| Submitted by: Mark NowakUnited States |
| Submission Date: 10 February 2005 |
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Travelling in a chartered bus containing a total of 14 people was great. We all could have our own seats and spread out as much as we liked. Sometimes we'd take naps with our legs going across the aisle, and it was amusing to watch Nick climbing over people.
We had lunch in Arahova and reached the Temple of Athena in the afternoon. It was great to visit the place I had only seen in pictures. Delphi was considered to be the navel of the world. We drank from the Castillian Spring water where pilgrims would cleanse themselves before going on to the Temple of Apollo where the Oracle (called the Pythia) would answer questions after breathing in natural gases that induced trances. Aesop (the author of all those fables) was thrown to his death from the top of the springs for making fun of the gods. I get awed at touching ancient structures that have been around thousands of years before me, knowing that they'll most likely be there long after I'm dead for someone as yet unborn to touch.
We checked into our hotel. This one was the best we'd stay in during our entire stay in Greece. It not only had shower curtains and consistently hot running water, but tubs as well. The view from our balcony was spectacular (I'm going to describe a lot of the places we saw that way because I was very much impressed with how beautiful Greece is) -- you could see a sea of olive trees in the valley all the way to the port town below. Nick, Mary Jane and I went hiking into the hills above Delphi at 5:30. We could see some ancient ruins scattered about, but we climbed high enough where we could see some fantastic views of the Temple of Athena, the gymnasium and the stadium. We could also see the aqueduct that was carrying water to Athens. We were back at 8:10 -- time enough for a wonderful shower and bath before dinner at 9:00 on the hotel veranda.
After dinner, we went to George's where Nick had made fun of George's ability to play the guitar. George's wife served us -- I had ouzo, and George's playing and singing were better than we'd been led to believe. He must have practiced a bit more. We saw more dancing. It really is an art. Nick was really quite good. I tried it, but I just can't pick up on steps that quickly. We stayed for a while. I left around midnight, and most of the others soon left. I actually got a fair amount of sleep for the first time in almost a week.
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At 8:30 we boarded our bus for the Temple of Apollo. The complex was impressive with its stoas, treasuries, theater and stadium. I ran the stadium a few times. This was where the Pythian Games were held. I met an Australian named Simon there. We took in the Delphi Museum where we saw a great statue of the Sphynx after we visited a monastery dedicated to Elijah for nuns. Of course, it was way up high. A nun gave us a tour of the church where an incredibly elaborate artwork made out of olive wood was made. It took 20 years for the artist to finish it, and it was all based on the simple phrase: 'I am the vine; you are the branches.' The nun explained to us that novices have three years to decide if they want to spend the rest of their lives there. They don't go out much because the world has a way of distracting one's focus on God. She treated us to water and some kind of sugary treats (Turkish delights) before we left.
I was craving sugar. My sugar intake had gone seriously down since my arrival, and I was in withdrawal. It's no wonder these people were in such good shape. They eat much better than we do as a society. They smoke like crazy, but that's another matter.
Another thing I noticed was that along roadsides throughout Greece, it's not uncommon to come across little shrines containing various icons. These shrines are put at accident sites whether the people involved survived or not and are maintained by local people.
We had lunch in Arahova again. Back at the hotel I wrote a couple of postcards and went shopping with Luz. Delphi is such a small town that covering all the shops isn't all that difficult. Luz bought a 14K gold ring with the Greek key designed into it. I bought a similar one for my friend Mary Jo at home, hoping it would fit. I also bought a Hippocratic Oath T-shirt for my doctor friend Martha. There was a serious freak thundershower while we were in the jewelry shop. It didn't last long, and it was the only rain we saw during our entire stay in Greece. Nick used it as an example to show how people could have come to believe in a sky god like Zeus.
I washed some clothes before dinner at the hotel. The hotel gave Nick a bottle of something since it was our last night in Delphi. Anne and Erin had bought some ouzo and wine, and we ended up playing cards, drinking and talking on a balcony. We played spoons with straws and somehow turned it into a drinking game.
