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After a couple of days in Boston we are ready to leave and head to our next destination. We have an hour and a half bus journey from Boston to Hyannis in Cape Cod. When we arrived at Hyannis we then had to jump on another bus to Orleans but the bus we were meant to get broke down at the station so we were stranded for a couple of hours! Not to worry though, we spotted a subway on the way in so headed there for food.
When we were finally able to get a bus we had to ask the driver to drop us at the Orleans Rotary. We didn't really know what this was but when we asked the driver didn't seem to really like the idea and told us that it was very dangerous. When we did finally get there we found out that the rotary was in fact a big multi-laned roundabout! We then had to walk on the side of the road of the roundabout, that had no pavements with all our bags in 30 degree heat! Still don't understand why the hostel gave such dangerous directions when the bus drops off at a supermarket that is safer and closer!
Anyway we finally arrive without being hit by anything to find that our hostel is like a wooden hut. There is a main building that has the kitchen and lounge in and then there are 7 wooden cabins round the side where we sleep. The best part though is that there are a couple of outdoor showers out the back! Always wanted an outdoor shower! The hostel seems quite far out but it is absolutely brilliant!
As we are quite far out from town we ask around to see what the best way to get around is but as they have no taxi service and very limited bus service then the best way is by bike but as we had no bikes we had to walk the 2 mile odd walk downtown. The little town is made up entirely of old little wooden buildings and local shops. It is right on the bay of the Cod so it has brilliant views right across, the only bad thing is that everything is way overpriced, it's like 20 dollars for a sandwich!
Next day we get up early and head out to rent us some bikes, we both haven't rode in years so are quite wobbly when we get on, got some strange looks from the bike rental guy!
They have a bike trail that is about 30 miles long that goes up and down Cape Cod so as we were pretty much unable to control our bikes we were glad that we didn't have to ride on the road much! We decided to ride down to a few of beaches along the bike trail which were quite a way away. The first we hit was called Skaket beach and to get there we had to ride on the American roads for the first time, not easy when you are wobbling side to side and expect everything to be the on the left hand side of the road! Anyway we finally arrive to find a smallish beach that is packed with people but it is really nice, white sand, blue seas (bit of seaweed) and great views. We plan on going for a swim and just chilling on the sand but we the realise that we haven't brought a towel or anything to sit on! Idiots!
We have our packed lunches (jam sandwiches!) on the beach before heading off to try and find a quieter one. We head to a massive stretch of beach which is a few miles away. After a bit of an eventful ride (me looking over my shoulder to check for oncoming cars and nearly riding up a hedge!) we finally find the beach. This one is a lot more deserted and is pretty much untouched. There is no ice cream shops or anything apart from one hotel up the far end. It would be perfect except it was full of seaweed. We stay a while (until Jodie is looking a nice reddish colour!) then head to the National Park for a drink and some ice cream. They advertise refreshments but when we asked they then told us that the shop was 1 mile away in the opposite direction, hardly 'refreshments here' like they advertised in the window!
That night one of the hostel staff told us that the sunsets here were incredible so we head out to a place not too far away on the bikes. We found a bench that overlooked the beaches and a few of the fishing boats. When the sun came down past the clouds it was awesome. I have never seen a sunset like it, the whole sky went a pinky orange colour and the sun itself was the brightest I think I have ever seen it, we couldn't even look remotely close to it as it hurt our eyes! While we were watching it we noticed that there was a rainbow behind us so we had a great sunset in front of us and a rainbow behind us with a pinky/orange sky in between. Even some of the locals came out to watch it as they said it was a lot better than usual.
The next day we had to give the bikes back (Jodie couldn't wait, not sure how she rides it but she ended up with bruised ass!) so we headed up to the town that was right on the tip of the Cod called Provincetown. We were told that it was a nice little town and was kind of unique. After a 2 hour bus journey we finally arrived. The first thing I noticed was that pretty much every house and shop had flags outside and the most common one was a rainbow flag. I was sure I had seen the flag before but couldn't really put my finger on where I had seen it. As we got off the bus I suddenly remembered what the flag was, the Gay flag! The town was a pissing Gay town!
