August 6th, 2007 – August 8th, 2007
Getting there…
When the bus finally arrived in St. Augustine, lady luck was smiling on us, and we got seats, but we had a layover in Jacksonville, FL, and we weren’t guaranteed seats on that bus. Well, if we had learned nothing else so far on this tip, things always work out, one way or another, so we prayed again.
The bus ride was honestly great. It was peaceful, the driver was a one-man stand-up comedy routine, the seats were really comfortable, and the air conditioning was just perfect.
As we arrived in Jacksonville, we spotted 3 touring cyclists near the entry to the bus station, so after struggling to get our 2 big boxes, 2 big duffels, and 3 carry-ons off the bus, I went over to change our tickets for the next leg of the trip, hoping to say hi to the cyclists. They were 20-something yr old British guys who were cycling from Miami (one had just joined them in St Augustine) to Maine, using the Adventure Cycling maps. They had had a run of really bad luck on their bikes – with wheel problems – and found out that nowhere in GA had a bike shop that could do the repairs they needed, so they were headed up to Savannah.
I was successful in changing our tickets, so I sent Chelsea over to help them. They had to buy boxes, and they had less than an hour to take down 3 bikes and all their belongings and get things packed up. They made it with only minutes to spare before the bus left, feeling like we had been feeling in St Augustine earlier in the day.
We had another great ride into Savannah, and the “fun” didn’t begin until we hit Savannah. While the guys got their bikes together and Chelsea watched our things, I walked around to 3 local motels looking for pricing and availability. After discussion, we decided to go to the hostel after all, so I called to see if there was room for the 3 guys. Chelsea and I needed to take a cab, as we couldn’t possibly walk with all our boxes and duffels, and the guys agreed to meet us there.
Cash crunch…
Things were really hot and sweaty, it was really late and we were all really tired, we still had to find the hostel and check in and get settled, and we hadn’t eaten in hours. And then, to top things off, I found out that our contract payment hadn’t gone in until a day or so earlier, and then our bank had put a hold on it, and we had absolutely no cash to eat or pay for our room. Deep sigh….
Our taxi driver was awesome. We told him the situation, and he let us pay him only $5 (which covered the bill anyway, without a tip) for the ride. We did book him for the return trip, and promised to tip him then. We got signed in at the hostel, and promised to pay for the room the next morning, telling the owner that we didn’t have any cash (he works on a cash-only basis). He wasn’t happy about it, but he let us do it. We ended up spending most of the next day working frantically to get a small bridge loan. We weren’t at all happy about it.
Enjoying Savannah…and the hostel experience…
Once we got our loan straightened out, we took off and checked out Savannah. We managed to get a $20-per-person tour-bus ride for only $20 for both of us, and we had a great time. We loved Savannah – it was just exactly what I thought it would be like – beautiful architecture; a slow, old-southern pace; a small-town feeling; a really intimate and interesting old-town section (the historic district); plenty of parks and gorgeous tree-shaded roads. We found everyone to be really pleasant and friendly and helpful. Savannah will definitely go on our list of places to go back and visit when we have more time.
Our hostel was the Savannah International Hostel, near Forsyth Park, downtown and quite close to the old-town center. It was quite an experience. If you’ve got cleanliness and privacy issues, this wouldn’t be the place for you. The shower was so dirty that we wore our flip-flops to take showers (we do at campgrounds, but we don’t expect to have to do it in a hostel or hotel or private home). The rooms were extremely hot, as the owner doesn’t run air unless someone is actually in the rooms. Our rooms had had all day in record-breaking heat to get hot, and of course they take time to cool down with a small wall unit.
Our room was so small we barely had room to fit our “luggage” and we had to share a futon folded out couch, one that was much smaller than a double bed, covered in plastic sheets. We were given thin cotton sleep sacks, pillows, and no blankets, no towels, no washrags. We shared a bathroom with another room on our floor. When we got there, it was occupied by two young women, who didn’t get home until the wee hours, laughing and giggling their way up the steep stairs.
The system in the bathroom was to lock your neighbor’s door from the inside (using a hook-and-eye combination) when you are using the bathroom, and then remember to unlock it when you’re done; otherwise, your neighbor is effectively locked out of the bathroom. Not good. Of course, our unseen neighbors had already locked the door against us, so the owner had to run downstairs, over to his part of the building, get his keys, and run back up our stairs, go into their room and unlock the bathroom for us.
We had a kitchen that was clearly a community kitchen, but no one appeared to be using our side except us. We also had a living room, but there was only one couch, and an overhead light bulb. There were no lamps, no chairs, no blinds on the windows, no carpeting or throw rugs, no coffee tables. It was not the kind place that encouraged hanging around.
Our British friends had gotten a room in another part of the house, off the central courtyard. That first night we invited them in to use our kitchen, and we had a great time eating and talking, sharing cycling stories. The next morning the owner moved the British guys over to our side, so they were now in the room across from ours, sharing our bathroom.
So what do you think? Do you think they locked us out of the bathroom? Of course they did – in the first two hours. They had already gone by the time I discovered it. I was so annoyed, tugging on the door hard, to the rhythm of “I” (strong tug) “DON’T” (stronger tug) “BeLIEVE” (even stronger tug) “they DID” (strong tug) “this”!! At the “this” the door opened in my hands – I had actually pulled out the whole hook and eye on our side. Well, all I can say is that we didn‘t get locked out any more. I don’t know if they had any concerns about privacy, but I doubt it, and I certainly didn’t have to worry anymore. I knew WE had privacy!
New Zealand and fellow adventurers…
The second night the Brits went out for the haunted pub-crawl, but we stayed home –needing rest (famous last words) since we were leaving again early in the morning. During dinner, we met 3 guys that we had seen fleetingly that morning and the night before. The guys seemed to appear out of nowhere in the back garden and then disappear into nowhere again when they came back through. At one point we stood in the garden, trying to figure where on earth they could be staying – were they coming in through a portal from another universe? When they came in to cook, we got a chance to chat, and that started an absolutely hilarious evening.
Simon and Hugh are architecture students from New Zealand who are going to school for a year in Atlanta as foreign exchange students. They decided to come over early and travel around to as many places as they could get to by bus and train, before school started. Along the way they had met another adventurer – a glass blower from Philadelphia who had a car, and was doing his own wandering for a few months. The three of them had hooked up for a few days travel.
I don’t know if it was our readiness to be entertained, or if it was these three guys, or if it’s the New Zealand attitude, but we sure did laugh. They were absolutely outrageous. The conversation and laughter never stopped, and we ended up staying up way too late. But we did solve the mystery of where they were staying – they had a huge room off the garden – the entry looked like the entry to a tool shed. And the inside wasn’t much better. They did have space to sleep 6 people, in separate beds (we were 2 people to one very small bed and the Brits were 3 large guys to one set of bunk beds), and they did have their own private bathroom, but the amenities ended there. No furniture except for the beds, no lamps, bare light bulbs, paper over the windows, walls made from plywood, holes in the walls – no one’s idea of high-end accommodation.
The glass blower from Philadelphia was up and gone in his car before the rest of us were even awake, hitting the road really early. Turns out that Simon and Hugh were on the same schedule we were – their bus was leaving about 20 minutes before ours. We shared a taxi to the bus station (yes the same one – and he made out like a bandit – he probably got triple his normal fare since we were sharing); and it was awesome for us to have help slugging around our boxes. The party feeling continued at the bus station, with Simon threatening to rat me out about the bathroom hook and eye incident.
We ended up leaving before Simon and Hugh, still laughing, knowing that even if we never see them again, we shared some wonderful moments in time with some wonderful fellow adventurers.