Location: Agia Galini
Today was a bad day; I chose not to kayak in the morning, mortified as I still was from the vomiting incident, so Alexis and I rode in the van to our lunch destination, called Palm Beach. We got there early enough that I got some hiking in while Alexis relaxed on the beach. Palm Beach actually has a Greek name, but everyone calls it Palm Beach because there is a palm forest just inland from the coast. Hiking through the palm forest was amazing; I’ve never seen terrain or foliage like that – I wish I hadn’t forgotten my camera in the van!
Here is why it was a bad day: in the isolation of the palm forest, a man overtook me and did things to me before letting me go – not that, but enough to make me feel helpless and degraded. I sobbed to Alexis on the beach and didn’t eat lunch. I was feeling blue enough to spend the rest of the day moping in the van, but as I watched all the people prepping to kayak to Agia Galini, I felt the urge to do something, anything, so that getting touched by a stranger in a forest was not the most remarkable part of my day. So I hopped in a kayak.
Paddling turned out to be quite an adventure when the winds picked up (a steady 15 mph, with sudden long gusts at 25 mph). The rough water took my mind off my bruised feelings and churning stomach, and I was able to make it the whole way without incident (I told myself, “You don’t have time to think or to throw up, you’ll tip over or be blown out to sea!”). I also managed to land and launch my own boat, and jump in while it was floating in the water. Looking back I can remember this with pride, as a counterpoint to this morning’s incident. It set me on the right tracks for a good rest of the day.
Tonight is our last night as a group, and the hotel is swank-eehhh. There’s a shower curtain, and the water can reach tolerable temperatures between scalding hot and Arctic-cold. A lot of the hotels we’ve been in just have an area of the bathroom with a drain in it, and you can only tell it’s a shower by the spigot and the attached sprayer on the wall; you just have to hold it over your head and wash with one hand. Another weird thing about Greek bathrooms: you can’t flush toilet paper; instead you have to put it in the wastebasket provided. At the beginning of the week, I felt this was extremely gross, but I’ve grown to not think about it, and I can remember to throw the TP away about 75% of the time.
I just got back from dinner (prawns in garlic and barracuda). There is talk of going to a nightclub, although I’ve had a long day.
Today was a bad day; I chose not to kayak in the morning, mortified as I still was from the vomiting incident, so Alexis and I rode in the van to our lunch destination, called Palm Beach. We got there early enough that I got some hiking in while Alexis relaxed on the beach. Palm Beach actually has a Greek name, but everyone calls it Palm Beach because there is a palm forest just inland from the coast. Hiking through the palm forest was amazing; I’ve never seen terrain or foliage like that – I wish I hadn’t forgotten my camera in the van!Here is why it was a bad day: in the isolation of the palm forest, a man overtook me and did things to me before letting me go – not that, but enough to make me feel helpless and degraded. I sobbed to Alexis on the beach and didn’t eat lunch. I was feeling blue enough to spend the rest of the day moping in the van, but as I watched all the people prepping to kayak to Agia Galini, I felt the urge to do something, anything, so that getting touched by a stranger in a forest was not the most remarkable part of my day. So I hopped in a kayak.
Paddling turned out to be quite an adventure when the winds picked up (a steady 15 mph, with sudden long gusts at 25 mph). The rough water took my mind off my bruised feelings and churning stomach, and I was able to make it the whole way without incident (I told myself, “You don’t have time to think or to throw up, you’ll tip over or be blown out to sea!”). I also managed to land and launch my own boat, and jump in while it was floating in the water. Looking back I can remember this with pride, as a counterpoint to this morning’s incident. It set me on the right tracks for a good rest of the day.
Tonight is our last night as a group, and the hotel is swank-eehhh. There’s a shower curtain, and the water can reach tolerable temperatures between scalding hot and Arctic-cold. A lot of the hotels we’ve been in just have an area of the bathroom with a drain in it, and you can only tell it’s a shower by the spigot and the attached sprayer on the wall; you just have to hold it over your head and wash with one hand. Another weird thing about Greek bathrooms: you can’t flush toilet paper; instead you have to put it in the wastebasket provided. At the beginning of the week, I felt this was extremely gross, but I’ve grown to not think about it, and I can remember to throw the TP away about 75% of the time.
I just got back from dinner (prawns in garlic and barracuda). There is talk of going to a nightclub, although I’ve had a long day.
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