It was so early when we started driving that it was still dark. To go to Olympia we had to pass through Tripoli. Being a relatively big city, we had no problem finding it. We arrived there after 8am, encountering some pretty crazy traffic in rush hour. As the lady at the rental warned us, getting out of the city could pose some difficulties, and it did. We approached the city from the east and we knew we had to get out of it heading north, so once in the heart of the city, I made an arbitrary right turn. Luckily we did eventually see a big sign with 15 destinations marked on it, some of which were towns that should be on our way. So away we went.The drive from this point on should have been easy, and it was. We never got lost. Except that we were running dangerously low on gas, to the point where I tried to coast on neutral as much as possible. I was now regretting not getting gas when Chris pointed out a gas station to me earlier. That gas station was on the left side, plus we did see plenty of them along the way, so I thought we could wait. But now we were on a rather small local road, and gas stations were hard to come by. We were heading towards a major highway and I was constantly checking the map to see how far away we were. This was a total deja vu for me as I was in the exact same situation when I drove my Miata to the east coast 8 years ago. I was prepared for the worst and was imagining what we would do if we became stranded. Chris was praying the whole time, which must have felt like eternity.
We did eventually see a sign pointing to a gas station, but the stress had not ended yet as we could not see it anywhere on the road! We made a turn and stopped by a bakery to ask. It turned out that the gas station was only a little bit further down the road. I guess our anxiety had made us impatient.
We were overcome by a great feeling of relief after we filled up the tank. We could now at last enjoy some pretty rare sights (at least to us) on the local highway, which included... a guy who slowed down traffic to tell the drivers to stay on the right side of the road. "Hmm... why would I need a guy to tell me that?" I wondered, until I saw further down the road a slow moving truck approaching us in the opposite direction that was painting the lane dividing markers. I guess on these winding and twisting roads, one could easily cross the center and mess up their paint job, especially on many of the hairpin turns. Later on, we caught a glimpse of an old lady by the side of the road holding out a basket of fruits to cars that were whipping by her! I'm assuming that she was trying to sell her fruits, and not expecting us to stick out our hands and grab one of them on our way :) And on multiple occurrences we saw shepherds herding sheeps right in the middle of the road.
It was almost noon by the time we arrived at Olympia. After lunch we entered the ancient site to see it already crowded with tourists. We visited the museum first and tried to listen in on many of the guided tours inside. The ancient site was quite a walk away from the museum, and was equally crowded. At the far end of the site was the barren looking stadium for foot races, complete with the original starting line marker stones. We found a quiet a spot on the small grassy hill to relax. Entertainment was provided by a group of students who decided to have a mock race. Another race followed shortly by two guys who did it au naturel - ie. with bare feet, not naked like the ancient athletes :)
By the time we left the site, the scene had become even more chaotic with tourist groups. We could barely find the space to squeeze through them to exit the site! We walked along the main street in the town to arrive at a hill where the Museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Antiquity was located. Surprisingly, the museum was almost completely empty. We were the only visitors during our half-hour visit. The small museum was informative and much more enjoyable to visit due to the lack of crowds.
Our drive back to Nafplio was smooth and uneventful, especially compared to this morning's drive. We made a short stop at Langadia to take some photos, and were greeted by a carpenter named Ignatio who invited us to his workshop and of course, eventually tried to sell us some of his crafts, which consist mostly of walking canes.
Back at Nafplio, we ended our night with a fast dinner that included an order of "fried onions". We were unfortunately wrong to assume that they meant onion rings, because they were literally just plain fried onions :)
Scare of the day: almost running out of gas in the middle of nowhere
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