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Quite a lot of things happened to me on the lovely island of Samos. Some were good. Some were bad. However, for some reason, I really enjoyed my stay there. Only two real mishaps happened to me on Samos. The second was when my ATM card, on the first week of a 6 week trip, vanished. The first bit of trouble I ran in to was a bit more life threatening and very funny in hindsight. I had rented a 2 cc Yamaha scooter. It was a very powerful one, needed to traverse hilly Samos. It was also a very new, very expensive one. I was very happy with it. Part of the joy of a scooter is they are extremely maneuverable and you can park it anywhere. I was planning on spending three days driving all over the island with this lean, mean, yellow machine. (I think it was really brown but that sounds better) . Riding a moped is fun, especially the more powerful Yamaha models. A lot of people ride around on mopeds. Mopeds and motorcycles are watched over by a modern, diety that demands hundreds blood sacrifices every year. (Source: Rough Guide 2002). Today was my day to make that sacrifice. On my was across the north coast of Samos I spotted a noteworthy church. The church was called "The Church of the Transconfiguration." This church is where an icon, of the Transconfiguration, appeared and kept returning to the church every time it was taken away by pirates. The church was on a butte above the town and I decided that I was extremely lazy and tried to ride my scooter up it. I wound up the bute until I hit a point on the road (more a rampart) where the road ended in a dirt lot, with a gate, and you had to continue on stairs up to the church. This meant parking the bike and continuing on foot. I had three choices of where to park it. In the dirt lot (I feared the gate being locked), the side of the road against the hill and the side of the road away from the hill with a large drop off. A drop off with some lovely blackberry bushes underneath. For some reason I picked the blackberry side. I pulled the bike as close as I could to the edge. This was because it was a 1 lane road and I didn't want a car, a person, or a farm animal to knock it off. I was on the right hand side of the bike and literally standing on the (ummortared) stones that made up the retaining wall, when I attempted to use the kickstand, (a task that is one difficult and two something I normally stand on the left for). To put this model bike on its kickstand you had to put one foot on the kickstand and pull back very hard. When I pulled the bike back, the rock I was standing on decided to give way fall to the earth. Being an astute believer in gravity, I fell backward as well, down the ravine. Somehow I managed to do a flip, tuck my head and have my shins take the blunt of the blackberries that were nice enough to soften my fall. I looked up surprised to see the bike standing upright, but not on the kickstand. In every action movie I have ever watched when something was about to fall the movie starts to move in slow motion. In this case life imitated art. The moped, also a follower of the cult of gravity, was destined to fall because the kick stand was not holding it up. It should have fallen when I fell, however, it began to move in slow motion, giving me time to think and react. There should have been a fifty fifty chance the direction it would fall over; I guess my mucking with it shifted the favor to the cliff side. I saw the bike slowly start to fall right for my head (eight feet below it) Somehow I managed to bring my legs up, kick it square on the side and push it away form me, further into the bramble. A move my head was grateful for but not my legs. I still have cuts on my leg three years latter. There I was eight feet below the road I was on, with a brand new bike that now had signs of a crash. Several scratches on the new finish. I had minor scratches. Minor considering I fell into a blackberry bramble. I thought I had to get back up the way I got down, a hard task with the bike. I figured I would wait for a person to ask for help. I only waited a minute or so when a good Samaritan came by and pointed out if I used the bike to knock down blackberries I could make it into the dirt lot. Ugg. The rest of the day went by uneventfully. The church was well worth the adventure. It had a very nice view of the harbor of Samos' third port city. I took in the view, had my picture taken and continued on my journey. Later on that day, unphased I climbed a waterfall and went swimming on a beautiful beach. Two days latter when I returned the bike I was sure to wear long pants to hide my cuts. People in Greece typically where pants in the evening (something called mesquetos) The people didn't notice anything wrong with the bike so I was very luckily. I was even more lucky that I only got cuts from the fall though. Contact info: |