Kalamata | wordsfromanneli

Once again, old, old photos taken with a cheap camera, but I find the content a treasure so I put up with the poor quality.

I don’t know what brand of vehicle this is, but I wonder if it’s something that was built in a backyard workshop. You can see that the vehicle up ahead is also a three-wheeler, but the blue one in the foreground looks like it has had some modifications.

One thing I wonder about is the stability of the vehicle. I can imagine that it isn’t particularly safe to go too fast around a corner or it could roll over.

Check out the license plate.

Several modes of transportation were popular.

Even the bus can have a mishap. The tools lying beside the flat tire tell the story. The driver has gone for help. Either that or he has left town. Perhaps in a three-wheeler. One less tire to go flat.

These photos were taken in Kalamata (known for its olives, although it should be known for its dogs that bark all night).

During both nights we spent in a campground in Kalamata in our VW van, once heading south and then, weeks later, heading north again, dogs in the neighbourhood barked for much of the night.

When I checked my journal that I kept in those days, I noticed that after I mentioned the dogs barking, I also made a comment about people walking around late at night. This seemed to be a common thing; women pushing their babies in strollers at 11 p.m., because it was at last cool enough to be outside. So maybe that’s what the dogs were barking at – all the people going for walks at night.

The Greek city of Kalamata could quite rightfully be called Calamity that day.

When the bus gets a flat tire in the main intersection of town, everyone needs to find an alternate method of transportation. Even the bus driver is gone, leaving his tools on the ground as he most likely is looking for help. That would be quite a heavy tire to change, assuming he had a spare to put on there.

The coffee store roasts the coffee right there in the front of the store, but I don’t think they serve coffee. They just sell the beans. Next to the yellow Pepsi crate, is the container of coffee beans that looks like the top part of an old-fashioned washtub. That tub full of beans is heated from underneath to roast the beans while some mechanical arms constantly turn and stir them so they don’t burn. The smell is delicious.