Road tripping on an island, a violent but brief illness and the Portara

With all this fuss I've been making about driving in Greece, you'd think I'd stop doing it. Not so. Instead of the island hopping tour Alex and I had planned for today, visiting Delos and Mykonos, choppy seas and advice from locals led us to one of a dozen or so car rental companies stretched along the port road in Naxos. Our mission was to tour the countryside, stopping in little villages and points of interest. I read on TripAdvisor that haggling for a deal on rentals is commonplace in Greece, so I tried it and was proud to drive off with a 5 Euro reduction in price. We'd been given a map of the main sites to see organized in a sort of loop around the northwest portion of the island. But within about 5 minutes, Alex and I decided that our failed navigation attempts (seriously, there are no road signs in Greece) along with our appetite for adventure required us to toss the map aside and just drive. We're on an island after all. We can't get too far from home base without running into water. Granted, Naxos is a big island, but with cell phones in hand (and a spendy overseas package from AT&T to go along with them) we couldn't get into too much trouble. So we picked a direction and drove.

We stopped first at the edge of this tiny town where a few small buildings of unknown use were decaying next to a pretty modern-looking cafe. Alex and I sat at a table in front and ordered Cokes. Two Pepsis arrived (fine) and we sat and drank, staring into the parking lot. We were the only foreigners at the place and the sound of Greek being spoken in low tones accompanied our drinks quite nicely. Both Alex and I commented that the moment felt kind of surreal, too quiet, almost like a scene in a movie. It's impossible to explain, so I'll stop trying. But I will say that we held on to that strange feeling throughout our journey.

Next, we found an ancient ruin up a stone path along the road. One thing that we weren't very good at was capturing exaclty what we were seeing on this adventure, so I can't tell you what it was or why it was there. Maybe this ignorance made our discoveries more exciting for us, but it certainly doesn't help with creating a clear narrative. Just picture this: we walk up this uphill path, turn a corner, and there before us is this mini Parthenon structure, just hanging out in the middle of nowhere. It was a fine specimen of Greek architecture, complete with Doric columns. And we were alone with it. It was, again, a surreal moment.

Shortly after our encounter with the little Greek temple in the middle of New Mexico (I swear, the landscape in Naxos looks so much like the U.S. Southwest, except for the occasional ancient ruins), our adventure became a misadventure. Earlier, Alex and I breakfasted by the car rental place. We both drank coffee (did I mention his second serious bout with insomnia yesterday?) and a bit of pastry. We were hungry by 3PM and found ourselves very high up in the mountains of central Naxos. A town, whose name escapes me (but will live in infamy) was our chosen stopping point for nourishment. Greeks, and most Europeans, I think, have pretty defined lunch and dinner times, and it's not uncommon for restaurants to close in between these times. So when we walked up to this rather large restaurant and saw no one around, I wasn't surprised. Hungry, though, we ventured in and found a nice older man who spoke very little English. He agreed to feed us. We sat on the back covered balcony and ordered a Greek pizza to split. As we waited for our order, we looked down at the scene below us. Chickens and turkeys milled around in the dirt yard below. A donkey brayed every couple of minutes. Bees flew around the flowers in the planter by the window. The smell of dung came into the window with the breeze. 

Soon our pizza arrive and it was delicious. We ate, commented again on just how strange the day felt, and marveled at the 90s era TV mounted in the corner of the otherwise quaint restaurant. Suddenly, Alex excused himself and ran to the bathroom, violently ill. He literally said "excuse me," which for some reason, made me laugh later. But his illness was not funny then. He was in and out of the bathroom 3 or 4 times withing 15 minutes. Occasionally I caught the eye of the proprietor, hoping he wasn't regretting making a pizza for us during his lull between lunch and dinner crowds. I'd already put cash into the little cup Greek restaurants tend to provide with the bill. The more times Alex went to the bathroom, the more Euros I depositied in the cup. Finally, Alex felt well enough to attempt the car ride home. With apologies and a 50% tip, we split town and drove straight back to our home in Naxos, this time letting Siri guide us back.

Alex got sick one more time when we arrived back at the hotel and then climbed into bed to rest. Soon he was feeling somewhat better, and I left him to have a little solo adventure. Remember I had mentioned the Portara in an earlier entry? Now was my chance to go explore it and watch the sunset through it's beautiful door. It is described as "a massive 2,500-year-old marble doorway that leads nowhere." It's actually the remains of an unfinished temple that was built as a shrine to one of the Greek gods (arguments about whether it was in honor of Appolo or Dionysus are still being hashed out). What a beauty it is, all dressed up in the sun's golden light. I was among 100 or so admirers as the sun set on Naxos and I stayed a good long while after dusk, watching the sky change and the Portara darken. Again, Naxos doesn't fail to draw me in.

I arrived back at the hotel after my wandering to find a fit and hungry Alex thinking about dinner. It was around 9:00 PM and I was done for the day and also a bit concerned about the kid eating so soon after his illness. But after 1/2 hour of talking about food, I agreed that maybe he should go find some bland food to eat. He happily obliged and came back 1 1/2 hours later, having eating a sit-down meal solo at a restaurant. Nighttime sleeplessness soon followed, times two, as both Alex and I suffered from dueling insomnia until the wee hours. Hello, 3AM.