greece and the clandestini

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i leave the ship into the portbuilding.
that's new, because once upon the boats used to dock on the towns promenade. 'round the port there's barbed-nato-wire everywhere, and i remember the drunk truckdriver from frankfurt from yesterday night, who told me that in patras you cannot park your truck anymore, 'cause all the time these poor refugees cut open the cover of your trailer to smuggle themselves to italy.
in the port i get myself a phonecard first & some postcards to write for boring afternoons on the highway. the place is brandnew and modern, and open all nite.
i take a quick call to cold niedersachsen, and only 3 cents later i know my direction is right. then i phone to the family and with the leftover units to a friend who's postcode i'm missing for writing postcards on boring afternoons on the highway, and then i finally leave into town. across the street there's a turkish travelagent, who's telling me in best german that the busstation is right and the highway left, and the internetcafe on the corner to the busstation. the internetplace is too lazy to start one of the computers, and the bus goes only tomorrow morning at 10, so i try the highwayexit of the port. on my way there i see dusty arabianlooking young couples and groups of people strolling down the promenade and parkings in dark clothes. as a policebus with barred windows and 30 empty seats drives by howling it's siren, the dozands of suspiciously unsuspiciouslooking young arabs disappear running into all kinds of directions, hiding behind cars, trucks, constructionsiteruins and trashcontainers. the cops drive by, and 2 mionutes later the refugees start strolling and watching again. i greet with a frindly salam aleikum and get one back immediately. funny place.
on the highwayentry there's no traffic at all, every 20 minutes someone with an old rusty fiat without exhaustpipe diasppears into town and comes back some minutes later, but apart from that there's no traffic at all, and the one truck importing old cars from germany that i've seen before on our ship drives by and disappears into the night.
next to my point there's a constructionsite behind the highway, and some bushes standing behind the crashbarrier. behind, there'S no fire or anything, but you hear arab talking very quietly sometimes. sometimes couples of darkdressed people trying to look like constructionworkers disappear into the gate of the port when the police is busy controlling the trailers of the trucks entering, apart from that it's suspiciously silent. after an hour or so the next ship disappears to italy, and a dozand of the darkdressed people trying to look like constructionworkers appear on the constructionsite of the port, leaving the gates towards the place behind the bushes behind the highway.
three of them see me and come over to ask for cigarettes, i have some from busking last night on the upper decks bar on the boat, i greet with a friendly salam aleikum and get one back, and when they hear that i come from germany they ask if i do by any chance have some change for the breakfast. ali, sahid und muhammed come from marocco, they want to go to europe, and they are wayting for a truck like me. they are really great people, with beautiful eyes and full of hope for a good future. i recommend them italy instead of germany. because it's less cold, with the climate and the people. they accept the recommendation and wish me a friendly desbach alacher, i wish them a good night too an they disappear into the bushland behind the highway. some of their colleagues come stepping over the crashbarrier a bit further down the highway out of sight of the police, then the greek night turns silent again and a cool mist comes rising up the hill behind me from the bay.
after another halfhour or so i give up, even the refugees are gone, so i think there's no more ships the next hours and i decide to deserve a bed.
i walk downtown, the intenetpeople are still lazing in their posh uptownbarchairs, an old neighbour of something writing hostel gets woken up by me trying to find their door on his balcony, one hotel wants ridiculous 60 marks without breakfast from me, so i decide to first deserve a portion of fries from a nice granma just cleaning up her snackbar, and a beautiful fried saganaki-cheese, i start to like greece again. the other hotels are all pretending to be full or expensive, so finally i end up at the akropolis, where they have rooms for 17 and 35 euros. after i have seen the room for 17 i decide that 35 is a fair price, and i get to sleep with a beautiful italian cigarette from buskin' last night in a spotless bed after a perfect warm shower in a perfect new bathroom, with my empty posh fridge next to me surring me into my dreams. decadence can be so beautiful at times when you're a hitchhiker.

