Day 9 - Zakynthos

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Today we actually wake up early enough to head off to the island of Zakinthos. The ferry terminal is about one and a half hours north of Kalo Nero in Killini. Ferries go out from here to Kefallonia as well. We decided to take the 10:30am crossing and left the house at 8:30 in order to give ourselves plenty of time. We have to plan on missing turns and having delivery trucks blocking roads for extended periods on one-way streets without anyway to backtrack.

We arrived at the ferry station at 10am, bought our one-way 6.50 E tickets and were able to board immediately. Pedestrian safety is not considered when designing almost anything in Greece. We had to cross 6 ferry traffic lanes to reach the ticket booth and then six more to get back where the boat was crossed. The ferry was comfortable, clean and seemed well maintained, which I can’t say for the ferries we took out of Istanbul, Turkey last year. There is a large, air-conditioned bar/café onboard, but it is full of smoke so we are stuck upstairs in the heat. Luckily we found some shade.

Really, we would have been up in the heat anyway since Daniel begins birdwatching immediately upon opening up our car doors to walk to the ticket booth. “Shearwaters” he says. “There are only two kinds in this area and both are life birds”. You wouldn’t know he was talking to me since he is looking a completely different direction with binoculars up and a focused brow showing. I know. I live this on a fairly regular basis.

The crossing took about 1 ½ hours, though they told us it took just one hour. Daniel searched and searched and no shearwater appeared…until almost to the island. There was one and then two Cory’s Shearwaters. Yippee! At that point, I knew the white knuckled drive to and from the ferry would be forgotten and the hours of tourist trinket shopping that Rachel had in mind on the island would be forgiven. In that moment, Daniel’s day could not turn out anything but great.

We off load and begin to walk to town. We are looking for a hole in the wall restaurant to get a sandwich to feed us all for 5 Euros but have not luck. I’m sure they are there, we just didn’t come across one in our half hour walk. Now we are hot, thirsty and really hungry. We were perfect prey for Dimitri. As we walk down a lane of expensive restaurants geared toward tourists, Dimitri spotted us. He sized up his prey and determined that victory would be his. Then he pounced! “I have extra special food for you my friend. Cooked fresh on the grill by my lovely wife of 20 years”. We begin to say no and move on. Dimitri laughs at our ignorance that we did not know we were already his. His warm smile and over the top salesmanship delivered in a surprisingly genuine way was too much for us. Plus, Daniel had already smelled the meat cooking on the grill so we were definitely goners. The food was definitely good, but not worth the money we paid. However, Dimitri was definitely worth every penny.

The walk north down the waterfront (to the right of leaving the ferry) takes us to tourist heaven. Rachel has more shops to tour than she can count. Since she has just as many friends and family on her shopping list, everything is in balance. Daniel becomes “the wallet” at this point since he is the keeper of her Euros and tries to stay out of the way unless called. I don’t think he got as much rest as he expected.

At this point, we are all hot and want to jump in the ocean. We don’t have enough time to take a bus or taxi to any of their well-known beaches, so we decide to just swim right off the walls in town. Actually, I should say that Daniel and I decide to do that. Rachel, on the other hand, is not so enamored with the idea because it includes changing into bathing suits in public and swimming past slimy rocks to get to the sandy-bottomed waters over our head. I decide the best place to change is next to the old church next to the water. I pull out our beach blanket and have Daniel and Rachel hold it up while I change. We then do the same for Daniel. I’m sure the Greeks laughed at our prudishness. They just get undressed to their underwear and swim in that. In fact, as soon as Daniel and I got in the water, a local woman who was about 60 years old and not very fit came and sat beside Rachel on the steps leading down to the water. She immediately starts and dressing to her underwear and then just sits there enjoying the sun and view. She seemed very friendly and smiled a lot. It are experiences like this that ensures Rachel doesn’t forget she is not in the USA anymore.

We finally get out of the perfectly cool, refreshing water and head back toward the ferry. We had seen an internet café earlier in the day and decide that would be the perfect way to take up the extra 30 minutes before we get back on the ferry to head home. Rachel is frustrated again. None of the internet cafes have fast enough speeds to download our pictures to her sites like Myspace and Facebook. She really wants to make her friends jealous and the written word just isn’t as powerful as a photo of her floating on crystal clear waters, surrounded by sandy beaches and cute waiters.

We take the 4:15 ferry and don’t arrive back to our place until around 7pm. Since we were leaving to Athens the next day, we stayed in and just packed and straightened up the house. However, we couldn’t leave without one last hurrah in our private pool. Rachel and I swam and floated on our inflatables while Daniel went off to town for dinner fixings. Guess what, he brought us back ice cream! He brought the pint of chocolate frenzy ice cream and two spoons right to the pool. Rachel and I proceeded to eat it while we floated in the pool. We both accidentally dropped at least one spoonful into the water. Rachel, not wanting to miss a drop of the dark chocolate, scooped her’s up and plopped it right back into her mouth. We downed the entire carton, giggling and shivering the entire time. Now, this is living!

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