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With a Little Organization "Welcome to Ireland," I sarcastically quipped as the rain began for the third time. It rained again overnight. The locals kept telling us we had to come back in the summer. "It is much nicer in the summer." It was a constant mix of rain and sun. Get out the rain coat. Leave the rain coat on? Take off the rain coat. Leave the rain coat off? Decisions, decisions. In the morning I washed my bike-not exactly according to plan. The rock I went to stand on as I recrossed the stream wobbled, I lost my balance and dropped my bike into the creek before scrambling back to the bank. By that time my bike was submerged and water was running over and into my panniers. I had most things in Ziploc bags, so it wasn't a complete catastrophe. Climbing a steep section of road into a neighboring village an old man walked along with a bundle of black nets twice his size tied to his back. They were going to be used to spread under the olive trees to catch the olives as they fell. The entire countryside was quilted with the synthetic spider webs in preparation for harvest. When they were ready to pick, the laborers took a stick and hit the branches causing the olives to drop to the ground. George told us it took three kilograms of olives to make one liter of olive oil. I didn't have much energy for riding up and down mountainsides all day and plodded along. We climbed and climbed. I saw a newborn baby lamb and a shepherd with a crook. It rained on us a few times just to make sure we knew it was winter. One shower caught us as we were finishing lunch on a thorny ledge overlooking the valley we had just taken great pains to climb out of. When buying lunch the pleasant lady behind the till had helped Sharon decide which cheese to buy by giving her a taste of the brands she had. That was the way Sharon liked to shop in a foreign country. It took the guesswork out of it. Right at 4:30, I flatted in a small town. Suddenly it was rush hour. But instead of the usual traffic jam with cars, it was donkeys. The farmers used donkeys to travel to and from the fields and to carry gear up and down the terraces. Donkeys streamed out of olive groves, swaggering past in both directions. Some were fully rigged with wooden saddles typical for the area. Some had bundles and jugs hanging off the saddle and three or four goats in tow. No wonder they called them pack mules. The farmers always wore broad grins on their weathered faces. An old woman rode by side saddle. An old man passed with a huge stack of greenery. They used donkeys for nearly everything. It was highly entertaining. I liked the sexy sports models with the bright red saddle blankets. My flat was caused by the tube itself. The manufacturer stupidly folded the tubes while the rubber was still hot, creating a sharp fold midway along the tube. That was where the flat occurred. Not only was it a manufacturing defect, but also made the ensuing patch difficult to adhere since it was right on the crease. Too bad people who made that brand of tubes didn't use their product. While fixing the flat, a couple of locals stopped to talk with us. One fellow was a doctor who was waiting for a package to arrive on the bus. He maintained "Greece could be the best country in the world with a little organization." Shortly thereafter the bus arrived but the package didn't. They had left it at the bus station in Khaniá. As he walked away, I called to him: "With a little organization this could be a great country." He corrected me: "The best country in the world." It was refreshing to meet people who held such strong convictions. We stopped early at a gorge's trail head and found a flat grassy spot under some old olive trees. I set up the tent and read while Sharon walked in the gorge to look at the sheer rock walls and dry river bed. It was the first place on the island where we had seen a variety of trees and vegetation. When Sharon returned an hour later she said it was a very pleasant walk. |
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