Olive Oil to Grease the Wheels

I reached the south coast, a place called Myrtos, a small seaside community. The southern environment was rockier, drier, wilder.

From Myrtos I took the coastal route to Tsoutsouros, and from there I headed up and inland. I reached the top of a treacherously dry hill. I had run out of water even after filling up at a natural spring thirty minutes ago.

The village at the top of the hill was deserted, only a few houses and buildings. I rode through and found a building with an open door. It was a kind of church and café and there was a lady inside. She was alone and calmly cutting up a big hunk of goat meat.

“Nero?” (Greek for water) I asked, exasperated.

She poured a glass of water and handed it to me as I pulled out my card. She looked at the foreign thing.

“No card?” I asked, and she shook her head. I handed back the glass and she put her hand up, almost offended. She pointed to a table where she wanted me to sit. She went over to her stove and motioned at her pot of coffee, “Café?”

She made me a Greek coffee with some treats, and her wanting anything for it on my end was once again offensive. I sat down drinking while she finished cutting up this hunk of goat. She spoke no English, so we just sat in the dark room in the heat of the early afternoon. It was really lovely and so was she.

Things like this happened a few times, wanting coffee and not having cash, then they’d just give it to me for free.

“Sit,” they’d say, “please, no cash it’s ok, doesn’t matter,”

It seems they view coffee not as a speciality commodity, but like table water at a restaurant, just plain decency.

From the hills of the south I headed inland toward the Messara Plain, the largest plain in Crete. This was beautiful, not only because it was farmland, but because it was flat. I listened to music as I cruised along barely peddling.