GREECE!!!

Our first post FROM Europe!!  After not sleeping for 30+ hours we made it!  Athens was a bit overwhelming, scooters flying every which way, every one honking and generally in a hurry.  I have no idea how anyone here survives past 30 without getting hit by a car.  Other than the horrendous traffic Athens seems very safe, even walking down an ally at night.  We went to the acropolis; saw the Parthenon as well as the temple of Zeus.  It is amazing seeing all of these ruins from 500 BC considering that nothing in Colorado is older than the 1800s.  There are Indians everywhere selling all sorts of useless things like toy tomatoes.  When a cop comes near they all pick up their stuff and jet.  Our hostel was really funky but worked out just great.  It was in a really cool neighbourhood with no tourists.  We took a walk at like ten in the morning and everyone we passed was an old man fingering a rosary behind his back.  There is a mountain in the middle of the city which we climbed at night to get some pictures of the city lights.  We talked with a Greek man for half an hour about owls without him knowing the word for owl.  After some charades we finally figured out what he was talking about, but I suppose that is half the fun.  As much as we liked Athens it was a big city and therefore very exhausting and we were really looking forward to getting out to the countryside; but first we had to walk all the way across Athens, through several protests with our 40lb packs to the bus station.

We took an adventurous 6 hour bus ride to arrive in Elea where we are now.  After about 4 hours the bus stopped in Sparti, and we were kicked off.  We then waited unknowingly until a bus that was headed to Molai showed up.  The bus went through all of the little traditional farm towns before arriving in Molai.  Dilys and Les, the British couple that we are WWOOFing for, picked us up.  At this point it was dark so we could not see our surroundings when we arrived.  We had a nice meal and went to sleep.  We awoke to the most amazing view across a kilometre of olive groves to the sea where there is a small fishing village.  Beyond that on the other side of the gulf is the Mani peninsula with small white villages dotting the coast and snow capped mountains behind.

The closest village, Elea, has about 500 people and zero tourists.  There is a small harbour, a few restaurants and beautiful views.  Greek food leaves something to be desired.  There are plenty of great fresh veggies and oranges and the olive oil is truly something special, but all restaurants have the same thing: overcooked meat, small whole (including the head) fried fish and greek salad.  The only disappointment so far has been finding out that the Mediterranean is totally over fished and that there is almost no seafood here. The local wine however, is amazingly fresh and you can buy a 2 litre plastic bottle of it for about 1 euro.  The local Feta is made by a girl who lives on top of the mountain in a one room stone hut with her father.  She rides a mule down to town on occasion, stopping to change into high heals and makeup on the way.  It is sheeps milk and pretty funky stuff. I don’t think that I can eat any more without getting sick.  Greek coffee is like espresso but is served grounds and all. You have to let the grounds settle to the bottom before you drink it.  We love the frapees here which are made of Nescafe.

We are having a great time working in the garden, walking around the town and sight seeing with Dilys and Les and their pooch, Foxy.  We went to a beach near Monemvassia where we found very old pottery (Roman?) on the beach instead of shells!  We haven’t done any climbing yet and are getting a bit antsy.  The amount of rock in this country is unbelievable but totally undeveloped and limestone is hard to protect so it needs bolts.  Soon hopefully.