The cab driver from the airport spoke just enough English to ask us where we were from, comment on the weather, insist that we eat a few dishes we’d never be able to pronounce, and we visit a whole list of places that all sounded like Hephaestus (which we also couldn’t pronounce). Five minutes in, and it seemed we were already smack in the middle of any Greek comedy movie. We were dropped off at the edge of an empty dingy alleyway where the cab driver pointed towards the end and summarily sped off. At first glance, if this were an empty street in the middle of San Francisco, we probably would have opted not to walk down it with all our worldly possessions on our backs. Graffiti covered ever visible vertical surface. There were no lights, and aluminum gates barred the entry to every building. It took some searching to find our apartment key lockbox camouflaged into the aerosol painted landscape. Up a poorly lit stairway humming with that chilling sound of nearby open electrical currents, our situation wasn’t looking much better. Once inside the door however, the veil was lifted, the wand waved, the genie blinked, and our Greek pumpkin transformed into Zues’ chariot. Views of ancient Athens stretched from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. The apartment was larger and more modern than any New York city shoebox. On closer inspection, the street graffiti below looked not just appropriate, but artfully and intentionally placed; like someone’s tattoo that you can’t help but gawk at. Hanging over the street, easy to miss by day but now lit up in the early evening, were rows of festive and colorful paper lanterns. The gated buildings, turned out to be trendy bars and restaurants that would come alive with a circus energy at night. We didn’t know at the time, but over and over Greece was going to tell us that things are not as they seem here.
Our two travel partners joined us that night where we stayed home to create our own Greek feast and watch the sun set over the world’s most mythological city. Almost immediately an infectious laughter sparked up, and didn’t stop for the next eleven days. Requisite historic walking tours, inclusive of stick drawings in the dirt completed, we escaped to an accidentally discovered locals only rocky cove on the coast. Above it, beachside seafood restaurants sat empty, waiting for the crowds there were sure would come. A few hundred yards away the jumbo inflated kids water fortress drifted empty. The four of us splashed around in our own isolated bubble of Greek paradise, save for a few local couples as old as Hephaestus, watching us with equal parts confusion and amusement.
A short puddle hopper touched us down in the romantic blue and white tiled isle of honeymoon dreamers everywhere; except that we were’t honeymoon dreamers, we were four friends looking for a beach and some adventure. And that blue and white tiled island of a Hollywood movie set? It turns out that version of Santorini was just that, only as big as a facade movie set. Our southern chunk of the island looked as if someone had hit the pause button during the set construction and everyone came to a slow halt at different speeds. Afternoon sunlight pierced through abandoned empty cement frames of round roofed houses and hotels alike. Ghost staircases led nowhere. On the beaches tourist restaurants peddling souvlaki and mojitos survived a bit longer, but unlike the southern shores of France, these places were were basically giving away the beachfront lounge chairs and umbrellas. Where most second and third world countries of southeast Asia might be inexpensive tourist destinations, Greece has managed to draw a very distinct line in the sand between its costly tourist market and a crumbling country for everyone else.
For us, this meant a week of exploring both faces of this new Greece. Afternoon excursions might take us on scenic drive past skeletons of sea view mansions to a guidebook recommended secret beach only to discover it windblown and abandoned. But instead of a busy beach, we found our own private sunset. Evenings were spent in one of two bustling tourist villages perched high above gentle waters and gleaming yachts. Shoulder to shoulder with other tourists all looking for the same evil eye jewelry, we’d laugh harder and join in the fun. Back at our beach view home away from home, we’d pass the hours on the rooftop deck chairs sipping homemade cocktails that were appropriately colored for an island vacation watching the sky turn shades to match our cups. The next morning we’d wander down to our favorite beachfront breakfast bar accompanied by some now familiar local dogs; a chain-cigarette-smoking-captian-hat-wearing old timer, and fiery greek waitress who would give us the homemade jewelry off her wrist.
On our last day we set sail for an afternoon tour of the island’s coastline. With a well practiced efficiency, numbed to the joys of their job, the deckhands laid out the rules and retreated inside to prepare lunch. We drifted through the afternoon on the netted bow of the boat, miles away from the group just five feet away from us. We followed the parade of other tour boats around the island, stopped for a swim in volcanic hot spring coves, and snorkeled in enormous schools of fish who had discovered that a sure supply of bread would be tossed form the stern of a sailboat about once an hour. With blueberry yogurts in hand at exactly 8:11 that evening we crested the peninsula of the island for a grand finale of a golden sun setting over the Aegean sea. Four minutes later we effortlessly docked at port and ushered ashore, sunburnt, tired, and happy. The reality in Greece is vastly different than the version that fits within the confines of a 5×7 postcard, or efficiently doled out to tourists who still come to relive a scene from a Hollywood movie set. After all nothing in Greece is as it seems. For the four of us however, neither of those versions of Greece are the ones we’ll remember. A wise man once told us that the beauty of travel is that no matter who goes there after you, or before you, the experience you have can never be re-lived or re-created. The beauty of this trip were not the beaches we walked upon, or the seas we swam, but rather the company we kept and the echo of laughter that stays long after the sun has set.
