Howling winds wailed (or is it whaled? Sometimes, I actually understand the need for sub-editors) outside our four-berth, two-balconies-for-the-price-of-one apartment. “Oh shit,” I remember thinking, also thinking we might be too far from Tavernas and the beach as we’d been dumped, quickly, in complete darkness by a courier who seemed to be in a rush to get back to his own civilisation (I’d also come without my driving license, cos no man who commutes every day wants to spend his holiday driving). When we finally woke up, the winds still howled around and it seemed unlikely that there was any sunshine on the outside. Until, that is, I threw open one set of balcony doors and realised that we were in a corner of Greek-style heaven. The sun did indeed shine; yes, we were away from all the noise of the town; cattle grazed in a field; a glance to the right revealed a blue ocean; a glance to the left revealed that we were located at the foot of some photogenic mountains. Bliss. We’d got lucky in a way that seemed unlikely when we got involved in a low-budget package holiday bidding war on Going Places.
Against the grain we went to a welcome meeting. Like a lamb to the slaughter, a representative from Air Tours stuttered and stumbled his way through a badly-rehearsed intro-speech. Stefan, for that was the bumbling, nervous fool’s name, had so obviously been in Spain last year. “So, ladies, are you planning on doing a bit of shopping while you’re here in Spa….Greece?” In a boring speech with few highlights (he was struggling from the outset, just offering variations on his ‘ladies go shopping’ line – “so, ladies, will you be going to the market?” “So, ladies, will you be using his credit card?” “So, ladies, bla bla bla”) it quickly became clear that the only reason this man did this job was because he would be otherwise totally unemployable. His only good advice was to hire a bicycle, which we promptly did.
It’s like cross-dressing, isn’t it? Hiring a yellow bike with a shopping basket when sexy mountain bike numbers and quad bikes were available. But, heck, I’m the practical sort keen to fill a basket up with appetite-busting super noodles, hot dogs and bottles of Mythos.
An American woman, Amanda of the Hotel Amanda no less, entertained her few customers by playing Meatloaf. Is there any wonder she ain’t attracting many punters? Actually, this place is very, very quiet. We would ask our waiter in the Christian Restaurant in a couple of nights what gived with the quietness. “Ah,” he pondered, “global terrorism, and the Olympics are keeping people away from us.” “We’ll tell our friends to come,” we told him, just in case he was considering breaking down in tears before he delivered our complimentary Uzos. Comment (0)