Our mission required us to work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In order to fullfill this requirement, the squadron was organized into four flights, Able, Baker, Charlie, and Dawg. We worked rotating shifts of four days; one flight on days, one flight on swings, one flight on mids, and one flight on break. That four day break was great!
A bunch of us developed a habit of travelling to one of the various islands in the Aegean which we selected by throwing darts at a map.
One one particular occasion, we had picked the island of Santorini, also known as Thera. We travelled there by ferry boat from Iraklion harbor, and since we had purchased the cheapest tickets to be had, we slept out on deck under the stars, which was phenomenal! Looking up at the sky out at sea and away from all of the city lights was unlike anything I had ever seen. There were more stars than seemed to fit. It was absolutely amazing!
We had picked a spot on the deck right beside a group of tourists who were from Finland. They spoke english very well, and we spent most of the trip talking and joking with them. I liked when they spoke to one another in their own language. The sound of it was unlike anything I had ever heard in my life. Years later, when I began to learn to speak korean, I learned that both the korean language and the finnish language were related to one another, both being ural-altaic languages. (They are both related to Turkish as well... I'm not sure if the Altai were from further east, near mongolia, or whether they moved eastward from the Altaic mountains... but, there it is).
We arrived at Santorini early in the morning, just after dawn. A mist hung over lower portion of the island, but the visibility on the higher elevations was crystal clear. The white washed houses, churches and other buildings gleamed golden in the morning sunlight. Here and there, sky blue domes glistened. There were a number of us on this trip, and we lined the railing of the ferry in awed silence as got our first glimpse of our destination. Santorini was absolutely beautiful!
The Caldera
In the center of the harbor was a ring of islands that are all that remains of the single island that was once Thera. The island is volcanic, though it has remained relatively quiet for quite some time. (NOTE: What follows here is a short blurb about the history of this island. It sounds vaguely encyclopedic and boring, but it's short, I promise. This island, and the volcanic eruption that occurred here, some scientists believe, is the basis for the Atlantis myths, so the history is pretty cool. In any case, read on, there's sodomy later, I promise!)The volcano erupted in the year 1,650 B.C.E, around the late bronze age, and was one of the largest eruptions in the last 10,000 years. It devastated the Mediterranean. When the volcano blew up, about 7 cubic miles of magma was erupted. The estimated height of the plinian column during the initial phase of the the eruption was about 23 miles high. The removal of such a large volume of magma caused the volcano to collapse, producing the caldera. Ash fell over a large area in the eastern Mediterranean and Turkey. Many scholars now believe that the falling ash combined with tidal waves and other phenomena which occurred as a result of that eruption was what most probably ended the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete.
Fira (Phira). Looking out over the harbor. That's me on the right.
Saying our farewells to our friends from Finland as we disembarked from the ferry, we made our way down the gangplank and milled about on the dock for awhile trying to decide what we should do next until we were approached by a man who offered to take us up the side of the mountain on his train of donkeys. We haggled with him and arrived at a price, loaded our gear, which consisted of backpacks and coolers, mainly, onto the backs of a string of donkeys, and then each of us mounted one of the unladen beasts, and were led up the long zigzagging roadway that was cut in terraces up the side of the huge mountain to the city of Fira, which overlooked the harbor area.
Phira
Donkey Jam
Once at the top, we unloaded the animals, and cast about for an idea of where to go and what to do next. (As a rule, we never pre-planned any of our trips. We simply took each thing as it came, and reacted accordingly. As we were standing around discussing our next step, we were approached by two Aussie SAS soldiers who were on leave and wandering around Greece, who asked if they could put their beer in our 'eskies' (coolers) for a while to cool as we stood around yapping. We started joking and laughing with these guys, and they suggested a particularly nice beach called Perissa on the other side of the island. They offered to show us the way, and we invited them to stay with us during the time we would be there. So we all shouldered our packs, picked up our end of the cooler, and trundled off in search of the perfect beach.
Perissa Beach
When we arrived at the beach, we wasted no time in choosing a spot to set up camp. We laid out our blankets, which covered a huge area, and on top of them at the intersections of four blankets, we placed our coolers, backpacks, food bags, shoes, clothes, and other detritus.
The first two days were spent swimming and sunning, and the nights were spent drinking and laughing, for the most part.
The beach was fantastic, black volcanic sand, crystal clear water, tuquoise colored near shore, deepening to the color of blue glass as it got deeper off-shore. There were small islets scattered about, and on the north-eastern side of the beach, a cliff breathtakingly rose up hundreds of feet over everything. It was a stunningly gorgeous place.
The Cliffs that We Jumped From...
Before long, we were challenging one another in contests of skill and daring, both in the water and out. We swam out to a merchant ship that was sitting at anchor approximately 1000 yards off-shore. Under cover of darkness, we climbed up the anchor chain and slipped silently onto the deck. We prowled around on that old rust bucket for about 20 minutes, but were unable to stay inside the cabin due to the absolutely nauseating smell of body odor and rotting food and garbage. We postulated that it was a pretty effective method of keeping pesky mischievous off-duty servicemen away, which started one of the guys on a giggle-fit, which soon spread to all of us. We didn't even know what the hell was so funny, but we were rolling on the deck in hysterics when an irate or frightened crew member emerged from below, obviously wanting to know what the hell we were doing aboard his ship. We wasted no time diving overboard and making the swim back to shore by swimming most of the way underwater and only surfacing briefly to breathe when necessary. I don't think that unwelcomed sneaking around aboard ship counts as piracy, but I don't think we should have been where we were... but, we were 19 and showing our asses, basically... what can I say??
