I have never been to Greece before, and I’ve seen very little of it beyond what I glimpsed during our unhappy four-hour drive from the airport.
Now I’m here I don’t really have to drive anywhere. There’s a taverna within walking distance: down the path to the beach, along the shore, up another path into the hills and down the road into the village – 15 minutes, I’m told. That’s where we’re having lunch today and, if I get my way, every day. In principle I’ve got nothing against exploration, but I have difficulty savouring the unknown.
The beach path is a little steeper than I’d imagined when I elected to wear flip-flops. I’m not good in flip-flops; I lack practice.
The uphill path is where the main drawback of flip-flops becomes apparent: there’s nothing to stop you sliding out of them backwards. I walk with deliberation, staring at my feet, until I am outside the taverna.
After two large beers and many small fish, I begin to feel deeply relaxed.
“What are you going to write about this week?” asks the child of a friend, seated across from me.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m starting to worry nothing bad will happen to me.”
The children head back first, before coffee. Another contingent decides to wade round the rocks instead of climbing the hill. Soon it’s just me and my friend Alex, and two bags full of stuff nobody wanted to get wet. We set off up the road at a stroll.
Ten minutes later we’re still strolling up the road.
“Do you remember where the turning for the path is?” I say.
“It must be just there,” Alex says, pointing. We turn down a track that leads to an old car and then disappears.
“I don’t recognise any of this,” I say. It’s a stupid comment: there is nothing to recognise.
“Perhaps we’ve come too far,” Alex says. We stomp back to the road and walk downhill a bit. We take another turning. It ends after 100 metres at a sheer precipice, dropping to the sea.
“Maybe,” I say, “we didn’t go far enough.” We return to the road and walk much farther uphill. The next obvious turning takes us past an abandoned farmhouse into an olive grove.
“This doesn’t look right,” Alex says.
“Don’t ask me,” I say. “I was looking at my feet the whole time.”
We attempt to intercept the true path somewhere along its length, moving further into the trees. As we climb over a rusting bedstead, it becomes unclear who’s leading the way. It’s been an hour since we left the taverna. My veneer of calm is wearing thin. Thorns work their way between my flip-flops and my feet.
“I’ll just check up here,” Alex says. Once he’s out of sight, I decide panic is appropriate. My wife picks up on the fourth ring.
“We’re lost,” I say.
“How can you possibly be lost?” It’s a good question: I can hear laughter from the beach below, and passing traffic on the road behind me.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Now we’ve become separated. It’s a doomed expedition.”
“I’ll have to give you to a child,” she says. “Hold, please.” She passes the phone to the middle one.
“What?” he says.
“Can you just remind me where the path joins the road?”
“Next to a house, by a tree with pink flowers on it,” he says.
“How did you remember that?” I say.
“We took a picture of it with a phone,” he says.
“Is it uphill or downhill from here, do you think?”
“I don’t know where you are,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Me neither.”