We didn't really know what there was to do in the town apart from a pilgrim monument and museum so we headed up to there. In the museum they told the story of how the pilgrims came to Cape Cod and set up houses and things here. Jodie was reading one of the artifacts when she found something about the Isle of Man. A guy called Miles Standish was the pilgrims military leader and helped discover and set up Cape Cod and the best thing was that he was MANX!! Here's the Yanks thinking their something special with their big 'powerful' country and yet they need the help of the little old Isle of Man to get part of it started! Seems that where ever we go we can't get away from the island, even a Gay town!
After our ace discovery we went up the monument which stood at about 210 foot and looks over the whole Cod. The only way up the monument was to take the stairs, there was about 30 flights spiraling round all the way to the top, haven't had such a workout since, well never! We were absolutely knackered when we got to the top but the views were worth it, you could see pretty much everything.
After we managed to get the energy to walk back down we headed to the main street where all the bars and restaurants were. The streets were quite packed because apparently they had just had 'bear' week, really didn't want to ask anyone what that was! The streets were full of weird and not so wonderful people. There was Gays prancing up and down the street topless, butch lesbians wearing T-shirts saying 'fanny pack lover' on them. They even got kids and babies involved by selling T-shirts saying 'I love my 2 Daddies' it was quite sick! We got told that the nightlife was really good but we didn't fancy it after we saw two pubs advertising drag karoke. The beach here was quite nice and I was going to go swimming but after seeing 2 gays kissing under the pier I thought better of it. We were going to stay up there all day but the place really wasn't our cup of tea, we only stayed about 3 hours and an hour of that was spent in a bar! Safe to say that Provincetown was the worst place I have seen so far on our travels!
After a couple of days in Orleans we travelled up to Hyannis which is supposed to be the 'city' of the Cod. It seems quite nice but it's as much of a city as Douglas is.
When we checked into our hostel we were told that it was brand new and had only been open 3 weeks so everything was still sparkling and spotless. On our first night there they had a free concert that was on across the road from our hostel in the Park. No idea who the band were but all they sung were famous songs but changed the lyrics. The singer was a woman (or so we were told!) that had the most masculine voice I have ever heard. She made the singer from AC/DC sound like a little girl.
On our first full day we took it easy and borrowed a couple of deck chairs from the hostel and headed to the beach. I had a quick look when we reached it and couldn't see any Gays going at it so felt quite comfortable! The beach was full of dead crabs for some reason but apart from that and seaweed the beach and sea was quite good.
The hostel had just invested in a new BBQ so they treated us to a free dinner that night, we met a few people from the hostel including two guys from California who were obsessed with their bodies. Generally when people meet each other they ask where there from and then general questions about that area but not these two, all they were interested in was whether the IOM had good gyms or not! Well need to get a life!
On our last day in Hyannis we explored the area, everything is very pretty but there is not that much to do and everything is well overpriced! There is a main street that again has shops, pubs and restaurants but that was it. We spent about an hour or two walking round before getting bored and ending up on a pub for lunch!
That night we went to watch our first ever baseball game! It was the Hyannis Harbour Hawkes V the Falmouth Commodores. The game was quite slow paced and went on for 3 hours but it was quite a good game (to be fair though it is just rounders!). The Hawkes were leading 3-1 with about half the game to go but totally fell apart and got battered 3-11. It was good though, we seen some home runs, broken bats and loads of foul balls came flying our way (which led to a stampede of kids trying to get them, seriously thought the stand was going to collapse!). After the game we found out that the Cape Cod baseball league is the step down from Major League and that 75% of the players go on to be pro so it wasn't bad especially considering it was all free! We also got talking to an American couple and they told us that they have discovered about 12 Great White Sharks of the coast of the Cod, some as close as 100 feet to the shore. Wish we had talked to them before we went in the sea yesterday!
Anyway we now have pretty much a full day on the coach to get to New York then a night at a hotel (luxury!) before flying to San Fran on Saturday. Our first leg is now done (seriously how fast has it gone?!?) and now were onto the West Coast of the US. The girl that manages our hostel asked us what our favourite place has been so far and neither of us had a clue, the only thing we know is what our worst place was *cough* Provincetown *cough*!
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