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Saturday, September 28th - Vatos
I see Gregory and Brian at breakfast in the hotel today. They are friendly, in a brief, distracted way. They are reading a novel and travel brochures respectively. They rented a car in Kerkyra yesterday and may drive around the area. They don’t invite me along so I go ahead with my own plans.
I walk to Parelia and through a couple streets in the centre. There is a farmers’ market going in the main square. I buy a couple pieces of fruit. The locals have lots of warmth in their faces, more so than Italy. On my way back I see the start of the trail that leads to the top of the 400 m mountain behind the town and I climb it. I see the back of my pink hotel and the road to the beach, as well as Ermones itself. The beach is not large, ad at this time of year, not to crowded by the looks of it.
My former boyfriend Matt, who cycled across Europe and Asia seven years ago, was the person who taught me to stay in places a few kilometres away (cycling distance) from beaches and main attractions to find more availability and cheaper prices. He taught me that on Crete, another Greek island, where we stayed in Mires instead of the hippy hangout of Matala, the place we really wanted to see. The more popular the place, the farther one needs to travel to find the cheaper places.
Ermones is not a fabulous beach resort, and not that well known, so two kilometres away is all one needs. It is walking distance too, though after I return to the hotel I take my bike there. It is slightly downhill and takes all of five minutes to reach the edge of the village. It is much smaller than Parelia, but there are places to buy food. I pick up a pre-packaged sandwich and some juice and head for the beach. The beach consists of small pebbles and sand with a fair amount of driftwood and tidal debris. The tide is never high in the Mediterranean as the water can never get in or out of the Strait of Gibraltar fast enough, but I can see it is low tide.
There are maybe twenty or thirty others on the beach today, as it is still quite warm in the sun. I spend two hours here writing letters and postcards. I finish my ten page letter to Mom, the one I began at the start of my visit to Croatia. The first couple pages summarized my time up to Split, playing down the risk of war, but when the naval blockade happened and I was afraid I might not survive, I poured out my heart into the letter, telling every detail. Now that I am safe and I am in a country where all the services are working, it is safe to send it to her. I thought of not sending it, but I want her to live vicariously through my travels, something she has expressed to me that she enjoys.
Writing about what I have been through is in part reliving it, and it has brought to the surface the terrible emotions I have been trying to suppress these past couple weeks. I write a couple more brief postcards but my emotions are too churned up to keep my focus on writing them. A patch of clouds drifts over me and the sudden coolness seems like a signal. I gather up my papers, shake out my towel and walk back along the beach to where I parked my bike.
I shower and change and try to relax on the patio but I am very restless. Something is screaming inside of me, trying to get out. Every time anyone come onto the patio, staff or patrons, I am anxious for them to stay and talk to me, and feeling dejected when they don’t. I try to decipher what I want from them. What I come up with each try I try is that I need to be held and nurtured. That seems inappropriate, and certainly an unreasonable thing to ask of anyone, but clearly I feel the need tonight. I meditate and that eases my need for now, but I am still feel lost and confused. I wonder if I will ever find a place where I feel I belong again and if I ever regain a sense of purpose I that I seem to have lost.
Gregory and Brian enter the hotel restaurant when I am half-finished my dinner. I am eating early because I want to return to the beach to photograph the sunset. We greet and talk for a few minutes and they suggest we might do something together tomorrow. I agree to meet them at breakfast at 9 am.
I walk to the beach this time as walking is safer than riding after dark. The beach I go to is next to the main beach. There is a kilometre long gravel road that leads to it. I get the best shots of the coloured sky just before I get to it. There is a group of young people in their late teens, boys mostly, drinking and smoking pot around a small fire they have lit. The local kids come here to do what they cannot do on the main beach. They invite me to join them and I spend the next couple hours speaking with them in broken English. I am soon as stoned and drunk as they are.
One fellow, Nikos, is the most friendly. He’s about 17 with a typical slender teenage build. He has come down here on his scooter and offers me a ride back up when it’s time to leave. He tells me to hang on. I know he means to hang onto the back support bar as I have seen guys do when riding with their friends, but I have no experience riding on one. I have the feeling I am about to fall off on this uphill trail, especially when his wheels slip on the gravel from time to time. Being stoned doesn’t help either, so I hold him around his waist, which is the way girls hang onto their dates. His taught, defined body feels great but I am careful not to be too enjoy it too much. He doesn’t object. He stops at the top where he gets off to take a piss. It is totally dark and he is gone for a couple minutes. I begin to wonder if he is waiting for me to follow him, but that would be too presumptuous on my part. He returns and continues to Vatos to drop me off. He seems somehow indifferent or even offended as he pushes off without much of a goodbye.
Brian and Gregory are sharing a bottle of wine on the patio and invite me to join them. They are friendlier and more playful when they are drunk. I put Nikos out of my head and continue my drinking with them. Gregory is a lot of fun when he warms up a little. I have learned they work together, but they are closed about the rest of their lives. It may be because they are British or maybe because they are gay. This I haven’t figured out yet.
After midnight we retire. The room spins slowly as I lie in my bed thinking of Gregory. I like having someone to fantasize about, even if it never comes true. I am like Tarzan, swinging from one fantasy to another on the vines of hope. It serves as a distraction, but when the vines give way I fall.
PHOTO 1: Hotel Elena
PHOTO 2: view of the beach from the top of the hill
PHOTO 3: Ermones Beach
PHOTO 4: the rocky shore
PHOTO 5: sunset on the beach
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