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Mission Impossible The morning dawned frigid. The wind had picked up during the night and blew all the insulating cloud cover away. It was much colder than when we had gone to sleep. The narrow hairpin downhill run was fraught with giant potholes, ruts and rocks. It was a good thing we had decided to wait for light. We descended ten kilometers down the mountain to the villages of Gournia and stopped to give our hands a rest from braking. I bought bread and we found a park with benches tucked in evergreen trees. As we sat in the small park eating breakfast a steady procession of traveling salesmen drove past in trucks laden with goods. Some carried shoes and clothes; others had carpets and household goods. If it could be named, it traveled to villages in trucks. There were no organized markets-simply drive in, honk, yell and flog those goods. All trucks had a loudspeaker mounted on top of the cab spewing forth a barrage of crackly music and constant sales pitch. One truck was filled with underwear, socks and nylons. A metal framework enclosed the truck box. Undergarments fluttered from the metal rod. "Underwear! Underwear! Get your underwear here! Freshly aired!" I imagined him to be wailing. Leaving the village there was a sign in several languages: "Bon voyage. Gute risen. Drive carefully." Somehow the English didn't translate to the equivalent of the others. By early afternoon we arrived in Heraklion to catch the 8:00 p.m. ferry to Rhodes, our next intended destination. Our first discovery was that no ferry sailed from Heraklion every evening at 8:00 p.m. as we had been told. Apparently the only ferry departing for Rhodes, was once a week: Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. I had mixed emotions upon discovering that. What rotten luck I originally thought. "The travel agent misinformed me in Khaniá," I complained to Sharon. "Now we have to leave the city and find camping for another night." Then, realizing it was a Friday, my second reaction was: "Are we ever lucky. If we had arrived the next day we would have to wait a week for the next ferry." I decided that our good fortune outweighed our bad and stopped griping. Heraklion was a maze of streets, none of which led to the helpful travel agent we were seeking. We spent hours asking questions at nonhelpful travel agents and the remainder of the afternoon searching for the ever illusive "friendly" travel agent. Greek travel agents seemed trained to say only two English words and one phrase: "No"; "Impossible"; "I don't know." Usually in that order. If the customer asked more questions, just begin over with "No." All other skills were lacking. I had yet to see one fulfill the service of providing travel information. The response we received when we enquired about ferry routes was: "You will have to ask when you get there." Wasn't it slightly too late to discover there were no onward ferry service once you arrived? We rode fifteen kilometers west out of Heraklion and finally found a beach to camp on. It was located next to a huge refinery belching steam and emitting strange thumping and screeching noises. It wasn't particularly conducive to a good night's rest. The crashing waves couldn't even compete. |
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