After a shove, push and kick from a friend, I’ve decided to commit myself to writing one blog entry per week. Although this is overdue- I’ll try to make it worth the wait.
This past week I’ve been missing the smell of the sea and the feeling of my body totally submerged in a liquid hug! While reminsicing on the feeling of waking up to the sound of the sea, looking out onto the vast openness and imagining the life living below, I remembered my holiday with my husband, Harvey, in Greece. Funnily enough, the first image that comes to mind when I think about that holiday is a house. A large, magnificent, stately house, an image that will remain forever in my thoughts.
When we landed in Rhodos, we decided to be adventurous and take the public bus to the hotel. Forget the shuttle, we’re not here to live like tourists – as of the moment our feet touched Greek soil, we became Harvos and Danonia! We thought it would be easy, and it was going well, until we got off at the wrong bus stop. Imagine, huge backpacks with all our belongings for a week’s stay, blazing mid-day sun and absolutely no idea or orientation of where we were.
It was funny at first – part of the adventure- until I saw all these massive lizards running at random on the walls and on the ground. They were more towards the size of iguanas than regular common lizards. Like Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the Jamaican woman and lizards are sworn enemies destined to live as enemies for all eternity.
After walking 20 minutes Harvey was certain we were heading in the right direction, until we stopped to buy bottled water. I felt like I was dehydrating in a desert, with a weight on my back and lizards hiding behind every corner waiting to pounce and drag me away to their holes…or trees..or wherever they live. Luckily or unluckily the guy we stopped to buy the water from spoke English and we told him the street our hotel was on, I was devastated to find out the hotel was actually approximately 45 minutes walk in the opposite direction.
I couldn’t take it anymore, I had thoughts that we would never make it, at this point I was exhausted from being on the look out for monster lizards, lifting the weight of my backpack, trying to hydrate myself to keep from melting in the sun, eyes burning from the dust (Rhodos is very dry and dusty) and I really let Harvey have it. I let it all explode on the navigator who navigated me into Lizard-Ville. It was the most un-perfect start to our holiday, we were pissed off at each other, tired, hungry, and still totally lost.
I was screaming at Harvey because we had been walking and walking and we still weren’t there and then I looked up and I saw this house. It had such an imposing presence, and I thought what a beautiful house. It was old and run-down and definitely not the most beautiful house I had ever seen BUT It had character. The house looked slightly haunted, but this house was the start of our holiday. It’s almost like it had a voice that spoke to me and said “you are going to have an awesome holiday.” After I saw this house, my spirit was lifted. Even though we were still lost. I didn’t feel angry, frustrated and tired anymore. I felt really excited, grateful and in awe of where on Earth I was and all the things waiting for me tor me to experience them.
We had an AWESOME holiday in Greece. It was brilliant-with a rental car and a map!
The House
Lindos – Filled with memorable images
Symi – The perfect hideaway for any fugitive
daniwatsit 