The next day, we started climbing up the face of the cliff that overlooked the beach, and jumping into the water. As we became more and more familiar with the area, we grew more and more confident, and, consequently egged one another on to climb higher and higher before we jumped. Pretty soon, we were jumping from high enough up the cliff that the water started feeling very unwaterlike. (Basically, it felt like you were about to smack your asshole up around your neck... and stopped being a whole lot of fun). We found some caves to swim into, but they were small and we quickly grew bored with them, and began climbing the cliff again. By this time, all but two of us; Zach and I, had given up on hurling themselves into the water from great heights and one by one, peeled off and headed back to the campsite on the beach for some sun, some food, or some drink.. or just about anything that didn't involve ending up with one's testicles hanging around ones ears and four gallons of salt water up jetted up the nose. Zach and I climbed higher and higher, and finally reached the very top. The view was breathtaking, and we could see for miles and miles.
The View from the Top!
We began wandering around atop the cliff, enjoying the view and exploring the area. We came across some ruins, that we later learned were ancient Thera, and continued hiking for about five miles.
The Ruins of Ancient Thera
As we were making our way along a ridge line, the ground suddenly gave out beneath us creating a hole approximately 8 feet wide by 6 feet wide , and we both dropped about 15 feet and landed in a pile of rocks and dirt. Other than getting scraped and banged up a bit, we were both unharmed, though we had some fun trying to get the dirt out of our eyes, noses, and mouths... Once the dust settled, we started looking around us and were both surprised and excited (not to mention somewhat distressed) to find that we had inadvertently stumbled across what looked like an archaeological dig. There were buildings and other antiquities all around us, and we had just knocked a hole in the ceiling. At first, we thought it was pretty cool to be able to wander around and look at everything, but, after about an hour, we started seriously wondering if we would be able to get the hell out of there. As it got later, we got hungrier, and the temperature dropped enough to make us slightly uncomfortable (we hadn't completely dried out from swimming earlier..). After we had been down there for approximately two hours, a head appeared over the rim of the hole we had made, and the owner of the head, a local man, apparently, began yelling at us and beckoning us to come up out of there, repeatedly shouting "Ella do!.. ella! ella!" With a mix of languages, pantomime, and dawning common sense, the man finally came to realize that we had no means by which to get the hell out of there. (By this time, we were well ready to be shut of the place).
Akrotiri
He spoke at length to us, gesticulating and gesturing furiously... we didn't understand a word, and then he disappeared.
We had no idea what had just transpired, but we both agreed that it didn't seem to be a good thing.
Within about 35 minutes, the head appeared, along with two others. The two others were somewhat worrisome, as they were both wearing police headgear.
They wasted no time in lowering a ladder down to us and beckoning us to come up and out of the hole. Zach was first up the ladder, and as he reached the top, one of the police officers grabbed him none to gently, and hauled him away from the ladder. As I reached the top few rungs, I got the same treatment. I had time to see the civilian removing the ladder from the hole as we were half pushed half dragged about a quarter of a mile to a small block house that turned out to be a police sub-station. They questioned us for awhile in Greek, which got nobody anywhere, and then they tried some useful American phrases on us, such as "Hello Mr. Monkey", and "You better believe it, baby!", which, under the circumstances were surreal and disturbing. I started to have "Midnight Express" flashbacks, and began to think that my Greek was about to get a whole lot better over the next few years of my prison sentence. One of the police officers picked up a phone and said a few terse phrases into it, then sat back, hands folded on his belly, and smiled at me. I just knew he was thinking of thrashing the bottoms of my feet with a night stick (I pretty much thought that beating feet was starting to sound like a great idea, too!), and sodomizing me. Just when my heart was about to crawl out of my throat and take up residence under my tongue, a 12 year old school boy walked in carrying a notebook and two dictionaries; an English-Greek, and Greek English... both of them, thankfully, with english lettering as well as greek.
Through him, the police asked us what we were doing there, and why we didn't obey the signs. We explained that we hadn't seen any signs, and they said that there were signs all round. We repeated that we never saw a sign anywhere, and they asked us which direction we came from. When we told them, they said that nobody could come from that direction because its all cliffs and rough terrain, and we told them that we had climbed the cliffs, walked down the slope from Pirassa, and had followed a road, and then climbed up this mountain from the cliff side. They made circular "You're out of your gourd" signs with their fingers, and after awhile, accepted our story. They explained that the site was an important archaeological site, and that in the twelve or so years that the archaeologists had been working there, nobody had ever come from the direction that we came from. They told us that antiquities could be easily damaged and that we should stay away from such areas. We assured them that we had no idea that we were in a restricted area and apologized. One of the police officers asked me if I liked Frank Sinatra, and began singing something that could have been "I get a kick out of you", but nobody would ever be sure. I figured it would only be politic to respond with a verse from "New York, New York", and before long the greek men were all singing and dancing and calling us "Felos" (friend). They insisted that we come back to their village when they got off duty, and they packed up half the village on an assortment of cars and three-wheeled farm vehicles that we (Americans) dubbed "Manoli Carts" and gave us a ride back to Perissa Beach.
Our new friends were introduced to the rest of our party, and the whole group took over an entire restaurant for the whole night. They found some musicians somewhere and the party went on until well after 3AM.
The police officers each insisted that Zach and I dance with them, and we both got kisses and hugs when it was time to say farewell, which, to my line of reasoning, beats getting sodomized and beaten with a night stick any day!!
1 comment:
You have some great adventures.
I hope that some day I look back at what I am/have been doing and have similar stories. Because they don't seem all that exciting right now.
Anyways, keep them coming. I enjoy reading. It helps me procrastinate.
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