Greece Enlightening

Before me is a squatty, cream coloured building, indistinguishable from its neighbours on either side. The postman on Crete must have struggled trying to navigate an island filled with thousands of identical white houses, clinging to the landscape like barnacles on the hull of an upturned ship. It’s igloo like appearance is deceiving, the white walls offering little protection from the soaring temperatures outside.

“Gei sas” I call out confidently as I step inside, having only learnt the phrase hours ago. Something stirs behind the front counter and a stocky old man emerges wearing a tight singlet that would have also been white about ten years ago. He stands about a foot shorter than me with wispy grey hair in a textbook Einstein fashion. “Hello” he replies, picking my poor attempt at the native tongue a mile away. We converse for a while with overly animated hand gestures to fill in any language lapses as I explain to him that I need a car for the day. He drops a set of keys into my sweaty palm smiling widely revealing dark teeth and high slimy gums reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s Alien. “Efcharisto” I call out, thanking him over my shoulder as I leave, happy to have used my entire Greek vocabulary in one transaction.

It takes two hours of thin windy roads and a few wrong turns to reach Matala on the southern coast of Crete. We’re met with a golden beach framed by steep rocky headlands keeping the deep green ocean at bay. The cliffs are etched with cave dwellings, thousands of years old, complete with windows, doors and uninterrupted views of the Mediterranean Sea. Think: The real Flinstones of Orange County. A local told me that hippies used to live in the caves throughout the seventies and I chuckled to myself thinking about the transformation from Zeus to Zeppelin. The “Flower children” had to leave the caves in the 80’s when the government declared the site a protected area. Many caves and burial tombs are still blocked off to the public today, while those at the base of the cliffs are slowly lost to the rolling waves. I clamber through prehistoric hallways, the ancient Greeks hardly accommodative for a 21st century giant. Emerging into sunlight I clumsily slide back down to the busy beach with the grace of a birthing giraffe, while children more nimble than I jump from cliffs and run through the hand built homes of their ancestors.