The texture of our journey has
changed. We are in a proper city
again with ordinary shops and supermarkets and traffic jams. It is a bit of a relief to be just
people instead of tourists.
Tourism is a subordinate part of the Cretan economy which includes
winemaking and olives and textiles and who knows what more.
Crete is a huge island and we can’t hope to explore it all.
Cretans may or may not be liars but everyone we have met so
far has been exceptionally kind and humorous and I’d love to have more time
here. It is a place where one
could live for a while, all colours of brown and cream and grey and pleasantly
untidy. Also much greener than the other islands. It must get decent rain.
We got off the ferry and discovered our
Golden Valentin hotel was way out of town in a place called Hernonissos. It turned out there were subsections of
Hernonissos, one of which was a village with very narrow streets. Our GPS flag said we had arrived but we hadn't. But
there was no hotel in sight and we had no idea where to go except going
anywhere was almost impossible in our yellow rental car which squeals when in
low gear. The lanes were very
small and we felt outrageous making such a noise in the little place.. A man we subsequently learned was called
Adonis came out of his bar and looked at us, expressionless. I got out and flung up my hands “We are
lost! Do you speak English?” He
said nothing so I resorted to the pantomime one uses in such situations. Frantic hands, exaggerated gestures,
submissive attitude. “It’s
impossible to find it” he said in perfect English. “I’ll go and get my
motorbike and you can follow me”.
I was so grateful I didn’t care about feeling an idiot.
The place was nice when we got here. It had been so cheap we were expecting
anything, but it is a little studio with a hotplate, kettle and fridge and has
cats and a kitten that visits us and is so young its tail trembles. It is plump and turns up its nose at
our saucer of milk. It only wants
to be cuddled. There is even a
swimming pool here which wonder of wonders Grant says he might get into.
A local comes to call |
We went to the ruins of Knossos yesterday
and learnt lots of stuff about virility and fertility. Our feminist guide made a point of the
fact that girls jumped bulls too and labyrinth actually means double headed axe
despite what we think. (Just checked that and labyrinth has got nothing to do
with double headed axes. Maybe I’d
just met my first Cretan liar!) I
then got an appalling stomach cramp and had to inch my way back to the toilets
at the entrance and so the rest of her wisdom was lavished on Grant and the two
others in the group. It is a
magnificent site though and I look forward to going to the museum to see what
was once in it.
We went back to the village to thank our
saviour of the night before and he seemed a bit embarrassed. Grant gave him a little koala which he
put on his finger, quite bemused.
But he told us a lot about his sojourn in Indochina, which he said he
loved. I asked why he came back to
Crete and he said cryptically “Life does not always turn out the way you want
it to” .
On the way to the museum today I stopped by
at a pharmacy (all of them are indicated by big flashing green crosses) to get
some Citravescent. If you don’t
know what that’s for you don’t need to know. It doesn’t exist in Greece but I was shocked to be offered
over the counter antibiotics for what ailed me. Sledgehammers and cracking nuts crossed my mind but I got
some anyway just in case.
The museum was amazing and modern and had
extraordinary glass that seemed not to be there, (a hazard if you are a bit
myopic like me). But it was so
beautifully organized that you went hungrily from one case of pots to another
and never felt you’d had enough. A
little coffin for being buried in the foetal position had its lid casually
shifted slightly to one side so the looker could peer in at a heap of bones
from 300BC.
Near the end of one room were votive
figurines all with their arms up or as though holding an invisible something. A large group of Chinese people in
front of the exhibit were all posing with arms up or holding an invisible
something , smiling and copying the statues. The guard came over “Photo OK, no posing” she said. I
wondered why not.
Jugs were my favourite thing, so quirky in
design and generously spouted in dozens of different ways. The wall paintings however puzzled
me. Small scraps of the original
were placed by the conservators who then imagined the rest of the dolphin or whatever. How could they possibly know that was
how the pictures were?
I have been less light hearted today than
usual. Maybe it is because now is
the cusp of our trip and we go now from the land of the strange to where we
must be real people who can speak the languages and know, more or less how, to
behave. There is a childishness in
being a tourist. The shops near
our beach residence reflect this in the toys they offer us. Silly ugly things
to be bought and gifted, snow domes with plastic Minoan statues in them, wooden
penis key rings, beach towels with maps and donkeys. Tomorrow we must grow up
and move on into the proper world.
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