in the morning the telephone wakes me up, and the friendly receptionist tells me that in geece it's 12 o'clock already, and time to check out before the cleaner finishes her shift. i promise to come in 10 minutes, pack my backpack and bring the keys and the codecard for the cable-tv to the counter. the receptionist recommends me the bar downstairs for breakfast, so i step outside, get mesmerized by the sparkling sea on the other side of the promenade, and go to the beach. after i feel too hungry to even be able to swim i decide for some apples from the vespa-vendor on the other side of the street, they're free, and a coffee in the uselessly posh cornerbar. it'S 1euro 50 for a coffe, that used to be 50 drachmas last time, and noone used to write illy on the cups, or filter it. anyway it's good enough to wake me up, and i go back to my place on the beach. the water's so warm that you can simply walk into, and at home it's raining cold since august, greece in the middle of october is definitely worth the 2000km-deviation. i take a beautiful swim with the old rusty steamers next to me and the sun drying my bones after, and i'm so impressed with the place that i spend the tme drying photographing a half filmroll full of postcardviews, with the beach, the beach and my feet, the beach and my backpack and guitar, and the beach with my backpack, guitar, and my rubberduck, since all my other swimmingmates are somewhere freezing stubbornly behind the sea, and the alps, too.
after some hours of caring for my tan i walk back downtown, sifis grillroom doesn't sound tempting, but the bakery has some expensive croissants au chocolat melting in the sunshine. i walk back to my place on the highway, but it's so quite there that even the refugees stay sleeping in their hideaways. after an hour of trying to flirt with the austrian truckdriveress on the opposite lane i get bored and join the cops and the customsofficers in the port for their siesta. i find out there's the next ships coming at 7 and 10 in the evening, it's 5 only, and the whole town stays in wait for it's next 10 minutes of being a great international metropolis, from 19h00 to 19h10, before everyone enters the new e.u.-highway and the plaace becomes the end of the world again. i walk downtown to check my letters, but the internatplace has it's connection since midday, so they send me further downtown to the concurrents. on the way some of the clandestini greet me, apparently i'm getting adopted. the citycentre is really beautiful, 70s socialistrealist arcitecture with little bazarshops inbetween, and a internetcafe with fat rich local children listening to trancetechno in blacklight on the end of it, with tanned old men playing backgammon in the coffeeshop next door, geece is a funny place in time and space these days. the rastaman behind the counter gets me a computer and a instant-icecoffee for a euro each, and i write some friendly messages to the poor people freezing stubbornly behind the alps. when i get back the sun is setting over the bay and the remarkably goodlooking neighbour of sifi sells me a big graesy pita patates for a euro twenty, these greek somehow never consider veggi food as a meal and if you're lucky they price it as a sideorder. as the dusk breaks me and the clandestini are back on the highway, the next ship comes from patras, so noone really leaves here, and at 10, 1 and 3 there's more boats coming. sometimes when i get bored i walk over to the port to check the timetable, inbetween i make friends with some of the refugees entering and leaving the port by the constructionsites gate. one of the maroccan guys has ben working black in italy before, so he introduces his travellinggroup to me in best italian. the guys come from sudan, kurdish northern irak and iran, and lots of maroccans, because here it's safer to get close to europe without someone trying to shoot your zodiac. even better than patras, because the police are not too violent and they don't have the money to deport most immigrants. we talk a lot about work, and getting papers, and about navigation and the chances of sneaking into a truck to italy. my mate tells me that in marocco they only earn 5 euros a day, but that the prices have risen so much that you cannot live with that anymore, and that his wife and child are there waiting. his brother is working without papers in bologna, and he likes to go there again, too. i recommend him to not continue to germany, it's too cold with the climate and the people. he tells me that he's heard that the germans pay up to 60 a day, and here it's only 35 and impossible to get a job at all, even as a farmhand with the albanians, i tell him that the germans in opposition to the italians they never pay more than 35 for his work to someone without papers, or even from the east of the country. he starts to like tuscany even better, and i have to say he's right. the sudanese people want to go all the way to norway, because according to the rumour they even give papers to people willing to work.
they're all 'round 18-30, only men, with friendly and curious faces, the eyes of dreamers willing to try their luck, and some of them speaking their first westerneuropean. they tell me that there's around a hundred immigrants hiding 'round town, most of them have walked over the mountains, some since istanbul, they're here since 3 months, trying to get on a ship without risking their live, and the maroccan guy tells that in another 3 months he'll maybe have himself deported to visit the family, in case he's not arrived in italy then. as the next trucks head into the port they continue their way, looking like constructionworkers as usual, and only disclosing their secret by walking together in the brotherly style that arabs do.
when i getbored and cold in the night i find out that the waitingroom of the port stays open even for whites without a ticket, so i take the privilege and find out how to switch closed the automatic doors letting the wind and the customsofficers in. i sleep a while, get woken up once by a shipengine at 5, hitch some 10 cars sucesslessly, go back to sleep, and finally see the morningferry coming in at 7 while having a ni´ce greek coffee for 300 drachmas as usual in a posh bar as usual, anyway they're open 24 hours and they're the only heated place in the port.
the sleepy drivers rush by without stopping, nut on the end of the parking i find someone coming out of one of the offices, heading to his mercedes815truck with german export-numberplates from heilbronn, next to my aunt's place. the guy is 'round 50, his name is costas, and he's driving to katherini half an hour before thessaloniki. i'm impressed.
he takes me to the mountains up the beautful posh e.e.c.-highway, that ends in a 200km-constructionsite 30km further. the ride trough the villages is much nicer, we're filling up and having coffee and i learn hello and thanks and coffee and nescafe and sugar in greek, then we wind up into the mountains to over 2000 metres, having spectacular views over autumny red and orange greek forests and then naked rock arriving on the tops. in ioannia there's a beautiful lake with an island hiding in the fog, sorrily a lidl-supermarket looking like an ufo in this town doesn't, and then we continue back up onto even more spectacular mountains. the mercedes winds up bravely, in the 7-metre-fridge on it's back there's my luggage, my guitar, and another mercedes vito van tied up. we make a race with old scania trucks and busloads of archeology-tourists in their 60s, and around noon in a nearly abandoned place over the mountains we stop for lunch. the mauntainrestaurant must have remained unchanged since a hundred years, theres a 3-metre fireplace with a big copper-chimney making it's middle and barbecue-equipment lying on the stones around it. the only new thing in the house is a taiwanese ghettoblaster playing sirtaki. we have a wonderful pita with homemade feta and vegetables from the garden, and the first affordable greek coffee since the arrival in the country. i find out that the mercedes200 outside with the altenkirchen-numberplates from 10km from home is justgetting exported to a nice place somewhere in anatolia, this is a great place for hitchhikers.
costas and me continue our trip ad finally enter the highway whose constructionsite is entertaining us since 5 hours, and the locals since the early 90s, to drive trough a coalmining- and agriculturevalley that looks like somewhere in turkey or iran for the next two hours. he shows me where to turn right to go hiking upthe olymp next ime i'm around, and where he takes the family for a swim in the big electricity-reservoirlake on ht end of the mountains. then for the last hour we drive trough a flatland right on sealevel boasting with fruit, vegetables and cotton ready to harvest on all the fields, that drives the po-district in italy to shame. in a small town behind the highwayjunction our travel ends, and some 30km before thessaloniki i stand on a little parking by a farmertowns exit in the afternoonsun, sleepy and in dustcluods from the tractors bringing the harves into ther nearby silos.

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