Confession #1 of a (hopefully short) series of travel misadventures!
Mishaps happen. When living in France, it was an easy three-hour hop from Paris to Greece. We started with history in Athens, moved to Crete’s Samarian Gorge and Knossos Palace, then to Santorini’s cliffs of white-washed buildings above the dramatic caldera.
They were all awesome and now we looked forward to our last stop, the small island of Mykonos; we’d even splurged on an upscale resort for two nights of luxury.
It was to be less than a three hour ferry trip toward heaven--until we arrived at the port and learned the word: meltemi. Strong winds had shut all transport down. It might be an hour--or a day--so we took a taxi driver up on his offer (bad sign) to drive us to a nearby motel he knew (even worse sign) with a pool; he would pick us up when ferries could leave.
The room was so dirty, I sat on my beach towel; never mind the pool. After calling the ferry office 287 times (a wild guess) to check departures, we rushed to the port where a big beautiful ferry was docked. The line of passengers was already snaking slooowly from the pier.
We waited our turn in the sun and finally reached the narrow metal stairs leading up inside the ship. We were packed like Greek sardines, if sardines had luggage jammed into their knees. Eventually, we reached the landing and, with a sigh of relief, I handed over our tickets.
“You’re on the wrong ship,” said the purser.
“We can’t be,” I said.
“You are on the wrong ship. We're going to Crete.”
"That's the opposite direction, we're going to Mykonos," I was hoping he'd change his mind.
I glanced below at the still jam-packed stairs. “Fine,” I said. “We’ll get off and wait for ours. How do we get down past those people?”
“You don’t,” he said.
“Of course, we do.” The image of Mykonos versus heading backwards to Crete flitted through my brain.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said matter-of-factly. ”We just left the dock.”
So this ferry was heading five hours in the opposite direction, sending us eight hours away from Mykonos.
Except for one last ray of hope...just left the dock? I suggested we jump and swim back to wait for the ferry to Mykonos.
My husband wouldn’t let me.
I still think Mykonos would have been worth it.
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