Getting Lost in a Small Greek Village-A Short Story

The Gen X Travels

7 months ago

We do love driving in Greece, and although my part of driving is navigating, I think we do pretty well, usually. Although we do occasionally lose our way, this small Greek village really put us in a tizzy.

We had just left the parking area at Agiofarago, Crete, after having hiked the gorge and swum in the sea. I was feeling refreshed and ready to continue exploring. I suggested we take the backroads on our way to Elounda. Steve agreed it would be fun to drive through the more remote areas and enjoy the countryside. We put the windows down and enjoyed the wind in our hair and the bright blue Greek skies above us. It was a beautiful, sunshiny day, and the smells of Cretan herbs floated through the windows. Occasionally, we would see a goat here and there or at least hear the tinkling of their bells.

The road was unimproved, rough and packed dirt. Driving was slow as we climbed out of the canyon, up towards the mountainous ridge. As we approached the summit and drove around the bend, we enjoyed some beautiful views of the Libyan Sea below. As always, I love the slight contrast of the blue sea meeting the blue sky. Back down again and heading north, we drove through some small villages. I never caught their names, but they all were lovely.

After driving awhile, we approached yet another Greek village. As we pulled into the small square, Google directed us left, but which left was the question. There appeared to be two roads going left, two roads veering right, and one kind of going straight but a bit left.

We chose the road that appeared to be middle left. We drove past a kafenion with several folks waving and shouting at us as we commented on how friendly the people from Crete are. Being the friendly folks as well, we waved back, yelling “yasas” to the group. Up a steep hill we went as the road quickly became narrower until it would have been impossible to move forward. We backed up into an alley or driveway and turned around. Well, it was obvious to us we took the wrong left; it was evident that the locals, who were now laughing as we went past, were trying to tell us that was the wrong way. I would guess we weren’t the first xenos to do this.

We continued straight “ish” on what we thought was the road we came in on, thinking we would try again. But once again, we were wrong; this was definitely not the road we drove in on. As we went up yet another steep hill, on yet another narrow road, much to our dismay, we found ourselves at a dead end. With such a narrow street, turning around was no easy task. Backing down all the way didn’t seem like a great idea either. In front of us was a building. To the left it was open and straight down onto a roof, and to the right was a parked truck up against more buildings. What a dilemma.

Carefully, Steve tried to back up and started to make a 21-point turn. Of course, this was even more difficult with the automatic we rented. He went forward, cursed, turned slightly, cursed, backed up, cursed, turned again, cursed, and continued trying to inch his way out of this. All in all, I was impressed; he didn’t kill the engine, hit anything, or go off the edge. I decided to jump out to help direct him so he didn’t back off the road and land on top of a roof. Plus, I felt much safer not being in the vehicle.

About this time, a man who had been painting a wall and silently watching came over to help. He told Steve, “Ella, Ella, Ella,” while motioning to pull forward, then back. After a few ups and backs, the guy directed Steve to stop; he then went and moved the parked truck. Not sure if he did this to give Steve more room or if he didn’t want his truck hit.

Finally, after painfully getting the car turned, we could be on our way. Always excited to practice my rudimentary Greek, I asked the gentleman, “Pou ene Elounda?” He gave me a look like maybe I wasn’t making sense (I get this look a lot when I try to speak Greek). So I asked, “Milate Anglika?” He smiled, shrugged, and voiced, “Ochi.” He shrugged again and said, “Ligo.” So I showed him my map and asked again, “Pou ene Elounda?” while pointing at Elounda. He replied, “ochi ochi ochi” while shaking his head. I assumed we were definitely on the wrong route. He thought for a second and then gave me directions, in Greek, while pointing down the hill and gesturing with his right hand.

We thanked him and went on our way. Steve voiced he thought the gentleman wanted us to go right. So once again we passed the group in the kafenion, who glanced up, saw it was us again, and just shook their heads, muttering to each other. We saw a couple on a motorcycle coming down from our first wrong way, and they did a U-turn to the right, so we followed them. They seemed to look like they knew what they were doing. Nope, they didn’t. They stopped, turned around, and asked us, in broken English, if we knew where the road to Heraklion was. We told them we were trying to find a road to Elounda.

Back we went past the kafenion where the old men glanced up and now appeared bored with us as we once again drove by. By this point, we weren’t even sure which roads we had already tried. We saw the road we came in on; this time we were sure it was the road we came in on. Back on this road, we drove out of the village, turned around, drove back to the square to see if maybe we could give Google Maps another try. Of course, by now, Google Maps was no help and spinning its little arrow like a top.

While slowly driving back into town, at the square, almost to the kafenion, an older lady dressed in black was standing in the street pointing to the road we needed to take! We yelled “efcharisto” and off we went. Obviously we had overstayed our welcome in this tiny Greek village. Not sure what happened to the motorcycle couple, perhaps they are still there?

Once on the right road Steve told me to Google the nearest highway towards Elounda. He was totally done with this off the road adventure. I for one can’t wait to return to Crete this year and find more Greek village adventures!

*Cover image is AI generated.