September 17, 1996

"My butt may never let me live this down," I said. With each bump that hit the tires, my bones went smashing into the bottom of the wagon. Following my hip bones was my tail bone and each and every vertebrae. When the wagon shifted, so did we, rolling us into the adjoining person to our left, to our right, a boot-jab, a rib, a knee-knock, a thigh. But it was all in the name of fun; surely my cartilage, ligaments, and tissue which at those moments were being mashed together could understand that.

The tractor that chugged in front of us, the cause of our glutinous pains, finally pulled us onto the beach. It was smoother riding the sand but not quieter; the diesel roar drowned out the soft lapping of the waves. Then another sound took over - a screeching whine as the tires dug themselves a long narrow trench. Another agonizing bump and, with no coaxing from the front, 32 legs swung across wooden boards. Thirty two muffled thuds hit the sand. We walked ahead of the tractor in the small radial arc of light cast by its single headlight and wondered, at the pace we were setting, how long a seven-and-a-half kilometer drive would take. The engine whined, sand sprayed, then finally the wagon wheels gripped and broke free. All 32 legs climbed back aboard.

Luckily this was our only stop. As it was the driver was making up for lost time, barreling down the dirt road that led away from the beach. Another bog-down might have meant an even heavier foot and our heads that had been pulling aside just in time to be saved from an unexpected jutting rock or hanging branch might not have reflexed in time. We reeled past outdoor cafes, souvenir stalls, motorbikes parked so close to our path that I wondered whether they would withstand the wind force. We drove past ice-cream stands, beyond all-night disco shacks, further into the night.

My conversation with the Australian next to me, interrupted by hard bumps and occasional grabs for the side-rail, was suddenly interrupted again. We had arrived. Thirty two legs found the ground. Our driver-turned-tour-guide killed the engine and flicked on his flashlight. It was time. A man behind us turned on a radio - complete with pulsing disco lights - and began moving slowly, snapping his fingers high in the air, not to the throbbing beat from the speakers, but to some other that only he could hear.

Then our guide was in the bushes. We followed, asking questions quietly among ourselves, laughing softly that we so blindly trusted one man. As we hiked, flashlight beams poured over embankments, words were passed back, "Watch out here." Lights glided over rock cliffs and bounced around turns. The group that had started as a tightly strung necklace of heads became scattered. Two unusual things struck me about this hike. One, it had begun at 10:00 pm. Two, the further up we walked, the warmer it became. Shouldn't it be the opposite? Warmth then gave way to heat. My long-sleeved tee-shirt had been a mistake; it was melting to my arms.

Around one more corner and our destination came into view; the secret of Chimera. I stood for a breathtaking moment and contemplated what I was seeing; flames poured from rocks far ahead of me. We moved closer, closer still, then flashlights were flicked off, replaced by white and soft yellow flames licking at the air. Rings of blue peeked through cracks, hissed through holes. We had stepped into the Sanctuary of Hephaistos. The ancient Olympians must have thought this a sign from above. In fact it is a creation from below. Natural gas has seeped through the rocks here for centuries. It is said that the flames can be seen by sailors at sea.

Our guide bent beside one flicker of orange and brushed dirt away from a ledge of rock below it. He flicked his lighter at the thin line he had created and a blue flame rolled away from him. "Ahhh," came the response. We investigated the other flames, some sweeping between rock layers, others breaking into pieces as they escaped from their hold. We crouched as close as we could to one and waited. "Snap the shutter, we're melting here."

A bit more exploring and twenty minutes later it was time to leave. We hiked down from the mountain, flashlights again spanning the darkness for rocks, big steps, edges of earth. At the bottom we climbed back into our hay-less wagon and clutched the sides in anticipation. It was less hurried on the way back though. When we hit the beach, the tractor wheels again dug a pit in the sand and again we relieved it of it's burden, us. Finally the tractor free, we bumped back through the ruins of Olympos. I promised my butt I would sit only on soft pillows in the morning. We were let off near our vans and the tractor chugged away down the road. We stood for a long moment and I looked up at the stars embedded in the darkness; flames too - flames far, far away.