"We're Lost"

Dear Reader,

When driving in Europe, especially in a country where you don't understand the language at all, you just have to roll with the punches and laugh off your misfortunes and make the most of it. John and I have been getting lost behind the wheel for over twenty years now and even with the addition of Garmin, our worldwide GPS system, we still do.

Just three years ago we were driving for the first time in Greece, which I must admit was frightening because of the language difference. We had picked up our car in Corinthos on the Peleponnese and were headed to a tiny hill town called Dimitsana. But first, we were in Corinthos to visit the great Roman ruins of the ancient city before getting on our way. The ruins are fairly close and fairly well posted. To my joy and relief most signs are in both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. We still got a bit lost driving around a small town at the foot of Corinthos but Garmin eventually got us up there and the sight is definitely worth visiting. Raised high on a hill the ancient city was once a port city conquered by Julius Caesar and remade in his Roman image. The forum and the baths are very easy to make out as well as several temples which are partially standing. High above Corinthos stands the ancient acropolis, a giant walled fortress built to protect Corinthos. We didn't have time to go up there but it was something to see even from below.

Our real trouble began when we left Corinthos to drive to Dimitsana. There are two major highways to Dimitsana, one a northern coastal route which is not convenient because you have to cut due south through a mountain range, and the other a southern coastal route which is much faster and easier. Guess which one we took? You guessed right, we took the northern coastal route.

It was really crazy because we headed off from Corinthos in the correct direction according to Garmin as well as the map but what we didn't realize was that we were supposed to turn around and head the opposite way on the highway when we first were merging.

We were racing along in our little car while I was learning to drive like a Greek and John was trying to make out the signs. I learned quickly that you only drive in the left lane when passing and then jump immediately into the right lane. This is typical around Europe so that was nothing new to me but passing when there are only 2 lanes and on-coming traffic was a whole new experience for me. The Greek drivers don't care if there's any on-coming traffic. The car they are passing is expected to pull over to the right as far as possible which means usually driving on the shoulder. This makes it possible for three cars to be passing each other all at once with only two lanes. I thought John would have a heart attack the first time I tried and also the first time I pulled way over to the right to allow another car to pass but when in Greece, you've got to drive like a Greek to survive. I have always enjoyed driving fast so this suited me well, driving with the gas pedal all the way down and passing cars in and out of traffic. I don't think this suits John very well at all as a passenger, especially when he'd say "Your going to kill us".

Finally we saw the coast line and John got worried. He started saying "It's on the wrong side." I asked what he meant by that and he said "The ocean. It's on the wrong side. It should be on our left side, not our right side." I'm thinking, "He's lost his mind finally.". We kept racing along while John, who was furiously ripping the giant Michelin Map apart trying to find out where we were and yelling at me to read the signs to him, announced that we were lost. Darn, and I was making such good time. We agreed that I should exit at the next exit so we could figure out where we were and what to do about it.

This took a long time. There are not very many exits on that particular highway, though there had been quite a few before we started looking. When we finally came to an exit I took it and immediately was on a main suburbian street with a concrete divider in the middle. John said to pull over so I took the first right into a dead-end street, of course. He decided approximately where we were and that we had somehow gotten onto the northern coastal road by accident. He said we only had two choices, either go all the way back to Corinthos and start over again or take the scenic mountain pass due south which was only a few miles back. We both agreed it would take too long to go all the way back to Corinthos so we decided to go back and find the exit for the southern pass. Not even this was an easy task. I couldn't turn left when I exited the dead-end street and had to go right. I drove and drove but there were no left turns possible. So I jumped the divider scraping the undercarriage of our little car. I really get creative when driving in foreign countries and no one seems to mind, except John, but even he was on-board this time.

Amazingly, Garmin took us directly to the exit which was only about 3km back in the direction we had come. At first it was lovely and green and hilly but then we started to climb. We climbed and climbed until we were in nosebleed altitude. The road became very narrow and curvy and there was a sheer drop off on the driver's side down to the most beautiful green valley with a blue lake that I may have ever seen anywhere. There were wildflowers growing on the hillside to my right and down below as well in every color of the rainbow. Broom, a green bush with bright yellow flowers, grows along the roadside like a weed. I was amazed by all of the color and the greenness of the mountains themselves. It got gloomy and gray and we realized we were driving in a cloud. This can't be Greece! It seemed more like the mountains in New Zealand.

I was very tense on the entire drive, which took four hours, because my little car didn't have much power and if I drove too slowly it would die on me, which was terrifying. So I tried to keep up a decent pace. I really wanted to pull over somewhere just to gaze at the sheer beauty and take some photos but there were no turnouts so on we went. On one sharp curve a goat leaped onto the road right in front of me. I nearly had a heart attack but managed to brake in time. It continued across the tiny road and leaped off the side. That was really freeky. Then a whole heard of goats along with the goatheard casually walked across the road, or rather jumped. I'd never seen anything like this before. They all went right over the side as if it weren't a sheer drop. It was really cool and I wish every day that I had my camera ready to take a picture.

