PLAKIAS, CRETE, GREECE (1984)
Aussie backpacker women were notorious. Just when it appeared you were in, you were suddenly out. Like way out. Like, “You thought I liked you? Haha. Are you insane?”
My Let’s Go Europe guidebook didn’t have a lot of info on Crete, maybe half a page, if that. It listed the three of four tourist towns on the island. One of these, Plakias, sounded as good as any. I bought a bus ticket to there.
I left my suitcase in Heraklion and consolidated a few belongings in a small shoulder bag. I imagined myself wandering the circumference of Crete, on foot, or hitchhiking maybe, riding buses, perhaps sleeping outside at times. I would explore ruins, swim in the ocean, sleep at the different youth hostels, which were scattered around the island. I really didn’t know what you did in a place like Crete. I’d never been exposed to “island culture” before.
What you did in Crete, it turned out, was find a cool youth hostel (Plakias had one, thank god) and stay there.
Once settled, you fell into a daily routine: wake up, drink coffee, talk, smoke cigarettes, talk, eat breakfast, play cards, maybe go on a day-time excursion: swimming, nude swimming, sunbathing, nude sunbathing. At some point you might walk into town for lunch or supplies. Or you could stay at the hostel for the day, reading, napping, staring at the blue sky from the hammock.
Plakias was a classic island paradise. You didn’t have to do anything to feel a sense of contentment, joy and happiness. The hostel itself was perfect in its simplicity and oasis-like comfort. There were large outdoor sinks to wash your two t-shirts in, a clothes line to dry them on (they dried instantly), stone paths to walk on barefoot, green grass, lush vegetation, a huge awning which kept the large comfortable front patio cool even on the hottest days. You could go all day without putting on shoes.
Even an urban creature like myself—a wannabe artist and intellectual who loved cold dark cities like New York and Berlin—was easily subsumed by this calming atmosphere. In such a place you were released from all ambition and drive. You didn’t have to think. You didn’t want to think. There was nothing pushing you to do anything or go anywhere. It made you wonder how the Greeks ever got anything done.
Once a day the bus from Heraklion would appear. This fateful bus would take a few people away and refresh the group with some new people. These new people would have their own goals and objectives about what to accomplish in Plakias and then within 24 hours, they would be doing the same thing you were doing. Which was nothing.
You could read of course, or journal, or write a novel if you felt like it. The sense of endless time made it possible to focus in a more relaxed way. You could read a book slowly. And you didn’t have to finish it. You could close-read a selection from Plato’s Republic or slam through a crappy detective novel in a day. Or you could lay your book open on your chest and sleep off your hangover.
In the late afternoon, everyone typically returned to the hostel to talk, drink beer, take an outdoor shower, see if any new people had appeared, talk to them if they had, play cards, smoke cigarettes, and then eventually get everyone together to go to dinner at the one open restaurant in Plakias. This place was cheap and delicious and had no problem at all serving a rag-tag party of 14 from the youth hostel.
A couple times a week we visited an alternate restaurant a couple miles up the hill, in Myrthios, a town even smaller than Plakias. A local guy would drive the group of us up there in the back of his truck. This would distribute the tourist money among the different restaurants—we were told—so that everyone got some business. Also, when we went to the restaurant up the hill, we got to walk the couple miles back down the hill, in the moonlight, with the ocean spread out before us, which was really the whole point of being in Greece. I often enjoyed the thought that Alexandria, Egypt was just over the southern horizon.
After dinner, we would often go into the center of Plakias and drink more beer at the tiny “Bar Nightclub” place which had a couch, a primitive dance floor and a rotating mirror ball. An excellent sound system played the Eurodance hits of the previous summer. In the fall of 1984 Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” remained the #1 hit in all of Europe.
It was notable that Plakias, with so few people, and miles from anywhere, still managed to have everything you needed. The restaurants (both of them) were great. The little deli/grocery shop where you could get “toasts” (cheese and tomato paninis) was great. The couple little beaches nearby were great. The “Bar Nightclub” was great. Everything was cheap. Everyone was nice. There wasn’t even a proprietor at our hostel. I can’t remember exactly how we paid but it was an honor system. A young, good looking guy would show up once a week and collect the money, laughing with us and saying, “Everything okay? You are okay?” and get back on his motorcycle and disappear.
Of course, how fun this was, depended on who was at your youth hostel. The twenty people or so who formed our core group in Plakias were a seemingly typical mix of hardcore backpackers, the kind of people who traveled for years at a time, who you would see walking around airports with their backpacks on, their hair dirty, a pair of shower slippers stuffed into the side pockets of their pack.
Being a callous and superficial youth, I looked down on these types for their lack of culture, fashion and scene awareness. But in this setting, where you wore the same t-shirt every day and had nothing to do but play cards, I found them perfectly acceptable and was grateful for their intelligence and humor and in many cases the wisdom they had acquired in their travels. Very quickly they became close friends, you might say we became a family.
I can picture several of them vividly. There was the Canadian woman (early 30s) who had been on the road for years and was a master at gin rummy. She beat everyone she played again and again. There was a disheveled preppy guy from New Jersey (late 30s) who was a classic smart ass, but also sad in a way, or lost. There was a nerdy guy from California (early 20s) who was straight out of a Merchant Ivory movie. He wore a nineteenth century straw hat, wire rim glasses, white linen pants. He had studied classics in college, and though I avoided him at first, he became one of my best friends and a favorite person to walk with through the olive groves. He was an aspiring playwright.
Most memorable of all was a party girl from Australia named Deirdre, I remember her name because I made up a song about her, which I would sing (to myself) while I was walking in the desert hills above the town at night:
Smart and sexy Deirdre was the center of attention during the week she was with us. She engaged in brutally sarcastic verbal duels with the various guys. I laid low and waited until she’d run through all the others. When it was my turn, I just shrugged her off. This strategy appeared to work, she seemed genuinely interested. But Aussie backpacker women were notoriously slippery when it came to travel-romance. They had wildly shifting standards and just when it appeared you were in, you were suddenly out. Like way out. Like, “You thought I liked you? Haha. Are you insane?”
I might had stayed longer than a month but Plakias was closing up. By the end of November everything had shut down, except for the youth hostel and one last store. I think the hostel might have been scheduled to shut down as well at some point. In any event the bus stopped bringing new people and we got the hint and began to leave ourselves.
I remember the ride back to Heraklion on the bus, cool Middle Eastern music was playing over the stereo. In my band, in college, I had messed around with “Arabian scales” on guitar. Now I was hearing the real thing. All these swirling rhythms and minor chords, they made you think of caravans through the desert.
I ferried back to Athens where I figured I had enough money for one more month somewhere warm and cheap. I looked in Let’s Go to see what my options were. Egypt, Turkey, Israel? After a month in Plakias I was craving a cosmopolitan urban center. I bought a ticket to Tel Aviv.
Your best travel blog or whateveryawannacallit yet. I've met plenty of Dierdres in my life. They come in in all shades and colors. I've also psyched 'em out as you did. As in your case, there were enough counterexamples to make the correct strategy much clearer.