Log of Greece, Day 5

[janestarz]

With my latest yaoúrt me méli only recently devoured, I set myself to writing another Livejournal update. The méli, honey, tastes distinctly of flowers on a sunny afternoon of the southern slopes of mt. Dikios, but I could, geographically speaking at least, be a bit off the rocker there.
We rented bicycles and explored the Lambi beach as far as Tingáki. The north shore of the island features white sand as a beach, and near all the hotels Greek people are found scraping leaves and rubble off it, in preparation of the main tourist season. In Lambi, they had practically sievved a beachvolleybal court, adding fresh sand after removing bits of palm tree, leaves, glass and whatnot.
For the Greeks, it is still cold and they regard us as if we were mad when we were lying by the pool. Weather reports said it could rain today, and with only 23°C it is nowhere near the temperatures of the high season. Still, when we were driving through Tingáki and Zipári, we were nearly afloat in our own sweat. Perhaps the jeans and longsleeves were a bit pessimistic. Maybe me stopping every other 100 meters to take yet another interestingly composed macro-picture of an as of yet unknown flower in varying colour did not help either.
Pictures (and flowers) aplenty.

I do have to admit it was quite an interesting sight, and now we know how a snake crosses the road. Slitheringly. It wasn't very big (maybe 70 cm long, and some 4 cm in circumference with black skin and no other interesting extremeties beside the fact that it would be the ffirst live wild snake I ever saw), but it was strange to look on it. After being warned for scorpions, I never thought of this paradise having any snakes. It opens up remarkable avenues of near-terror though.
Of course, no matter where you stow your camera, in cases like these, the snake is always faster. It had found a nice dry riverbed where it could hide between rocks, grasses, wildflowers and -probably- all sorts of dangerously coloured beetles it would call lunch, before I could even turn my backpack around and fumble for the zipper. I bet it was having a blast there though. Why else would it cross the road? (why else indeed?)

Comments

[silverseabear.livejournal.com]

Snake was probably laying on the road for the warmth. And you probably scared the poor wee thing, racing up on your big rolling thing and reaching for a bag, presumably to stuff poor wee Snake into. No wonder he ran away.

Greece sounds very lovely. I'm looking forward to pics. And stories of ouzo. Where's the ouzo?

[janestarz.livejournal.com]

NoKey doesn't drink any alcohol at all. The closest he will get to having alcohol is having mushrooms in white wine, but the alcohol is all gone from that. I like wine, but I'm not particularly fond of ouzo.
I've had a glass of metaxa pressed upon me, and I only have one word for that: "bocht".