Greece 🇬🇷: Elika, Kalamata, Olympia, Delphi, and Athens

Greece: Elika, Kalamata, Olympia, Delphi, and Athens 🇬🇷

With two weeks in Greece, we decided to spend half our time on the Peloponnese, half in Delphi and Athens. We were lucky to spend the first few days with our friend Labi, whose family is from Elika, a small beautiful village on the coast. What a treat to hang out with a friend from home after five months on the road! He showed us around town, took us to the best beaches, and restaurants, and pointed us in the right direction for the next stops. 

Our favourite restaurant in Greece was in Elika where we enjoyed bread & olive oil, Greek salad, saganaki, slow roasted pork, eggplant tapenade, and tzatziki. Wow. The ingredients are fresh, local, and full of flavour. 

We also checked out nearby Monemvasia, a town carved into a mountain-island. We hiked up the mountain for the panoramic view of the gradient blues of the Mediterranean, and walked through ancient tunnels and buildings. 

We spent a couple of nights in Kalamata, a funky city with a lively waterfront, lots of beachfront restaurants, a fair, and a big gated play area for kids that serves drinks to the parents. (I could see this on the Dartmouth waterfront.) The downtown beach is stunning of course (that blue sea again), and the water is perfect for swimming. 

Next we went to Olympia and walked around the ruins of the ancient Olympics. We got there nice and early as to avoid a few thousand more tourists. After our tour, we splashed out in a hilltop hotel with an huge pool. 

We left the peninsula to go back towards Athens, stopping in Delphi for two nights to see the elaborate ruins at the site of the famous oracle. The mountaintop town itself is sleepy, quaint, and full of stray cats.

Finally, Athens. It’s quite surreal to get off the metro, stroll up a pedestrian street, round a corner and see The Acropolis. It’s thousands of years old and beautiful, especially when it’s illuminated at night. We walked around the neighbourhood, went to the archeological museum, toured the Agora, and on the last day toured The Acropolis itself. 

The rest of our time there we spent relaxing in our inspiringly decorated AirBnb. Our host had greeted us the first night with « the blessing », a shot of Greek grappa, and given us lots of information about the neighbourhood and sites. The next day he gave us a walking and snacking tour, where we sampled the best of the pastries, fetas, olives, etc. 

We loved Greece. It was easy to travel, and we were lucky to have great hosts along the way. My dad’s papou was from Greece, and I knew a bit about Greek culture from my American cousins, so I enjoyed the feeling of connecting to more roots. (I also have been a DHS Spartan since ancient times, and I had to stop myself from filling up a suitcase with Sparta merchandise.) 

Just a few more stops on the way home...😽

South Africa 🇿🇦: The Kruger, and Johannesburg

We spent a week in South Africa 🇿🇦, mainly to go to Kruger National Park, where we stayed for five nights in nice little huts similar to the yurts in Canadian National Parks, but with bathrooms and kitchenettes. There were also excellent restaurants at every site. The park is 20,000 square km (that’s about four Prince Edward Islands)! The campsites are connected by paved roads, so every day we’d get up early, pack up, and drive our rented SUV for hours to the next camp, and look for wildlife. 

We drove and drove through beautiful and sometimes harsh-looking landscapes, dry and hot, seeking the animals. It was totally exhilarating to see gigantic elephants up close, in the wild, and quite shocking to see herds of forty or fifty of them. 🐘We saw dazzles of zebras by the hundreds, flipping their tales incessantly, and many alert ungulates mingling — kudus, impalas, wildebeest.  🦓🦌Brooding buffalos will stare you down for a joke. 🐃The big cats were definitely the most difficult to see, but we were lucky enough to see five cheetahs cross the road right in front of us, one leopard extremely well camouflaged in the grass, and four sleeping lions a few meters from the road. 🐆🦁We saw a few rhinos very close to the road, sadly still highly in danger of poaching. 🦏There were also many hippos in the water and they’re quite daunting. 🦛🦛

Sometimes warthogs and hyenas get put on the park’s homely list, but they are adorable, especially the babies. 🐗Baboons have an edgy silliness. Giraffes just seem like sweethearts, and we quoted the Teen Titans « Leg Day » episode whenever we saw them (Look-a-dem legs! Look at them legs — they’re amazing!). 🦒🦵🏽🦵🏽

We were in and out of the city of Johannesburg quickly (2 nights at each end). Every South African we talked to was kind and helpful, and without fail, they wished us a great stay, and reminded us to keep our wits about us, lock everything, and be vigilant. Joburg is a vibrant, sophisticated city, but with a traumatic colonial history, vast economic disparity, and a dangerously high crime rate. We managed to go to Nelson Mandela Square, a plaza connected to a fancy mall. Accommodations and food were of high quality at very affordable prices by Canadian standards. I hope South Africa becomes more stable, that its living conditions improve, and that more people can visit this amazing place safely. 🖤