The cave isn't that exciting, but it has a fantastic view and you could actually believe that this is where Calypso kept Odysseus captive. We then walked back to Marselforn, and grabbed our bags. We had a bit of time to kill, so we grabbed a Maltese pint. We saw our hotel guy around four times before we left a half hour later because there literally is NOTHING to do, and he was just wandering around. We caught the ferry back, and went back to the guesthouse we had stayed in before in Valetta.

Day 11 -> March 4th
So we were back in Valetta. We loved Malta, but we had been there a long time. We decided to go see some more old temples (I-Imnajdra and Hagar Quim) on Malta. We caught a bus to Qrendi, and walked down to the ancient sites...to find them closed. It wasn't that bad actually because we saved money, and the fence around them was wire and you could see through it. We sat on the edge of the cliff there and watched the waves for a bit. We also watched this goat herder for a long time. Like I said, the island was so modern, and then you would see that. We went back to the hotel shortly after because we had to get up early the next morning. Around 4am. Awesome. It actually worked out alright because we had been going to bed around 10 every night, so we got a decent night's sleep in. Technically this next story happened the next day (Day 12), but we had ordered a taxi to come get us at 4:30. Charlie had said it was going to be around 17 euros. This was expensive, but we didn't really have another option. When we actually got down to the taxi, the bastard said it was 30 euros! And we were screwed because there was no way to get another taxi, and they don't have meters. They have the rates posted at taxi stands, but we weren't near one. So anyway, this asshole ripped us off. Afterwards we found out it should have cost 15 euros. What an ass. I was SO angry and tired, and it was a really shit way to leave Malta. We had been ripped off in Tunisia (and Missy a bit more so) but never for as much. Anyway, aside from that guy, Malta was amazing.

My goodness, that was a novel as well. We'll have to see what I have to say about Morocco. The trouble is, I actually took notes of what I did this trip, everyday. That's why these are so detailed. It's kind of nice reliving it though. Also, the reason that pictures aren't up yet is that I'm waiting for Kevin's memory card. Have patience. If you need something to tide you over, I put up pictures of Karen’s visit.

Just Morocco left now.
xox