With Gus, our motor caravan, we travelled south along the west coast of Greece. It was our intention to stay a few days, or even up to a week in several of the small fishing-villages. Here we hoped to meet other travellers again. During our journey we had not yet met any other motor caravans. Already we had a lot of novels to swap and we always appreciated the quick, close intimacy of these casual meetings.

I used to take being in touch with family or friends for granted but since we’re travelling for a longer period of time, and have no longer a fixed address, I miss these contacts. Dropping in on friends or phoning my mother every day is no longer possible. Francis, my wife, had become an enthusiastic letter writer, with in the back of her mind the thought that, if we wrote lots of letters, we would also receive lots of return-mail. In this Theo, my brother-in-law acts as an intermediary. He collects all mail and sends it, after a phone-call from me, poste-restante to the main post office of the given town.
  Despite my experience that letters to be called for take longer to arrive than ordinary mail, I’m always impatient. Mostly, within a few days after dispatch from Holland, I’m found trampling in front of the post office to collect our letters.
  But this time, I firmly intended, I would take things easy and wait at least ten days before going to the post office.
  I had informed Theo that our next port of call would be the town of Náfpaktos, but even with our moderate pace that was only a four days drive. To protract time I thought of a detour. On my map I had noticed a minor road going south along the coast. Taking that road would give us plenty of time to see a bit more of the countryside.

That very day the weather changed. It had been sunny and warm for the past few days, but now the wind increased to a high storm. Now and then the sun broke through the heavy clouds and those moments we had a magnificent view across the green sea and the dark, brown islands lying close by the coast.
  The road ran parallel to the sea, on our left a wall of rocks, on our right lashing waves that had eaten enormous parts out of the road surface. Only by driving very carefully I could avoid the yawning abysses.
  After a considerable drive we arrived in the tiny harbour-town of Antírrion and found a sheltered site next to the landing-stage from where the ferry-boats left for Pátras, on the other side of the Gulf van Corinth. The harbour was a lively place and constantly the ferries were loading and discharging their cargo of cars and passengers. A fascinating sight because these ships had only one ramp on the bow. Trucks and buses had to enter the ferry driving backwards, which was attended by a lot of yelling and shouting. Whilst enjoying this drudgery I was glad that I didn’t have to cross the Gulf.

The next day we drove to Náfpaktos, which was only a few miles away. Actually we were still one day too early. Therefore I didn’t drive straight to the post office, but parked Gus on the water-front. It was a nice and quiet spot under several fir-trees where, in my opinion, we could easily stay a day or two. My only worry was that the level of drinking-water in my fresh water tank had become extremely low and on our way to Náfpaktos I had nowhere seen an opportunity to fill them up.

The weather had improved. It was sunny again and in the afternoon three small boys came to play next to our ‘van. While Francis and I looked on smilingly, they climbed the trees and pelted each other with fir-cones. After a while the boys saw us sitting in Gus and laughed and waved at us. At first we waved back but then the boys started to become annoying. When we stopped looking they attracted our attention by no longer throwing the fir-cones at each other, but at Gus!
  The projectiles clattered against our window-panes and also hit the solar-panel on the roof. That I could not allow and stepped outside intending to ask the boys friendly, although pressingly, to stop it. I didn’t get a chance to say anything. As soon as the ringleader saw me stepping outside, the mob ran away.
  For several moments it was quiet all around, but silently the rascals sneaked back and the pelting began anew. Again I stepped outside and for the second time the lads raced away. It went on like that for some time, the boys loved seeing me getting angrier all the time. I didn’t know what to do and felt like a fool.
  Rescue came in the form of a man walking along the water-front. He was about my age and carried a fishing-rod. I accosted him and asked for help. Fortunately the man spoke English and quickly got rid of our teasers, addressing them with a few well-chosen Greek curses.
  “Well,” the man said, “Those chaps won’t bother you again! But to be sure I’ll stay and try to catch some fish in front of your ‘van.”
  I kept him company. His name was Spiros, a nice guy to have a chat with. Because of his fluent English I thought he was the right man to tell me more about Greek music. These past weeks our radio had been tuned to local stations and Francis and I had grown quite fond of the melancholy Greek bouzouki-sound. Of course I didn’t understand one word of the lyrics, but several words, like ‘sagapo’ and ‘agapimou’, I heard over and over again in almost every song. I asked Spiros their meaning and to my amazement he started roaring with laughter.
  “Indeed, those are the words most used in the Greek language,” he hiccupped, “they mean ‘my darling’ and ‘I love you’.”
  Well, that was clear.

