“You know, when you introduced yourself as a disaster zone, I didn’t quite realise!” said my current room-mate.  “I know,” I replied: “I’m a human train wreck”.  This conversation followed my stepping on a bee:  unfortunately, I’m somewhat allergic, and my leg (or more accurately, my foot) has been transformed into a log.  My shoe won’t even go on!  Happily though, the hostel manager’s theory that Cretan bees are less poisonous than ‘normal’ European bees (which was not at all a useful frame of reference for me!) seems to be true: last time I was stung on the foot, my leg swelled and turned blue to my knee, so this is a significant improvement!

Following on from the other day where I was handed the glass of garlic and lemon to fend off my cold (completely didn’t work), my bee sting encouraged those surrounding me to offer me a whole host of further traditional remedies.  I was recommended pressing an onion against the swelling; someone else advised making a tobacco poultice and applying that; and one aroma-therapist put pure lavender oil on it.  People also tried to convince me to call the homeopathic doctor.  I just wanted the drugs!

Anyway, my bee sting, sunburn, sleep deprivation and hiking-related injuries just didn’t seem like quite enough, so I figured I’d add travel sickness to round it out, and went on a driving adventure with some of the hostel’s older denizens.  Five adults in a small car on windy roads was not great, and to be honest a couple of the guys were not quite my type of people, but it was otherwise interesting.  I had one good conversation with the aroma-therapist which was nice.

We went to a nearby monastery, then to a small beach-front fortress, thence to the weirdest freaking bar in the whole world:

360 view:

[caption id="attachment_1342" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Of course there's a pterodactyl.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1343" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Where to put money if there was no-one attending the bar. I'm not sure why it's also some kind of fire warning thing![/caption] [caption id="attachment_1344" align="alignnone" width="450"] The bar's overlord.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1345" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Jetsam chic?[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1346" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Because this isn't creepy at all.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1347" align="alignnone" width="1000"] This bar is certainly doing its best to 'fight normalism'.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1348" align="alignnone" width="450"] I said that the bar would be a great place to set a horror movie, and the next thing you know, we find a chainsaw.[/caption] The road to the bar was more than a little terrifying.  About halfway down, it turned to rock and gravel, was narrow, prone to boulders, and bordered by a cliff.  When we were going back up again, the aroma-therapist asked whether we'd all fastened our seatbelts, and I said that "no, because if the car goes over the edge I want to be able to get out of the door before I go with it!"  "Har, har," she said.  "You think I'm joking," I replied: "I'm not."  (I wasn't!) We did survive the crazy road in the end, and after a late lunch we drove up to a look-out.  It was fine and everything, very Greek: but I find that after the beauty of Peterhof in Spring, I'm completely unaffected by Greece's natural beauty.  Last time I was here it was in the early Spring, and everything was green and fresh, with a ridiculous number of wild-flowers everywhere you looked.  Now that it's summer, everything is dry and rocky.  Nothing like Russia at all!  Then again, where is? __________________________ My hostel in Plakias, Crete: YH Plakias