Day 15
We slept above a tiny beach, on a concrete-terraced spot located on a windy and steep narrow road that we followed successfully thanks to the high beams. It was night and very dark already. Due to the heat, we started the night on the yoga mats outside, and we got into the van when the sound of the breaking waves was too much.
We fully appreciated the site and its inhabitants in the morning.
After playing with the locals, we decided to get admitted to Asclepius Centre for Health in Epidaurus.
As you may know, this is a one-stop-shop healthcare institute, reknown for the quality of its practitioners, for its unbeatable success rate across its rich palette of treatments and cares, for the attention of the boss – Asclepius, the healing god himself, who visits the patients in person while they are being treated –, for its 650 sqm bath house recently renovated through public and private funding scheme imported from Italy, and for its entertainment facilities: a little theatre with a so refined acoustic that people with the best eyesight – who were sitting far and high in order to let the untreated vision impaired patients benefit from the performances – could ear a coin fall on the scene, and any murmur of the comedians.
And the little theatre...
Recently the place has come under new management: a bunch of whistle-bearing cultists whose workday seems to mostly consist in talking together or browsing their cell phone while sitting in the most shaded place close to the theatre. Once in a while, when a paying visitor (20 euro piece) disturbs their peace, they whistle and gesticulate while trying to express themselves in a funny language called "AGGLIKA", that seems to be their local version of English. They have made rules to tell people what they are not allowed to do, which leaves very little aside breathing.
I had a discussion with these people. There were two salient points out of this discussion.
- One, they demand that visitors respect rules they are not provided with before the payment of the entrance fee.
- Two, they do not abide to the rules themselves (there is a non-negligible amount of litter around the site, in the shape of broken black plastic boxes laying in the middle of the ruins, and white plastic tarp behind their observation place).
I pointed out to them that the latter point goes hand in hand with not respecting the road code: speeding, overtaking in forbidden areas including before blind corners, and littering the roads (we've see number of people driving certified non-rental car throwing bottles and cans out of their windows). That got their mouths shut and I took my leave.
We do our best to be good citizens everywhere we go, but we respectfully use our voices when locals try to take us – xenos – for a ride.
We checked-in in a little unassuming but really friendly camping in the afternoon, and walked along the beach at night.
