Club Med - Rick Steves Style
SS Minnow
Tuesday, November 6th, election day (at home). Took a short bus ride to a marina on the Mediterranean for a (uh oh) 3 hour boat cruise. The weather could not have been better. While cruising, one of the young deck hands was fishing (for lunch?). A chance to practice my Turkish and his English! I asked about the fish he was catching and their size. We were making great communicative progress, when I decided to push the envelope. Wanted to know if he could catch me a mermaid? Now things got challenging. Finally after 20 minutes of gesturing, he got the picture and I got a big grin.
After cruising for about an hour (including Titanic poses) we stopped at a small inlet so some hearty folks could take a dip in the sea. Ben's dive off the boat got rave reviews and at least one score of 9.5 on the Richter scale. We had a wonderful lunch and then returned to shore.
Late afternoon, we left for our first ever experience in a Turkish bath. Since the sexes were separated, Jackie's tale follows: The bath was pretty far from the hotel, so we wound up in a taxi. Ben was up front with the driver. Out comes his Turkish. Driver trotted out German, due to limited Turkish, I guess he thought we were German because there are so many of them vacationing here. They had a long discussion in German about life, love, traffic, etc. Upon arrival we (ladies) were ushered into small cubicles to disrobe--completely. We were given towels and entered a sauna, temperature of about 104 degrees. As our towels hit the floor we all began to sing "Getting to Know You." We then laid down on hot stones. Talk about a schvitz! After what seemed like an hour but was actually 10 or so minutes, we dripped our way to get scrubbed and rinsed. That first bucket of cold water felt like ice. Then the washing and scrubbing and hair washing. We were given a towel and rested a few minutes. I thought that was it. It wasn't. A mud mask was offered and then on to getting massaged and oiled. All in all a unique experience which I was happy I did.
That evening we had a lovely dinner with some of the other tour members. One of our dinner members, Sandy, wanted a picture of our waiter. She tried telling him it was for a calendar, but she wasn't getting through. Ben had the brilliancy to show his cell phone with the calendar up. The light went on and I told him to take his shirt off. Grins resulted as well as a few photos but the shirt stayed on. When we sat down to dinner, Bill, Sandy's husband, said he was kind of chilled (we were eating outdoors) and Ben gave him his over-shirt! Living proof he'd give you the shirt off his back!
Late afternoon, we left for our first ever experience in a Turkish bath. Since the sexes were separated, Jackie's tale follows: The bath was pretty far from the hotel, so we wound up in a taxi. Ben was up front with the driver. Out comes his Turkish. Driver trotted out German, due to limited Turkish, I guess he thought we were German because there are so many of them vacationing here. They had a long discussion in German about life, love, traffic, etc. Upon arrival we (ladies) were ushered into small cubicles to disrobe--completely. We were given towels and entered a sauna, temperature of about 104 degrees. As our towels hit the floor we all began to sing "Getting to Know You." We then laid down on hot stones. Talk about a schvitz! After what seemed like an hour but was actually 10 or so minutes, we dripped our way to get scrubbed and rinsed. That first bucket of cold water felt like ice. Then the washing and scrubbing and hair washing. We were given a towel and rested a few minutes. I thought that was it. It wasn't. A mud mask was offered and then on to getting massaged and oiled. All in all a unique experience which I was happy I did.
That evening we had a lovely dinner with some of the other tour members. One of our dinner members, Sandy, wanted a picture of our waiter. She tried telling him it was for a calendar, but she wasn't getting through. Ben had the brilliancy to show his cell phone with the calendar up. The light went on and I told him to take his shirt off. Grins resulted as well as a few photos but the shirt stayed on. When we sat down to dinner, Bill, Sandy's husband, said he was kind of chilled (we were eating outdoors) and Ben gave him his over-shirt! Living proof he'd give you the shirt off his back!