The sad story of how I didn't go to Greece
Only the lazy did not write about Greece on this site. I can't put my five cents in. The truth is not quite about Greece, or rather not about Greece at all. But I really want to write. I warn you right away, you will not find any useful information here. This opus can only be used to kill time if you have it in abundance. So do not judge strictly. Trips are not yet foreseen (to survive), so I have to memoir.
So, the distant summer of peaceful 2007. Our institution decided to organize a trip to Greece for all those who are thirsty, since the connections have been firmly established for a long time, because in our region there are a dime a dozen of ethnic Greeks. They promised to settle somewhere, feed something and take them somewhere for absolutely ridiculous money (I don’t remember, but something up to 200 euros). But, of course, if you have a passport. And this document has been gathering dust with me since 2003, and I couldn’t fix it in any way. And here is such an opportunity! Of course, I grabbed onto it. I handed over the patchport, after blowing off the dust, paid the required amount and began to wait for a miracle, which did not take long and appeared in the form of a stamp on a group visa (there was no Schengen at that time). I was unspeakably happy, although the trip was supposed to be in an incomprehensible company of unfamiliar people (and even with elements of the authorities). The trip was supposed to be in the first days of July, and at the end of June, as you know, we have a long weekend due to the holiday, which we also could not ignore and decided to hit the road somewhere, and along a new route. Friends praised Tarkhankut very much - the extreme western point of the Crimea, and we decided to visit it.
The road went smoothly. We were not even fined at a stupid junction near Berdyansk with a completely idiotic marking. It seems that he (the trip) was arranged there for the sole purpose of cutting loot. But this time, by some miracle, we managed to pass it correctly. We stopped at Chongar in order to buy some kind of fish. And we succeeded, and the fish turned out to be not just any, but dried sturgeon, attention! for only 150 UAH.
Having reached Olenevka, the last stronghold of civilization, we bought a cold beer and turned onto the dirt road. Yes, the track there is just tin! In addition to the usual charms in the form of potholes and potholes, vehicles raised clouds of red dust, which then settled on them. Seeing a car with a characteristic coating, it was possible to say with certainty where it was coming from. At the sight of oncoming traffic, I had to urgently batten down all the windows, otherwise you could just suffocate.
Arriving at the coveted cape, I was incredibly disappointed. After the beloved New World, it seemed to me rather miserable - steppe and steppe all around, not a single bush or tree. Ugh, where did you take me! Well, they arrived, so they arrived. They set up a tent on a cliff. There were few people at that time, to the nearest neighbors - 20 meters. Our tent is chic - the largest air mattress fits in the bedroom, and a vestibule 2 m high, which easily becomes a table and can accommodate several people. We drank red beer until it warmed up, and went to explore the surroundings. Upon closer examination, everything turned out to be not so bad (life has already improved). The cliffs are very picturesque. There are several attractions here - Big and Small Atlesh and the Cup of Love. Atleshi are tunnels in the rocks, only which of them is small and which is large, I never learned. One is shorter, but longer, the other is taller, but shorter. And the Cup of Love is such a small bay surrounded by small rolling pins. This is what we saw. There is also (but according to divers) a three-eyed cave (under water) and an underwater museum, where the above-mentioned divers have been pulling all sorts of crap for several years, such as busts of Lenin. They also found a hole in the ground, located clearly above one of the Atleshas. You can see the sea in it, swallows darting from top to bottom. They say that a year does not pass, so that some handsome man, fairly taking on his chest, would not decide to become like a swallow and dive into the hole. The result was always the same - death, because the edges of the hole are very uneven and very sharp.
In general, despite the dull landscape on the one hand, the other side was simply amazing. Especially if you swim a little into the sea and look from there. All sorts of grottoes, caves, cliffs - very beautiful! My dear tried to dive in search of rapans - figurines, divers cleaned everything out. They looked for mussels - with great difficulty they found a place miraculously missed by them, and overgrown with quite large shells. We have made them a couple of times.
