Cat

Well, we're on Syros and it's even hotter than in Athens. Syros is an island in the Cyclades group. It used to be the maritime centre for the Greeks in ancient times. Now it is just the centre of the Cyclades. We are staying in Ermopoulous, which is named after Hermes, the Greek god of commerce and also the messenger for the gods. He's the one with the winged sandals that make him travel faster.

We wandered around the quaint town most of the day bu Alice was getting hot so we went back to our old but beaustiful hotel. Outside the front door we could hear some meowing. We looked around for a cat as there are cats everywhere here. We couldn't see one, the sound seemed to be coming from a rental car parked out the front. It sounded like the cat was in the engine somewhere. I got down on all fours and looked under the car and sure enough there was a tail dangling from the chassis. I could see a little kitten sitting under the bonnet.

Well, we tried everything to get it out. We thought the owners might come back and drive off without knowing. We rang the rental company, we asked the hotels nearby, we got a Greek lady to call the company too and explain the situation a little more clearly. We even put a note with a picture of a cat and a car under the windshield wipers.

I went to go for more help and when I got back, Bek said the cat had run into our hotel. So I went inside and we tried to catch it with the owner. It was hiding under the bed and when it saw me crouched down it freaked out and took the stairs at two bounds. And it ran straight back into the engine of the same car. It didn't even think to use the car that was closer to the hotel entrance. Maybe it always lived in that car.

Finally we gave up, we put a little container of water under the car and went for a swim in the beautiful, blue Aegean sea.

They don't really have beaches on this island but they do have small concrete jetties to jump off. We swam about, contemplating if there were anything that could kill us in a Greek sea. It was a bit of Aussie paranoia on our half. Anyway, finally we hiked back up the hill and the rental car was gone! The container of water was still in the road, and luckily there was not blood staining the road. We were thankful that the cat had finally run off somewhere else to hide.

Tomorrow, another island, and probably another cat.