The next morning, before going to the post office, I walked to the bakery to buy baklawás. As soon as I would come back with our mail, Francis would have coffee ready and we would make ourselves comfortable reading our letters, whilst enjoying the honey-pie.
  Upon entering the post office I noticed an exited atmosphere, as if something was bound to happen. I was the only customers and saw the clerks looking at me curiously. After my request for poste-restante the man behind the counter smiled at me, but made no move and met my request with a refusal. I didn’t understand and when I repeated my question he indicated I had to wait while he was going to get somebody else. He went over to an office-cubicle, opened the door and said something. Clearly I understood the word ‘sagapo’ and at the same time I noticed the other clerks were all grins. To my amazement a moment later Spiros appeared in the doorway and greeted me like a long-lost friend. He motioned that I should not remain standing in front of the counter and invited me inside his office.
  “Sit down,” Spiros said, this time motioning me to a large, comfortable arm-chair. He offered me a cup of coffee and told me excusingly that since yesterday public life in Greece had virtually come to a standstill. All civil servants had ceased work to protest against a new law that restricted their right to strike. I couldn’t think of a more logical reason to go on strike. Still, before showing me out, Spiros checked the poste-restante, but there was no mail for me yet.

Disappointed, but consoled by the baklawás, I started up Gus in search for water. The day before, while fishing, Spiros had told me of a source high in the mountains and according to him it had lovely sweet water. The source wasn’t hard to find because we arrived at a time most men did ‘domestic chores’ like getting water. We just had to follow the men carrying jugs and containers, jerry-cans and even -empty- wine bottles.
  At places like that it’s impossible to leave within five minutes. On the contrary, getting water could easily take an hour. The water wasn’t running fast, I had to queue and therefore filling took a lot of time.
  Whilst filling the men talked very animated. They stormed at each other so loud and vehemently, that sometimes it looked they were quarrelling. The opposite was true. They were friendlier and less stand-offish to each other than we were used to.

A week later, the civil servants were still on strike. Of course Francis and I had all the time in the world, yet it felt like ‘waiting’. However, it was certainly no punishment to stay awhile in Náfpaktos, a picturesque little town. Francis tried out all supermarkets one by one and I had become a regular customer at the bakery. Every morning I also went to the post office and whenever I crossed the threshold, I saw the clerks starting to grin, but Spiros always motioned right away there was no mail for me yet.

During the second week of ‘waiting’ our gas bottle went empty. The connector of our bottle is the same as those of Greek bottles and therefore I thought it should be easy to have it filled. Every one of the many small grocery shops had a long row of gas bottles standing outside and I went to one of those shops to enquire.
  “Filling will be no problem,” said the shopkeeper, “but I’ll have to send the bottle to the filling-station and that will take at least a week.”
  Too long, I thought. This morning Spiros had told me the strike was over and that it wouldn’t take long before the mail started to arrive again. Therefore I preferred to go to the filling-station myself.
  “Suit yourself,” the grocer said dryly, “you’ll find it near Pátras, across the Gulf.”
  That meant a crossing with the ferry-boat I had looked at anxiously, and muttering I drove back to Antírrion. Fortunately entering the ferry proved no real problem. Only the low rear-end of Gus got stuck against the ramp, but with the help of a few planks underneath my rear wheels that problem was soon solved.
  Once on the other side I quickly found the filling-station and within an hour we were on our way back to Náfpaktos.

Slowly Francis and I became tired of waiting for our mail.
  “It could be possible,” I grumbled to Francis, “that your brother didn’t sent the mail right after my phone-call and waited a few days. Who knows, it might even take another week!”
  To suppress my restless feeling, Francis suggested we should leave Náfpaktos for a few days. Indeed, that looked like the best solution in these circumstances and so, the next day, we drove along the Gulf of Corinth to Delfí, a famous antique place.
  Here, during old times, an oracle passed sentence concerning the futures of people, towns and armies. Just like a horoscope in the daily news, only packed in holy wrapper. Unfortunately the oracle couldn’t tell when my mail was bound to arrive.

A few days later, back in Náfpaktos, Spiros held high a fat envelope when I entered the post office. At last, I thought, but then I realised there should be two parcels, one envelope with letters and another packet containing magazines. I couldn’t imagine it would take the packet longer to arrive and asked Spiros to have a further look than the letter ‘B’ for ‘Booy’.
  In other post offices I normally have to hand over my passport, but despite my short surname many clerks have trouble remembering it. So, grown wise from experience, I had asked Theo always to wrap striped tape around our parcels, which made them easier to recognise. That proved to be my luck. After a thorough search Spiros found the second parcel in the tray that contained mail starting with ‘M’. Right above my surname the Dutch Postal Service had pasted a label on which the contents of the parcel had been written with a pencil.
  Indeed, ‘Magazines’!