Several times after we reached the valley, Garmin took us in the wrong direction. The problem was that every town we were looking for started with a K and the names were all very similar. Sometimes the signs were only in Cyrillic which, of course, looked like a bunch of geometric designs to me, so we had no idea what towns we drove by. We found a restaurant in the middle of nowhere and had some over cooked chicken and asked for directions. The owner looked at us when we first walked in as if we came from the moon. I guess they don't get a lot of Americans through that way. We took her advice and backtracked a bit and got lost again. At which point John and I turned to each other to say one of our phrases "We're Lost". This always makes us laugh and helps to defuse the stress. We've been using this saying for a long time now and it still works.

We ended up in a tiny steep village with parked cars on both sides and lots of people and dogs out walking and we had to stop numerous times to get past them. Finally when I ended up at someone's house I asked in my Greek for the town we were looking for and he gave us good directions which we followed. We finally found it and took our exit for the highway to Dimitsana. This was worth a "Life is Worth Living Again" verse or two so we sang.

The highway was huge, flat and spooky for lack of traffic. I raced along as fast as my little car would go. Then it ended at another small town. We continued to follow the signs for Olympia at this point because that was our direction and ended up on another giant flat highway which looked just like the one we had just left. We thought, humm, maybe they haven't yet finished this one portion through town, or the town insists that everyone go through town so they can sell them things or the police can give them speeding tickets. Anyway, off we went going as fast as possible. We had just spent at least an extra four hours that we had planned to spend in Dimitsana so we were in a hurry. Suddenly the car started to fly, literally, and then we landed with a thud on unpaved highway which was about six inches lower and mixed with gravel. Yikes! That really woke us up if we had been asleep. I continued to drive to the next round-about and then pulled over while we both scratched our heads wondering what the hell was that? We're lost just didn't seem to get it at this point. We were both mad. We checked out the car and it seemed fine so we decided to get off this crazy highway and drive the frontage road instead.

Low and behold, a few miles further down the road there was another on-ramp for the highway and also cars racing along it so we decided to take a chance and drive on it again. It is apparent now, looking back, that we had been driving on an unfinished highway for several miles before we hit the unfinished part. We had had no idea, of course, because it wasn't cordoned off or had any warning signs of any kind.

Finally our exit to Dimitsana came and we were glad to be on a smaller hilly road again until we reached the part where it got so narrow and had such a sheer drop that there were accidents everywhere. All along the road we saw cars smashed toghether, hanging off the side, and one time the car was down at the bottom of the cliff. I was really biting my nails by this point and honking my horn on every curve just to warn on-coming traffic. The problem with the Greek driver is that he drives the same way on the tiny roads as he does on the highways. Every other curve I turned had two cars coming at me side by side even though it was only a two lane road, one that didn't even have a middle line. I'm sure John was having the same thoughts that I was by this time, mainly that we would have been there by now relaxing over happy hour and this terrifying drive long over.

By some miracle we made it. The view of Dimitsana as we turned our first curve into sight was fabulous. I had to pull over and take some pictures. The town is very ancient and mostly dates from the thirteenth century and looks like it's about to fall off the mountain. The mountain is very green and just covered with wildflowers. It was everything I had imagined including the very narrow cobbled streets.

Upon arrival we were told to go to the first bar and call our landlord so he could take us to our B&B. There are no street addresses in Dimitsana. I got no answer on my phone so we asked inside the bar if they knew our landlord and the waiter did. He called the landlord's brother who arrived on foot to greet us. He told us where to go and said he'd meet us there. I offered him a lift but he refused. He walked us to the first right turn and then pointed. The street was very steep and so narrow I had to push the side mirrors in to keep them.

When we got to the B&B there was a sheer drop off on the right side and no room to pull over. Of course, a car came behind me and started honking because I had stopped in the middle of the road. I didn't know what to do so I told John to get out with our bags and go inside and I would drive back around. This he did and I took off assuming that the road was a type of ring road which would go around the cliff and come back to the center of town again. I was wrong, of course.

The road dead-ended and turned to dirt in the direction I thought it should go so I took a chance at the V intersection where this happened and went right over a very sharp ledge and went racing almost straight downhill. When I got to the bottom I saw a family getting out of their car in their driveway and they were staring at me too because I was on another dead-end street. I didn't know what to do but turn around. The problem was no space to turn around. The man approached me and offered to help. I was glad for assistance! He offered to drive me up the hill so I accepted. He really had to reve the little engine to get it to go forward after he had reversed it down a steep ditch to make his U turn. His wife and mother or mother-in-law were watching and yelling at him because he almost backed into a tree and then when he pulled forward he almost hit another house post because of the poor turn ratio of my car. But he made it and had to reve it all the way to the top so we wouldn't slide backwards.

He then told me how to get back to the B&B and where the parking was, which actually was on a ring road on the opposite side of town but not far away at all. By the time I got back to the B&B the landlord's brother was waiting with keys and instructions and a parking permit and more directions. I found the lot first try and his parking space and got out of the little car shaking all over and exhausted. I climbed back up a steep street, only slipping once on the cobblestones and found John already unpacking in our wonderful room with a loft.  I told him I needed a drink now. Packing could wait.

We both walked back down the steep cobbled street to the corner store and bought a refreshing chilled bottle of Greek white wine, took it back to our place and sat on our private patio which was paved with pink stones which matched the house and had a round table and chairs. There were wine glasses in the B&B and we sat there gazing at the mountains looming all around us and the red tile rooftops and we sang "Life is Worth Living Again."

Avrio