2014 Season Kick-Off

 

Touchdown Samos:  June 12, 2014

 

 

It is usually a bad idea for me to offer opinions, or to post comments on anything within 24 hours of touching down after a 10-hr. transatlantic flight.  That is especially true if that flight was bracketed by two shorter hops with all of the usual snafus associated with connecting flights, different carriers, baggage transfers, automated boarding pass kiosks, TSA agents, and Customs officials.  Let me simply offer here, that at the time of this writing, my wife is talking to me again, I think.

After we’d hauled our luggage up the mountain Kathy showered, changed clothes, and took a nap.  I shaved, sat down on the edge of the bed, and fell into a pre-shower coma.  I awoke to find that village water supply had been shut off, and would not be turned on again until late the next morning.  Knowing how sound carries in the village, I struggled to suppress the salvo of shipyard expletives that would have otherwise followed.

In Vourliotes, gossip travels at the speed of sound, so I’m sure that by the time we’d walked up to the platia to have dinner, most of the village already knew that their “Ameriki” neighbors were back on the island.  At least the dinner was nice.  The meal was elegant in its simplicity, and taken in the kind of authentic Old World outdoor setting that could inspire a Hollywood movie set or a Disney theme park; it was, as they say in the credit card ads, priceless.

  

Sunday, June 15, 2014

We’ve all heard the story of how a war was lost because of a General’s horseshoe nail.  Sometimes travelers, after weeks or even months of careful planning, can find themselves undone by the simplest of unforeseen bends in the road.  Deplaning in Athens Thursday, a sharp eyed fellow passenger happened to notice that Kathy’s wallet, with all of her money, credit cards, and passport, had fallen out of her purse and was lodged up under her seat.  It could have been a disaster.

I had my first real shower today since leaving Mayport.  It seems that there is a break or obstruction in the water line that supplies the village, and there has been some political foot dragging about spending the money to fix it.
 

Note the absence of a guard rail on this curve

and the barely visible hubcap (white dot) in the rocks below

 (Click on photo to enlarge it) 

 

On the road to Karlovasi yesterday, we noticed that a construction crew had begun work to widen the road, but they’ve started in a place where the road was already relatively safe.  On one particularly dangerous curve, I happened to see the wheel cover from an automobile wedged in a rock formation that jutted up and out of the Aegean Sea about 30 feet below us.  Kathy was driving and I was thinking about what a great picture it would make, but for safety’s sake, I had decided not to distract her by mentioning it.  I saw her glance up to the rear view mirror as a motorcycle streaked past us and narrowly missed hitting a truck in the oncoming lane.  Her remarkably jaded comment was, “That’s about the only thing that gets done in a hurry around here.”


 A closer shot of the wheel cover, but still difficult to see.

(Put your cursor on any picture and click to enlarge it)

 

P.S. These pictures were taken with Greek drivers still on the road.  We had to park the car in a place where the road still had a little shoulder to it. I sprinted up the narrow part of the road, snapped these shots, and sprinted back to the car dodging two way traffic in both directions.  It was no cakewalk.

For a live video and more pictures of this road from earlier posts click on:

Greek Drivers (7/2/12)

Road to Karlovasi (7/14/13)