Half the fun of travel is going with the flow. Here's how I ended up on a side trip to Athens before making it to Spanish-moss-strewn Savannah.
Day 3 Atlanta
I want to shoot the hooch – go tubing or canoeing down the Chattahoochee River. I call the company and they give me sketchy public transport directions for Atlanta that do not inspire me with confidence. As I’m picking up a coffee, the clouds roll in and it seems a day on the river, even if I can find it, is not going to be the best option. Instead, I contact Kevin, a local couchsurfer who offered to meet up with me. He takes me to the fountain in Olympic Park and then we go for lunch. They mess up our order, taking over half an hour to deliver after saying it would be 6 minutes, so they give us 50% off and free drinks. A fair exchange.
Kevin drops me at Oakland Cemetery – my choice, not his – and I wander through. Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone with the Wind, is buried there. It is a lovely peaceful place, beautifully planted and has a long history, with a section of confederate graves as well as the slave quarter.
I then set off to find my way home, which I manage surprisingly well. Danny meets me there and we head off to Stone Mountain, the largest exposed rock in the world. It is bigger than Uluru and has three of the confederate heroes carved into the side, a carving that took 60 years to complete. The carving doesn't look that impressive until you realise the scale – it is around the size of a city block. We catch the gondola up and hike back down. For unknown reasons, I have not thought about this at all and instead of my new hiking boots I am wearing flip flops. I love a challenge.
There is a laser show in the evening, so in the interim we dash off to find food. We end up at a fast food place called The Waffle House. I can not deal with a hamburger so I opt for a salad, which is quite nice. I also get a hash brown, which is totally different from what we call hash browns. It is grated potato stir fried. I have mine covered, chunked, peppered, capped and topped, which means ham, cheese, jalapeños and mushrooms are mixed in and then some chilli dumped on top. Now I know I’m in the south. It looks gross, but it tastes fantastic.
Back at the park, the laser show balances tackiness with national pride. There is one section that covers the bands from Georgia. I learn there's a line from the B-52's song Love Shack I have always sung incorrectly. Turns out the first line is "Heading down the Atlanta Highway." Live and learn.
After the show, we dash home for a tidy up, then go to meet Kevin at a couch surfing get-together. It is at a bar and the DJ specialises in 80s tunes, so we have a great time dancing and singing our heads off. Another late night.
Day 4 Athens
I’m up bright and early and Danny cooks breakfast burritos with eggs and jerk chicken. They are really tasty, but I think I'd class them more as a lunch food. My taste buds are not used to zing first thing in the morning.
I'm heading to Savannah today. Kevin was considering joining me and driving but he's really indecisive when I call him, so I head to the Greyhound station. I’m a little concerned that I haven't found a couchsurfing host in Savannah despite sending out a number of requests, but I figure I'll sort out a hotel when I get there. I have a couple of hours to wait as Danny had plans and I didn't want to hold him up. There is always people watching to be done at the bus stations. There's one guy moaning about whether there'll be a spare seat on the bus and I lend a woman my phone charger as she has hours to wait and her battery is dead. I help another young girl who is on her first bus trip and doesn't know what to do with her luggage. I seem to have become a Greyhound expert.
Kevin calls and offers to bring me some caffeine while I wait. When he arrives latte in hand, he offers to take me on a road trip to Athens, a college town east of Atlanta. I can then catch the bus to Savannah the next day, which gives me longer to sort out accommodation. Seems like a good plan, so we swing by his apartment so he can pack and book a hotel. It works well for me as in the evening a couchsurfing host in Savannah finally responds saying he can host for my first night and I book an Airbnb for the second night.
Athens is quite small and quaint. We eat at an Italian restaurant that serves portions big enough to feed two or more. There is a specialised 80s bar in town and since we’re both fans, we decide a bit more dancing is in order, but we have to go back to the hotel first because I didn't know that everyone gets carded, no matter how old you look, so you need ID. I like pretense that I could look under 21.
Day 5 Athens to Atlanta to Savannah
The drive back to Atlanta is uneventful. We stop at a generic fast food place on the highway but I can't face fried food for breakfast, so I settle for water. Kevin has biscuits with bacon – think of a savoury scone with a slice of bacon and dollops of grape jam. This combination baffles me.
I only have a short wait at the Greyhound station and still manage to have an odd conversation. An old white guy in a cowboy hat turns round out of nowhere and says “How old do you think I am?” I politely decline guessing and he mumbles that he is 70-something and that even though he looks white, he is actually Navajo Indian. “Look at these cheekbones”, he offers as evidence. He points to the spare cowboy hat he is carrying in a clear plastic bag and says, “I nearly lost that hat and it's worth 500 dollars.” He then goes on to tell me that when we went to pick it up from the floor this morning it wasn't there. He found it on the other side of the bed. I lose the logical link here as he goes on to point the finger at a young lad he was working with who he thinks was trying to steal it. Another logical leap leads us to the fact that he fought in the second world war. He shows me his military veterans ID. In the photo he is wearing the same hat. He then shows me a crumpled up photo of a young boy. I'm trying hard to follow his line of thought, but I'm lost. The photo is of his friends’ son. He next points to his suitcase and tells me that he's wearing his travelling boots but his proper boots are in the battered leather case. He tells me good boots cost up to “fifteen hunderd dawlahs.” I'm not sure whether I am supposed to be impressed or horrified that they cost ,so much so I go for a non-committed “Goodness”. He then goes on to tell me that the shirts he wears are only $35 a piece. I'm wondering if I am supposed to give him a rundown on the value of my outfit in return, but decide against it as the boarding call goes out. He hands me his ticket so I can check which gate he should be at. He is at the start of an extended bus journey – his tickets are about a mile long and I can't work out where he's going next, but I know it's not Savannah, so I point him in the direction of the ticket lady and make my escape.
The bus is a Greyhound express. It has huge leather seats, wifi and in-seat power points. There are also very few people so I have two seats to stretch out on. An easy 4.5 hours. Unfortunately no food stops, so at our only 10-minute stop I grab a bag of crisps to sustain me.
My couchsurfing host in Savannah, Buddy, collects me and we head straight into town. We walk along River Street, which is packed with tourists, and try samples of all the sweets on offer – praline (brown sugar and pecans), chocolate praline (the same but less sickly) and saltwater taffy (chewy). This makes us thirsty and we're both starving, so we go to a restaurant with a balcony that overlooks the river. I have a half and half Po'Boy, which is a large baguette filled with breaded shrimp and oysters, lettuce and tartar sauce. We walk around part of the downtown area. It's quite lovely – leafy and green with large oak trees shading the streets. There are licensed street performers providing musical accompaniment.
As it cools down, we head to Buddy's apartment. It is quite a long way out of town, so I'm glad he's available to show me around. He has two evil-looking parrots who glare at me.
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