Lily McGartland
April 10, 2013
The
Adventure Begins
When
I woke up this morning there was the feeling of butterflies in my stomach; I
was excited and slightly apprehensive about our upcoming trip. I was ready to
discover a new place, but was not ready to wake up at six am to get there. We,
my dad and I, took a taxi to the car rental place; we could have walked, it
would have only taken twenty minutes, but we decided it was too early. When we
got dropped off at the front of the building, we realized that it was not quite
eight o’clock (when they opened), so we walked across the busy, two-way street,
and went to a café, to get coffee and water for our car ride. By the time we
had managed to re-cross the street, the rest of our group had arrived and the
rental place had opened. After the boring paperwork was filled out and the keys
were handed over, we were off!
As
we drove out of the city we followed signs written in both Greek and English;
when they were in Greek it was very hard to know if we were even going in the
right direction. We went west from Athens, away from the Aegean Sea. We drove
over the Corinth Canal, a man-made channel that connects the Ionian Sea to the
Aegean Sea, and splits the Peloponnese from the mainland. We headed south for a
while, then turn onto a smaller road and continued west towards our first
destination – Olympia. The road we were now on turned out to cut straight
through a cropping of mountains. We wound our way around the precipices of the
peaks and the sharp turns of the road. The views were absolutely spectacular;
you could see out across the valleys for miles and miles. The crisp blue sky
was dotted with the occasional white cloud. The rugged crags of the mountains
were vibrant green and brown. The cliff-side villages we drove through were
perched as if by accident on the ancient rocks of the mountains. And the bright
and dazzling sun bathed everything in a light worthy of heaven.
The
views were agreed upon to be magnificent; but the twisted and warped road was
not appreciated by everyone. A few people found themselves intoxicated with the
sickness of sheer precipices and sharp curves. We drove over the mountains and
arrived at the small town of Olympia. The sun was shining and the streets were
filled with tourists and souvenir shops. We tumbled out of the cars and headed
up the road in the hopeful search for food. The main street was lined with
“traditional” Greek tavernas (huge tourists traps) and small fast food cafes.
We chose a nondescript restaurant, serving pizza and burgers available for
takeout. The menus were in English, a sure sign of tourism. But the food was
adequate and much needed for our empty stomachs. After stuffing our mouths with
thick-cut french fries, pizza, and sandwiches we piled into the cars again and
went up to the archeological site of Ancient Olympia.
We
parked our cars in the lot, there was only one other car, and meandered down
the path towards the entrance of the site. We arrived at the ticket booth and
haggled with the three men working there until we had secured eleven free
admission tickets, a discount for European students. We sauntered through the
gates and decided to meet back at the entrance in about two hours. My dad and I
grabbed a map and began to walk towards the ruins.
We
were never quite sure what we were admiring; the maps and signs were vague and
did not always have decipherable pictures. We walked along the empty paths,
void of people, and were astonished at the sheer size of the ancient ruins.
There were crumbling walls and toppled columns that were easily as wide as I am
tall. Houses still stood on the outskirts of the ruins; their roofs
half-collapsed and rotted. We marveled at the intricate tunnels carved into one
home’s walls, used as an indoor heating system that dated back to before the
Roman Empire.
After
we had our fill of ruins and rubble, we walked back into the main town and
bought drinks to quench our dry throats and fill our again empty bellies. After
our quick snack, we piled back into the cars and headed into the hills for the
drive to the port of Killini, to catch the ferry to the Ionian island of
Kefalonia.
When
we ferried into the port of Poros, in Kefalonia, the sun had set and the
mountains and villages were shrouded in darkness. We drove over and around
mountains on thin, winding roads that seemed to drop into a black abyss. When
we got to the capital of the island, Argostoli, an hour later, we followed the
owner of our hotel up a small hill and into complete darkness until we came
around a bend and there was our hotel. After a quick bite to eat at a
recommended local taverna, we fell into deep slumbers, our minds filled with
images of blue skies and clear azure waters.
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