Day 13 - Valley of the Butterflies (that are actually moths)

On the description of our car rental for today, the travel agent wrote "NOT A MINIVAN." When it was delivered, I saw that she was right. I could have started a bus line with the behemoth that would comfortably seat 9 and accommodate their luggage for a 3 week trip.

I drove the tank, first to the valley of butterflies, where the fragrant sap of a tree that is used to make vanilla incense attracts thousands of moths. We walked 3.2 km up the valley, though I lagged behind my family as I tried to take some photos. The walk was beautiful, along a small river with waterfalls. We saw crabs hiding in the rapid easing for food to float by.

After the valley, we headed to what was billed as a traditional Greek village but actually end up being a small town without much of interest. We ate at a small taverna and completely blew our theory on how well we'd learned to order. We ordered a couple of entrees and appetizers and as soon as they started coming it was clear that we'd made some mistakes. The plate of dolmatas must have had thirty pieces instead of the six we expected. the "grilled vegetables" was a plate of battered and fried veggies that would have been an entree anywhere else. The tsatsiki came in a huge bowl. The stefados came last and was too delicious to leave. I ate a 3,000 calorie lunch.

After lunch we headed to ancient Kamiros to see Aphrodite's temple. Andrea, not used to that large a lunch passed out on the trip. Fortunately the car was big enough that she could lie down in the front seat next to me. Unfortunately, she was my navigation system. When she woke up we'd gone 15 miles down a road with hairpin turns that was not pointed where we were headed.

Once in Kamiros, we saw the ruins and temple, which was less impressive than most we had seen but allowed the kids to pick up a few points more points.

Back in town, we went to another Greek restaurant, got crepes at our favorite crepe stand (where the proprietor took 2.90 instead of 3 euros when I couldn't quite come up with exact change), and headed off to bed. As Andrea and I lay in bed, we thought about the next two weeks apart. It will be the longest time we've been separated since Joshua was born. Since we've been married we have only been separated this long twice. It is going to be very difficult for me.

A few more notes about Greece:

A friend pointed out that despite the animals everywhere the streets are clean. When I mentioned this to my family the kids took it as a challenge and have managed to find a couple of messes, though still nothing like the number you would expect given the number of animals. We can add to that observation that we've seen almost no litter and few garbage cans. Clearly, there is an invisible ultra efficient army of street sweepers or Zeus and his family magic it all away.