From the Top of the Town to the Bottom of the Quay (Getting a bit of money back)

Today we had to return the scooters by noon. Only one thing on the agenda, scoot up to the Kastro above the port. It has quite a history. It was the site of the original Zakynthos city in the classical period. Later the Venetians fortified it and it was variously occupied by the Venetians, the Russian-Turkish Alliance, the French, the British, the Italians and the Germans before the island was finally ceded to Greece in 1864.

We consult the map. The Kastro requires us to pass into a town called, Bohali in our Rough Guide, Bophali on one map, Mophali on another map, Mpohali on the road sign, Bochali on another map…. Take your pick…no wonder tourists get lost here. If you only have one guide you’ll never find what you are looking for because even the road signs are different from mile to mile, varying between Greek and English translations of Greek. After yesterdays scoot around the island I do recognize pretty much every permutation of Zakynthos/Zante there is, including the Greek lettering.

We are off, having discerned our short route to the Kastro. And in less than five minutes we are completely lost in the maze of streets and almost hit by a speeding car. We are honked at, confused, arguing about street names, and finally pull over less that a km form the boat. And those people yesterday asked “US” for directions?!??!

Finally we decide to wing it and variously bob up and down streets, attempting to at least go the right way on one way streets. Finally, in the thick of a narrow maze of streets we see a sign that has one of the permutations of name of the town we seek.

As an aside…and just so you know…apparently, if you turn on your hazard lights you can stop, or park, absolutely…anywhere….

So off we go. I tell Kirk to turn left at a junction. He goes straight. OK, there is no way he can’t hear me, I’m right in his ear….I say left, LEFT!!! ….Or not…. He pulls over and says he thought he should go down the other street. I ask…”Is that left?” He cops another excuse. No go babe! We have a brief conversation over which one of us is left-right challenged…that’s me…remember? But I also have the map, and saw the sign… perhaps he didn’t believe me simply “because” I am left-right challenged and he figured I really meant right when I said left?

He turns us around and we turn up the proper road. Up, up, up to the Kastro. We buy our tickets and wander the idyllic serenity of the pine forest that has grown into the Kastro over the centuries. It is peaceful, cool, and there is an amazing symphony of different bird calls. There are some interesting ruins and the views over the island are fantastic. What is astonishing is that we are alone here. As we turn to leave we see a family enter, and as we walk down the rampart to the exit we see our neighbours from the marina coming to visit the site. We tell them they will welcome the cool breezes through the pines after their walk up here. We also saw them in Poros.

We scoot back downhill and head for the Port Authorities. We had told our scam artist that we were only staying two nights, and we decide to let the actual Authorities know we will spend another night. We decide that we will fend off the fellow on the dock with a simple lie of “You weren’t around to tell so we just stopped by the main office” Parking…none out front, but a blue scooter is parked illegally. Kirk parks next to it and says…”it’s blue, it’s better and scooters can go anywhere!” We walk into the cool offices and see no one. We hear voices down the hall and head to them. A man, smartly dressed in a white uniform is speaking animatedly on the phone. He looks like the head honcho! A woman in the usual blue uniform is sitting on a chair, also on the phone. We wait. The man finishes his call and says “Yes?” to us. We explain we are on a yacht in the harbour and would like to get our papers stamped for the night. He says OK, you are from Canada? Points to the flag on my backpack, we say yes. he smiles at that and we chat for moment or two about Canada. Like most encounters, the fact that we come from Canada seems to always result in a wonderful reception.

He gestures for us to follow him down the hall to another office. He seems like he is unused to doing this though and pokes through our papers. He asks us if we have another paper for him and we are suddenly worried that the fellow at the dock took something. We say no, and hold our breath. He seems to find what he is looking for and pulls out a book from the cupboard. He flips to a blank carbon sheet and begins to fill it out. He flips to the front, it seems like he is looking for a filled in copy to work from and he looks at it, then us, then it and says something to the effect of “you’ve already done this”. We say no, but then we look at the papers and see the name of our boat and the dates for the past two days. With a little stilted communication he says that we paid the man at the dock, Mr. Marino. We say yes, but the price on the book is only 3.80 Euros. We tell him we paid 40 Euros. This incites quite the reaction from him and he says “Four” “No, Forty” He writes the number 40 on a piece of paper and points at it…I nod. Again, quite a reaction. He stands and calls us down the hall to the woman, who apparently has better English and he wants a full translation. We detail our encounter on arrival and the tale of the English fellow saying that Mr. Marino threatened to cut his lines. We actually weren’t looking to get into this because we don’t really want to stir anything up (SO Canadian aren’t we!). He is on the phone and calling Mr. Marino and much loud discussion ensues. He makes several other calls and we are more or less held hostage since they have all our papers now. While on the phone he asks us if we took power and water, we say power, no water. When all the calls cease he tells us that Mr. Marino will meet us at our boat in 20 minutes with a detailed receipt. If he does not…we are to return to the Authorities and inform them. They tell us that Mr. Marino does in fact work for them, but he should not be charging for services not rendered. They tell us that throughout Greece we should only pay if we request services and otherwise, we are to go to the Authorities on arrival. If we have any problems, we are to go to the Authorities. He tells us they love tourists and want to ensure that tourists enjoy themselves in Greece.