A van pulled up to the hotel. Anne was downstairs getting the key to her room when the people in the van told her that our guide was waiting for us at a club. We knew Nick was out with Mary Jane and some others he knew from a previous tour (One of the women who had been on his tour a couple of years ago with brilliant teeth had met and married a waiter from Delphi, and they were all out together with her sister and her sister's boyfriend). Not in the best shape for making decisions, the four of us piled into this van driven by people we didn't know. They took us a couple of blocks (like I said -- Delphi is small) to Club 93 -- For You. We were the only people there, but the music and dance floor were good and the drinks were free (The Blonde Effect). Then Nick and the others did arrive. They had been there earlier, but had left in search of something else and failed. Nick hadn't sent for us. The guys running the place basically forced us to dance. The girls put up a verbal fight, but even they gave in -- for a while. I danced with Mary Jane, and soon left with Tae around 2:00. The girls were surrounded by guys talking to them, and we were no longer in the aura of the Blonde Effect.
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In the morning the bus took us to Andirion where we took a ferry to Rion (including the bus). I took a few pictures of a picturesque Venetian battery as we pulled away from the port. Loading and unloading the ferry was amazingly fast. We were now in the Peloponnesus. We visited Olympia where the first Olympics were held in 796 B.C. There we saw Phideus' workshop which had been converted to a church. Phideus was the architect of the Parthenon before working on Olympia. We saw the gymnasium, Temple of Zeus and Temple of Hera. I ran the stadium before we left.
Throughout the trip, often while riding on the bus or sometimes laying on the beach with my eyes clothes I kept getting into bizarre mental states where I'd be experiencing some kind of altered reality. Maybe the lack of sleep had a lot to do with it, but I'd find myself still awake yet hearing the conversations of the people near me, but the conversations weren't taking place as I heard them and often the people involved seemed physically oriented differently around me than was actually the case. For example, I'd be hearing a conversation with my eyes closed that I knew wasn't actually taking place. I'd open my eyes and see the people who sounded like they were talking around me were actually napping in different parts of the bus. I could then close my eyes and hear the conversation continue. It was pretty wild. It's almost as if the dream state could be accessed by just closing my eyes while I continued to be conscious. This kind of daydreaming felt so real with my eyes closed.
On our way to the Neda hotel, we stopped for a beach break. Anne, Erin, Tae, Mary Jane, Luz, Janet and I went for a swim and took in some sun before we checked into our hotel in modern Olympia. At the hotel we were greeted with complimentary shots of ouzo and water which gives the drink a milky color. Dinner was great. Afterwards, Luz, Anne, Erin and I went shopping. One Greek guy from a jewelry shop invited the women out for a drink and completely ignored me. He was pretty rude, but I guess that's what happens when you're not cloaked in the Blonde Effect. I wanted to go for a real walk, but the girls just wanted to shop, so I went out again with Mary Jane and Nick. We walked up some steep streets until we could get a good view of the town.
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MYSTRAS, SPARTA, NAFPLION, TOLON, EPIDAURUS
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I overslept a little this morning. The drive to Sparta was spectacular. We visited Mystras' castle and palace and then Sparta and it's museum. On our way to Tolon, Luz, Tae and I were dropped off in Nafplion where there is a castle close to 1000 steps up a hill. Nafplion was the capitol of Greece in the 19th century. We climbed the steps, but the castle was closed for the day, so I climbed over the wall and ran around for a while taking pictures before coming back down. The three of us took a bus to Tolon. On it I met a nice Swedish girl and her sister. They were visiting Greece with their mother and would be visiting the island of Kos. They had already spent about 3 weeks in the area around Tolon. We didn't have much time to talk, but it was nice. When we got off in town, their mother directed us to a tourist office that helped us find the Hotel Sofia.
Nick was surprised to see us so soon -- we had made the roundtrip climb and descent at the castle in 30 minutes. Nick and Mary Jane informed me that the others had backed out on plans to see Aristophanes' Lysistrata being performed in Greek at the 2200 year old Theater of Epidaurus -- the one with the famous accoustics. We needed 4 people to go, so we convinced Audrey to come along. We ate dinner hurriedly before the others, so we could make the 9:00 PM performance on time. We took a nice 5-speed Mercedes taxi, but we were stopped by heavy traffic. There were police turning people back who didn't already have tickets. They said the performance was sold out. With the full moon rising we dejectedly turned back.
Nick asked the driver if we could get a discount since we never actually made it. The driver said he really couldn't. This is where it got interesting. Nick told him to turn around again and head for the theater. By the time we reached the spot we were stopped before, much of the traffic had cleared and we could get further. Nevertheless, we were stopped a little further on. They weren't letting many cars through. Nick got out and made a little scene with a police officer. When he got back, he told the driver to go on through. He turned to us and said we should have heard how bad his Greek got while he talked with the officer. He told him we had people waiting for us with our tickets and that he had tourists with him who came all this way to see the play or something like that. |
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