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A friend asked me today if I had ever hitchhiked..
The memories make me smile. Laura and I were looking at the ferry options to go from Crete to the Peloponnese when we saw that the the fery made a short stop in a little island called Kythira and so we spontantously decided to stay there for a week. The boat on came to island two times a week (wed & thu I think), you see. After a calm few hours on the sea we arrived on Kythira. We were only a handful of people getting off. As we looked around us there was not much to see: a parking lot (which is were we got off) and cafe/car rental.
The port in the middle of nowhere
We read on a website that during the summer a bus drove through the island, but when we asked locals they told us was no bus! The only way to get around was by tpo renta a car or go by taxi. I (stupidly) hadn't taken my drivers license with me, and Laura didn't like to drive on the right side of the road (she's English you see), so we decided to take a taxi to a place we had seen on the internet and which was were the toiurist office was located. Not. When we arrived there the building of the tourist office was still there, but looking in sicde there hadn't been a lot of activity for a long time judging by junk inside. Okay so where is this going you wonder.. (I'll skip the part how we found our accomodation). We asked the lady (Frieda) of the hotel about the bus and she said that because the tourist season hadn't come to full start yet they buses (during the year used as school buses) didn't drive just yet. She said that the best way to explore the island was to rent a car, but we didn't want to that. We had read in the guide of the island about a small market town that we would like to visit and asked Frieda how far away it was to walk and I think (I can't exact remember exactly) she said 4 km. That's not too far really as 1 km is approx 12 min walk, we just forgot that it was up hill the whole time! Anyway Frieda said "Why don't you hitchhick hike? Nothing has every happened here so it's relatively save." :lol: Now we are both rather shy so standing on the road putting a thumb in the air we didn't do, so we walked.
-the never-ending windy road on our way back-
About a quarter of the way - hot and aching legs from the climb- a car stopped! Inside two Albanian boys (about 23ish) asked us in broken English we were going and if we would like a lift. We looked at eachother and then to long windy road in front of us and decided to take Frieda's advice and we so we hitchhiked to the market town. They offered us a cigarette (which we declined because neither of us smoked) we talked a bit, but there English wasn't really good so they turned up the music, windows wide open we drove the (longer then we though) way to the market town. Eve was really paranoid though during the whole drive and was so relieved when we got out of the car when we arrived at the town! After our visit we walked back to our hotel and hired a car the next day *g*
A back street from the market town
You know this reminds me of something that I totally forgot! I though I only hitchhiked only once but we did one time on Corsica as well. Actually now I think of it when someone offers you a lift do you call that hicthiking as well? Because while waiting at the busstop to go to Ajaccio a lady and her husband asked if we would like a lift down to Ajaccio because they were going that way anyway. This time I was a more paranoid then Eve, eventhough they were the nicest people you could meet. In short I don't feel that comfortable hitchhiking, but I have done it :o)
Love, Liesel
