Diary of a camping trip

Wednesday 11.30 am

We had agreed the night before that no matter what, we will go out this Wednesday and Thursday, which are our days off to let off some steam . There was no plan nor a fixed schedule. Just the need and the bird spirit to fly away from home for a while. We live in front of the Aegean Sea , close to the Port which unfortunately does not work regularly. Yet we see many boats daily and dream about taking one.

When things are going to happen, they just happen. When we were leaving to take the bus  ,3 girls that were leaving too accepted to give us a ride to Glifa,  the nearest place to take a boat. 6 women squeezed in a car, speaking a mix of English and Greek, singing loudly and  asking one to another how a girl from Romania, one from Venezuela and one from Colombia live together in Central Greece. Answer: We are volunteering in an Erasmus Plus Programm.

Without a plan everything seemed to be perfectly synchronized. As soon as we stepped down the car, we did not have to wait much for the next boat leaving for Evvia. Without thinking twice, we step in the ferry and run to take the best view spot. Impossible not to be amazed by the blue and green color of the water;  the mountains; the dense forest pledged by olive trees.

20.00

After spending a long while on the beach, time flew by and we were  rushing to find a place to set our tent before the sunset. The landscape seemed very rocky and not suitable for camping. But as a light in the darkest place the sunset was telling us to stop and  that right in  front of the house where we were passing while walking the shore, and that's what we did. The sunset lasted long enough to sing, speak about life, gossip and create new memories. A cheap sweet red wine buyed in a local store was our accompaniment with karaoke songs from our childhood and teenagers time. The waves sounding, the adventure of camping and a palo santo stick  (a ritual plant used to attract luck and love and to give a positive change to one’s life) made our night incredible.

Thursday 11.00

Waking up with some pain from sleeping in the cement and being hungry for just eating a few oranges with some bread sticks, we decided to find a new beach. Hitchhiking seemed very tentative and smart since the sun was out and the distances were long. Luckily for us, it was not hard to find kind people.  We have developed a script where we speak Greek and say the names, numbers and days of the week to show people we do speak Greek. “Kalimera: Me lene Nicolle! and all I know in Greek is enna, dio, tria…” and it goes like that with each one of us.

On this day, we found one of the clearest waters we have seen in Greece, also we finally ate some eggs with bacon and bread. We spent almost the whole day there, and went back -of course hitchhiking- to the first spot, with another cheap wine bottle and the already know-how of the surroundings there. That is knowing where to go to the bathroom, knowing where the rocks were and how long would it  take us to reach the boat at 5:00 am next day. 

We accepted that even though we doubted a lot about this spot, it was the best one at the end. This has been one of the best campings I have had. It acknowledged how important are the days off to disconnect to reconnect again.  Camping teaches you in every possible way to be open, to stop, to trust, to let go. We were lucky enough to find kindness in many people, we hitchhiked a lot, we let time be patient, we trusted in ourselves and mother nature, we ate less and enjoyed more. We swam in the most crystal-clear  waters and we recharge energy to go back to our project.

Efharisto poli [Thank you very much] to my camping partners.