Hercules

The best campsites often reveal themselves at twilight, as the setting sun begins to cast a shadow of doubt that you may not find a place to stay. It was just so yesterday as my list of potential campsites was growing alarmingly thin. Leaving the road behind to explore my last option, the pavement suddenly returned as the twin smokestacks of a power station came into view. With a large port on the sparsely populated southeast coast of Crete, I'm pretty sure something fucky is going on there. It has 3 stars on Google maps.

Eventually, my intended destination came into view: a tiny, secluded beach. The satellite images showed only one building in the area, and there it was, a small, earthen house plucked straight from Tatooine. And next to it was an old pickup truck and a man... digging. Presuming it to be a grave, I waved and walked over. He introduced himself as Hercules. I told him I was worried he was burying a body. He brought me inside for some homemade raki and dried figs. We talked for a little while, then he gave me an orange from his grandfather's grove, half a liter of the raki, and headed back to town. I guess hospitality and murder tactics form a venn diagram, but as far as I can tell, Hercules was just a friendly, generous dude.