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| Kefalonia, Greece |
Kelly and I finished up our time on Zakynthos driving the island in our rented car. We found this amazing swimming hole, with green-blue water, red starfish, and many enthralling Italians. Kelly and I listened to an Italian boy whining, and agreed we could never find his whine frustrating. Every bratty complaint was a sweet song played from the soothing recesses of his choir-boy-sounding vocal cords. On our way back, we stopped at a local winery, where we bought 1.5 liters of wine that was poured straight from the barrel into a water bottle.
We are now on Kefalonia, the Greek island just north of Zakynthos. It is fairly similar, with more idyllic beaches, weather, and food. We stayed in Sami for a couple of nights, where we rented a car, and ferried it over to Ithaka for the day, the very remote island spoken of in the Odyssey and Iliad. Again, it was more of the same, but with even less English spoken. In Sami we were staying at a rented room in a very traditionally Greek area. Roosters announcing the dawn; old Greek women watering their lawns with buckets. By the way, in the cartoons the roosters crow once to announce the dawn. In real life, the things go on for hours. And we had to keep the windows open, since we had no A/C, and all of Greece is having a big heat wave. I haven't written about it much, but it's super hot here.
We drove around the islands' hills and beaches to see some of the beautiful sights. Of note was Myrtos Beach, which was stunning, especially looking down from the cliffs above. There were also many goats on the roads. The two main tourist attractions we saw were an underground lake, which was freezing cold (both water and air temp), and an underground cave theatre. The pictures say it all. The cave especially was breathtaking...they used this huge cavernous space as a theatre, where up until recently they still held performances. It's covered in bats, stalactites and stalagmites, and the ground is slippery from all the condensation. I've never been in an underground cave theatre or lake, it was very cool.
Kelly and I are now staying in Lassi, a nice town crawling with British. I mean it might as well be an occupied territory. But it's nice because many people speak English. There are tons of terrific restaurants, and I even found a chess game with the guys that run the beach umbrella and lounger rentals. They're pretty much right at my level, which is hard to find. I beat the first guy and lost to the second guy, but I can take him if I concentrate. If I lose to him again, I plan to lobby Bush to declare war on Kefalonia.
I am writing from an internet cafe in Argostoli, the most populous city on Kefalonia. I was here yesterday checking email when the power went down. Turns out the power outage hit all of Greece. It's an international story now because of the upcoming olympics. It was caused by some kind of mismanagement of the power grid. I'm just wondering what happens if they lose power to their airport security and customs check at a critical time. That could be devastating, if in fact they had such a check. Fortunately, during this outage I was able to get back to our room without hitting many traffic lights, which had caused gridlock in other areas.
Today Kelly and I are off to see Skala, supposedly one of the best beaches on the island. Tomorrow we take the Dolphin (fast boat) to Corfu, where we will meet up with Kelly's friend Elisa and her husband Costas, who have just had a baby. Even though we probably won't sleep at their place, I am consoling myself that the baby cannot possibly be louder than the rooster.
