Way too much has happened since my last blog post, so I'm going to keep it to the bare minimum in summing things up. I spent two weeks at the Kalikalos retreat center on the Pelion Peninsula, north of Athens, and had a great time. The first week I spent at the Kalikalos center near the tiny village of Kissos. But there was another associated site about a ten minute drive away, at another little village called Anilio. There was a big group of people coming to do a circle dancing workshop, staying at that other site near Anilio; and they needed a few more people there to help out with things. So after the first week, I moved down to the other place for all of that second week. The good news was that there was a spare room, so I got to move out of the tent and live indoors. I took a couple of videos of both places, which can be watched on my facebook page.
But the really good news was that a nice Canadian couple, Fred and Ruth, who had arrived at Kalikalos the same day as me, were also leaving the same day that I was; and they offered me a ride along with my bicycle back to Athens. This was a real relief, to avoid having to deal with taking my bike on the bus again. So we all squeezed into their van last Friday and headed out, intending to drive to Athens that day, and hopefully be able to stay with a couple of people that had attended the retreat center earlier.
But along the way we all decided we'd rather see a little something else, and decided to take a detour to the ancient ruins of Delphi. This didn't actually require much extra driving, other than going on some smaller roads rather than the freeway. None of us really felt like dealing with Athens after having driven all day, and figured that we would be more up for it the next day, after a much shorter drive. So we pulled into the small tourist town of Delphi early that evening, found a campground and camped there for the night; then got up the next day to tour the ruins.
The ruins of Delphi were really amazing, actually a lot more interesting than even the Acropolis in Athens, because they were a lot more extensive. (As usual, photos are on facebook.) Afterwards we all hit the road again, headed for Athens. On the way we managed to correspond with two of the people that had been at the retreat center, and lived in Athens; both Greek women in our general age range. One of them was busy, but the other one, Dianna, who we'd all gotten to know fairly well, was free and invited us all to stay at her apartment for the night.
So we showed up pretty bedraggled around 7 in the evening, very grateful to be invited into her very nice little apartment on the top floor of a 6-story apartment building, within view of the Acropolis. Dianna had some free time over the next week, and told us that evening that she had a summer home on the Peloponnesus, a few hours south of Athens; and if we were interested then we could all drive down there the next day. Fred and Ruth wanted most of a day to see some of Athens; and I still needed to get my bicycle fixed. So the next day Fred and Ruth went out to tour the city, while Dianna called around and found a bicycle mechanic; then we headed that way to deal with the bicycle, with the arrangement to meet back at her place later in the afternoon, and then all drive down to her other house that evening.
So, after the usual delays we finally headed out of Athens later that evening. Fred and Ruth drove in their van, as they were planning to continue onwards from there; while I drove with Dianna in her car. However she didn't actually like to drive it much because of a bad back and hurt knee; so I drove, my first time driving in a foreign country (other than Canada, of course). Fortunately, the signs are almost always in English as well as Greek, and besides Dianna knew exactly where we were going, so it wasn't too much different from driving back in the U.S.
We made it late that night to Dianna's condo near the sea on the Peloponnesus, near the tiny town of Leonidio. The four of us spent three nights there, and had a great time; despite the fact that it was mostly rainy and cloudy weather. But we managed to get to the beach a few times anyway, explored the small village, went out to eat, hung out at her place, etc. Then Fred and Ruth continued on in their camper van, and Dianna and I stayed one more night in the same house.
Dianna is a musician, and had to get back to Athens two days later for a rehearsal. The next day, we decided to make use of the remaining day and see something new. So we drove north a little ways from Leonidio, and then inland and up into the mountains a little ways to a really picturesque village, and stayed there in a hotel for the night. Since it's mid-September, tourist season is winding down, and that area is somewhat off the tourist map anyway, so there were no other tourists in the village. There was only one small tavern, one hotel, and no mini market or gas station. And we were pretty sure there was no one else staying in the hotel. But the view from the room was amazing.
The next morning, we managed to enjoy the morning there, then headed out around noon to drive back to Athens. Unfortunately, we encountered car trouble almost right away. After about ten minutes of driving, I pulled over to take a photo of a cross on the side of the road. When I started up the car again, I noticed that the engine temperature was heating up big-time, and quickly went into the red. So I turned the car off, and we figured out what to do next.
The bad news was that we were in the mountains, somewhat in the middle of nowhere. But the good thing was that we were within cell phone range, and Dianna belonged to one of these auto services where they'll help you out wherever you are. So to make a longer story short, after several hours of waiting the tow truck finally arrived. And then after another hour or so of tinkering around with the engine, the tow truck driver got things fixed enough that we were able to drive off on our own, rather than having to be towed. It turned out that, despite having had a tune-up just a couple of weeks before, the problem was the fan had stopped working; and, the thermostat wasn't working properly; and, there was a coolant leak. So in other words, just about everything that could go wrong with the cooling system...
But we got back okay to Athens that evening (yesterday), and I'm back here staying at Dianna's apartment, making plans for my next step. One small problem is that the weather has been pretty funky all over Greece, including out on the islands, with plenty of clouds and rain. But some of the islands, the Dodecanese, which are further east near Turkey, seem to be mostly sunny. I might change my plans to go to Milos in the Cyclades, and instead go to Patmos, which is another island that was high up on my list...I'll probably get that straightened out tomorrow. Well, it's late here, especially since I didn't make this entry nearly as brief as I'd intended, so I'm headed for bed and will keep everyone posted one way or another with the future plans.
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