On Saturday morning we were in a better mood than in the evening. Not for nothing do they say, morning is wiser than evening! After a slightly sleepless night when about 5 mosquitoes disturbed us, we decided to work on attaching our mosquito net. Besides that, we all calmed down a bit and after yesterday's uncertainty about what would happen to us, we realized that if they don't close the campground on us, we can definitely weather the worst here.
We have everything we need here, the owner is also communicating with us a bit better now and says we should enjoy it here and relax. He still probably doesn't understand that we're not here on vacation, that we work normally (though I'm not full-time). We have the option of electricity connection, hot water, and a huge shower! A tap with drinking water behind the building and lots of space – the campground is almost empty.
The campground is fenced, but through gates that are about every 100 meters, there's access to a nice beach. We're on a tiny peninsula and it's about 1.5 km around the campground along the beach, so I can walk and even run...in circles! The only problem is that to leave the campground we have to send an SMS, and swimming isn't allowed at all. We think if they allowed it, this place would immediately be full of people from town.
Visit from the newspaper
On Saturday morning we had a visitor. A journalist came to see us. Well...she talked to us through the fence with a mask on and recorded every answer. She asked us all how we felt here and what our situation was. We answered very briefly only the essentials and tried not to say anything that could turn against us later. When she wanted to photograph us, we forbade it. And still. She managed to take a few photos and on Monday an article appeared in the local newspaper about tourists stuck in Drepano campground near the town of Igoumenitsa.
We didn't really care about being in Greek newspapers – our answers there were really minor – but what really surprised us was that it started appearing in Czech newspapers too! :D We're in Blesk, ceskenoviny.cz, and aktualne.cz. But there was probably a translation error, so not everything is completely true.
And here I'm providing a link to the original article for those interested, where we also have several photos:
Getting used to the environment
Otherwise we spent the weekend working on the van, attached the mosquito net, connected the fridge to our smart home, so now we also control it by voice. We also baked sourdough bread in an improvised oven – this time made from a grill – and it rose nicely. But we didn't realize one thing. The caraway we managed to get here is a bit different. It's Roman caraway and therefore tastes completely different from our classic Czech one, and the bread had a very non-traditional and strong flavor because of it.
Gradually we learned that all the French had decided to leave. We totally understand – having a house in France, we'd probably risk the drive through Italy too. There are 2 families here with children and several retirees. For them it seems like the best option. Our student neighbors and one young working French couple found a place with acquaintances. They left the campground and moved over the mountains to this private property. They wrote that they arrived safely, so we're just keeping our fingers crossed that they have no other troubles and can wait it out there in peace.
More plan changes
We spent Easter Monday shopping. And we also stopped at a garden center to buy some seedlings for our new garden. For the evening we also bought some meat for the grill and invited the neighbors. We pleasantly chatted and told stories from our travels until the campground owner stopped by and announced that the campground would be closing on Thursday.
And here we go again! First they tell us it's free for a month, then that we have to pay, and now that they're closing! You couldn't help but laugh at this. But we still enjoyed a nice evening with a romantic sunset and went to (not) sleep nicely with the mosquitoes again. The mosquito net is great, but so holey in places that most mosquitoes successfully ignore it.
On Tuesday morning we got a response from the embassy. We can take a ship to Italy, from where they'll arrange a corridor for us all the way to the Czech Republic. But it has several conditions. Drive through Italy in 24 hours, don't stop in Austria at all, and don't cross from Austria to Germany and back. Just the kind of drive our Iveco isn't trained for. I'm guessing it would start protesting somewhere in the middle of Italy and maybe would stop completely at Brenner Pass. We simply decided it would be safer not to undertake this journey. I don't even want to imagine what it would mean for us to get stuck somewhere among fear-living Italians and their overcrowded hospitals.
All's well that ends well
We tried contacting several people through Facebook until we finally managed to find two nice ladies who would let us park at their place. One has an olive grove on a lake shore a few hundred kilometers from our current location. We were almost starting to plan the trip back south when the campground owner came to us saying we can stay even after Thursday, that the mayor allows it.
So now we don't understand anything at all! Anyway, we have plan B prepared just in case, so we're secure! For now we're staying here, but as soon as they loosen up the roads a bit (now they're checking a lot and stopping every car, finding out the reason for your travel), we'll head out! Or if they close the campground again...or raise the prices!
As long as nothing changes radically, we're safe here and we're not in a hurry to return to the Czech Republic. After all, we're right in an area where there's zero incidence of infection! The last few days have been more tense, but I believe we're all just trying to do the best for each other and that nobody will chase us from here. We're all still people and if we treat each other humanely, we'll manage.