The Evil Stair

When planning a trip, I suggest avoid saying things like: "Greece is the most dangerous place in Europe to drive a rental. We certainly won't do that."

or "We'll take a slow ferry from Crete so we can see all the beautiful little islands between there and Athens."

Because inevitably you'll get stranded on Crete (where btw –– the oldest Bronze Age city? The one you have been wanting to see since you were eleven or twelve years old? It will be closed for repairs. For like 18 months.)

​Between the ferries, the Mistral winds, and the Ministry of Culture, you will weep bitter, bitter tears of frustration. 

And then you'll find yourself standing in line at the car rental counter at the Athens airport behind a pair of French dudes celebrating Bastille Day by joining the rest of their countrymen on vacation in Greece.

​The fellows will say –– clear enough for even your rusty college French to follow –– that the rental company has run out of automobiles. (Les voitures sont completement fini.)

Nothing ventured, you'll figure, even if these guys snub you for your really execrable accent, you give it a try, "Excusez-moi, avez-vois dit que Les Hertz n'avez-pas rien du voitures? 

"Oh non, <something something> de voitures, mais mini-vans, oui."  Oh, mini-vans, you'll think, yet another word that has no translation.

​Perhaps because the waiting line was quite long and they had only started their vacation, the French men say, "Do you have a reservation for a car? No?"

Then switching easily to English, they ask, "Have you just arrived?"

You'll explain about the visit to Crete.
 
They will be terribly French in their amusement at your mishaps.  

Of course, the wind.

​Big world-weary shrugs and their lower lips will project out for a moment –– of course, Knossos. Ha ha ha! 

​But of course one couldn't find the Heraklion Museum because it was closed for renovations. For like 18 months.

You'll share gentle, ironic laughter. Ha ha ha! Zee world is funny, no? Trés amusant!

Where, they ask, will you go now?

Tell them you were planning to visit beautiful Mount Olympus, an easy drive. Hiking, perhaps even camping.   

Oh, they will say, Have you not heard? Forest fires have closed Mount Olympus.  

"Mais bien sûr!" you can say. But of course. Of course Mount Olympus is closed.

And then you'll be navigating the Greek countryside by fraternity letters while your husband boldly pilots a tiny white rental car.

You'll say, "Alpha-theta-epsilon? and maybe Nu. Wait, is µ ––you'll sketch the letter on the air –– Nu or Psi?" 

Despite this level of distraction, he addresses the odd round-about and the mysterious symbols for merging or yielding without hesitation.

It may be a dangerous country for renting a car, but he's Ricky-Bobbying the living merde out of it.​

On our trip, we did not stop at the crossroads in Theta-epsilon-beta-alpha.

It seemed a quiet, agricultural spot –– silos and onion fields –– a long way removed from mistaken identities and Freud's own dream of patricide and royal incest. 

We went instead to Delphi, a spot I'd hoped to explore on a Classically nerdy trip another time.
 
The Delphic oracle, the Temple of Apollo, the Delphic games. That magical light!

​Be still o Mary Renault-inspired heart!
Stand down, o Mary Stewart-influenced enthusiasm!  

I'd honestly hoped not to bore Mr. Linton to death with all that.

​I underestimate my husband's ability to find joy in his moment.  After mooching around the ruins, he suggested a walk, and we headed up the beautifully marked E4 European long-distance trail. Up up up the Kaki Scala.

At a switchback, I pause to catch my breath, and see the tiny white rental car, no bigger than a loaf of bread far below our feet.

​Later, it's the size of a matchbox car.

Then only a speck.

Then the car is entirely indistinguishable in the distance nearly straight down. 

​The trail continues up and up, the pitch a mathematical puzzle: a 50:12 pitch? 100:12?

Pebbles roll out from under our feet and hurtle off the side of the mountain, pinging and clicking into the sonic distance. 

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​Eventually, there's signage that explains why the trail –– roughly cobbled and zig-zagging with such determination –– is called the Kaki Skala.

Skala, as one might imagine (scales, escalators, scales of pitch), means stair or ladder, while Kaki is not kaka (that would be Russian poo, thank you very much), Kaki is bad or evil.

Ill-omened stair, maybe, or bad ladder, or evil stair. 

​Made bad by who used it: condemned criminals were made to walk up the Kaki Skala and then leap (or be pushed) from an overlook.

Twenty-five hundred years later on a hot, HOT day, there's still a bit of chill in the air. ​

A few hours later, as we followed signs and listened to the musical clanking of goat-bells sounding from the hills around us, we arrived at the Korykion Cave, where Pan was worshipped.

The actual Pan. Not an easy god, he.  

​We climbed into Pan's cave. Scene of who knows what-all sacred mysteries, the cave also sheltered Greeks from foreign invasion (the Persians in the 5th C BC, the Turks during the Greek War of Independence, and the Germans in 1943).

A good cave is a joy forever, evidently. 

​We picnicked, respectfully, and then wound our way back to the tiny white rental car, unscathed by Pan or the loud farm-dogs. 

A couple of days is not enough for Delphi.

​I am almost afraid to plan a trip back to the Temple of Apollo to see the Charioteer again and walk those fragrant dry hills ––  in case my travel mojo destroys the entire town.

​But still.