And the beer is really bad. To buy a cold one, you had to go to Olenevka about 5-6 kilometers, but I have already described the road to you. There was another option - right in front of the Cup of Love there was a tent with a constantly roaring generator. There was cold beer, but much more expensive than in the village. A couple of times a day a car came with enterprising girls bringing cold beer and hot pasties. Their prices were reasonable, but the quantities were limited. There wasn't enough for everyone.
The second burning problem is the management of natural needs. The area, as mentioned above, is completely bare, there is nowhere to retire, it’s good that we are early birds and managed to resolve all issues while everyone is still sleeping. How the rest got out - I have no idea, I did not follow. One acquaintance later spoke about his experience of solving similar problems with the help of an ordinary umbrella. You take an umbrella, go out into the open field, open it and lay it on the ground, thus fencing yourself off from objective reality.
On Sunday, closer to dinner, having already taken a couple of bottles of beer, we went for a swim and saw that the cliff in one place was literally covered with people of different ages. The people had fun by jumping from the rocks into the water - some from the very top, some a little lower. And the height there, I must say, is decent. The crowd began to cheer each new diver before the jump, and joyfully hoot and applaud after. Well, I couldn't get past. She climbed about 4 meters and, having poked a little, dived head first. For some reason, it was much more terrible for me to dive with my feet, although the majority chose this particular method. Darling jumped from the very top. Having torn off a standing ovation, I decided not to stop there. She climbed even higher and jumped, but entered the water somewhat laxly. Even under water, I felt that something was wrong, some kind of discomfort in my right shoulder. Somehow climbing a rock, she told her beloved about it. They thought that she had dislocated, let them pull her hand - it did not help. Some girl, looking at me, said that she did not like the hand, and it would be good to see a doctor. Of course, where can I get it? You need to go to civilization, but the driver is drunk. I was terribly afraid of traffic cops, but there was nothing to do. We arrived in Olenevka - there, either there were no medical facilities at all, or they were closed on the occasion of the holiday. I had to move on. In Chernomorsky, they did find a hospital, where they took an x-ray and “rejoiced” me, saying that I had a fracture. They put a cast and ordered to visit a traumatologist at the place of residence in a couple of weeks. Yes, let's go on vacation! Returning back, the rest of the day frightened local guests with her cast. And how can I go to Greece now with such beauty? And what if they don’t let them in - they say that they are a smuggler? Okay, let's figure it out.
Getting home was fun too. When everything was already put in the trunk, they did not find the keys to the car in the usual place. They took the junk back, shook everything up, including the tent - no keys! We walked around the entire area occupied by the tent several times - there are no keys! And at that time they lay quietly and were silent on the rear window. Having thus lost a lot of time, we left later than planned, and as a result we got into a terrible traffic jam on the isthmus. Well, the last straw - the bewitched crossing near Berdyansk also failed to slip through, the bastards slowed down, somehow we drove there again incorrectly. True, thanks to my pitiful appearance, the fine was avoided - they began to whine that I was ill (and in fact it was, the part of the shoulder visible from under the plaster began to fill with a crimson color). They took pity, let go. As a result, the road took us 11 hours instead of the usual 6-7.
The next morning I decided to go to the hospital to get a bulletin - why waste your vacation. The traumatologist, having seen my x-ray, was taken aback by the requirement to immediately go to the hospital for a hood, because I had a fracture of the shoulder neck with a displacement. To say I was shocked is an understatement. Who knows what a hood is, he knows, and who does not know - and God forbid you find out. In short, instead of Greece, I spent the whole of July literally bedridden, in the company of a duck and moaning grandmothers with fractures of the femoral neck. In addition to Greece, the annual August trip to the New World also fell through - after being discharged from the hospital, they again put a terrible cast on my entire arm, shoulder and half of my back, and I dragged this load for another two weeks.
But everything passes, and this too has passed. Everything is fine with the hand. I am now afraid to dive, except perhaps from the side of the pool. That's just not the case with Greece so far. ?