One note, we were told by Peggy in Corfu that there is an issue in Zakynthos over water and that we should not expect a welcome reception if we request it. We think that some of the problems we have encountered are related to this and that perhaps some enterprising soul has installed the water and power hookups to charge back.

We leave the office and there are four blue scooters parked illegally out front.Kirk chirps again…”SEE, blue scooters ARE better!!!!” We return the scooter and a bit apprehensively head back to the boat to wait for Mr. Marino to appear. Eventually he does and he has a receipt in hand. He asks us about water, we say no, we did not take water. He pulls out ten Euros and gives it to us (ostensibly 5 Euros per night for water hookup). We still think we have paid too much but feel that we have made a point, even though we did not intend to. He seems amiable enough. I take the receipt and of course it is all in Greek, but when I check with the dictionary…all that it says is that we paid 20 Euros cash. So our services are still unknown. But when I do a bit of reading it does say that there is a tendency for port servicemen (not Harbour Police…they are too busy dealing with the ferries in this busy port) to charge 10 Euros flat rate per night. We do have power here and that was probably the initial 10 Euro fee (5 Euro per night). We wonder if he will ask us about staying another night and we already have decided we will tell him that this was why we went to the Port Authorities, if he presses or requests further funds. We will happily unhook from the power, we managed for 14 days without it, we hardly need it. But when he wanders by later he simply asks if we are staying longer and we say yes, leaving tomorrow. No further conversation.

We settle in with some bread, cheese, and meat and a good book. I finish the Kite Runner (Awesome book) and start a new one passed to me by a friend, The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson. By page four I am crying I am laughing so hard. Thank you so much for passing this book to me Glenn!

We while away the heat of the afternoon reading on the back of the boat under the shade of the bimini. At one point the winds stir up in the bay and start to blow us a bit onto the quay so we pull out an extra line and winch in the anchor a bit to hold us off. We have learned that this won’t last long here…it’s not like the Cyclades where it blows for days.

A large tripper boat is outfitting for the season and it’s quite entertaining. There are numerous hand flailing, gesticulating, loud commentaries. Quite the fights going on over there! A semi maneuvers down the quay and delivers a slide for installation. An hour later six men are trying to put it into a small truck and two of them are practically shrieking at each other. We assume that it didn’t fit… and it’s going back….

The German couple next to us return from their hike and we chat for a bit. We ask where each other is headed and they give us a couple of pointers on some very quiet places if we like to anchor. We say yes and thank them. So, I must amend an earlier statement that was decidedly negative towards German sailors. I seem to dislike young, male, groups of German sailors. When that stereotype proves me wrong, I’ll let you know.

A Bulgarian boat pulls in next to us. It is a 47 foot Beneteau…our dream boat. They are having difficulty opening their fuel cap, he says that it has not been opened since winter. We realize, that other than one other boat we have seen here, there are no clearly identifiable charter yachts, and everyone thinks we own this boat since it also has no clearly identifiable charter markings.

Now the consortium of fuel, electricity, water, and Mr. Marino are instantly on site with smiles and apparent helpfulness. Electricity guy comes over and asks us if we are staying. We say yes, he wants to charge us. We say no. Mr. Marino comes over with a receipt in hand and says we pay for another night. He says we paid for two, we say yes, we will unplug this evening and go without power overnight. He seems surprised but doesn’t push any more. We are reasonably certain hat he and the others received a tongue lashing from the Port Authorities. They leave us alone and we will unplug before we leave the boat.

But now, we must tidy up and head back to our restaurant and order more starters… 😉