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Matala is a small fishing village on the very southern coast of Crete, between Africa and Greece. It is famous among travellers like the route from Australia to Europe is famous. By the time it is listed in the travellers’ books, it is old and well known.
I was staying with Rob, a friend from Canada, who lived in Finsbury Park, worked at the London zoo. He mentioned that ”beneath the Matala moon” was in the lyrics of ‘Carey’, that he’d had a good time there when he’d gone in the past. This was all the direction I needed. I had always liked Joni Mitchell’s songs. My first memory of Matala was waking up, hung over, a dog barking near the fence. I felt around my sleeping bag, couldn’t find my passport or traveller’s cheques. There was a guy cowering by the fence. He had them. His name was George.
George was frozen to the spot, quaking in fear, confronted by a big, hostile German Shepherd named Cello. Harry was Cello’s owner. He was a big Dutchman with a mullet, a FREE SONNY BARGER sleeveless t-shirt, big muscles. He liked to push people around. Harry had seen Cello trap George as he ripped off my stuff. He was up early, making a coffee in his trailer, just outside the wire fence of the camp grounds. He lived there for the summer before travelling with Cello, his two boys and wife, back to Holland, for the winter. He knew Manoli who had, by this time, responded to the barking. He stood, sleepy, beside George, smiling resignedly. I tried to look serious and angry, thrashing around in my sleeping bag.
We had a meeting in Manoli’s office, where he had a cot and some coffee making utensils. Everybody in the campground left their valuables there when they went to the beach. I slapped George once, settled for my passport and Traveller’s cheques back. I found out later that George could have killed me in a fight, nothing short of a gun was going to stop him. As we talked, George quiet because of Cello’s presence at the door, Harry and Manoli believed that what I said was true: I wasn’t a rich tourist, I dug ditches at home. All I wanted was a coffee, some boiled eggs at the taverna. I told them to tell George not to do it again, to let him go. There was no harm done, no cops for miles.
Harry gave me a tarp, to put up between two trees, for a tent. I joined the other tourists at the taverna. We sat, guys from three or four countries, rock and Marley turned up loud, at the taverna across the road from the campground. We’d welcome, with quarts of German beer, the buses which showed up from Iraklion, four or five times a day. They would stop, disgorge passengers in front of the taverna, refill themselves, before heading back to Iraklion with their load of tourists. The departing tourists had done their time in Greece, were moving on. The visitors in the summer months were two or three weekers. Some, were on package excursions from Australia, some, on two week vacations from their jobs in England or Germany or Norway. They were all replaceable to the Greeks. They were all replaced.
I didn’t notice the Greeks at that time. I had the same attitude toward the locals as most of the tourists. They were there for my needs, but they weren’t important. The other tourists and travellers were interesting to me, the Cretans, who I call Greeks, were in the background.
Matala was crawling with women. Every bus disgorged more who only stayed around for a few weeks. I didn’t see the Greeks, but they were there. Sipping quietly on a Coke or coffee, they were, like us, watching the girls.
There were caves in the cliffs at Matala. Some said the early Christians used them to hide from the Romans. Someone in Joni’s crowd discovered them. Probably hip

I was leaving Matala with Anne and Thomas, the dedicated communist German from Ulm, who owned the French Peugot which elevated and lowered its suspension at the flick of a switch. He and I had argued about communism and democracy for a week every night in the taverna. My strongest argument, the one which he couldn’t answer, was to ask him where all the communist travellers were? Why was he the only one from a communist country who was free to travel where he liked, do what he wanted?
Thomas’ idealism was admirable. We agreed, at least, that the rich, communist or capitalist, were still screwing the poor. He owned a car and offered me a free ride to Iraklion when he learned I was leaving.
Anne was leaving Greece, too. She was from England, I was heading for London. She had seen me around Matala, decided to accompany me.
I collected the drachma which were saved for me by my boss, Costa, the young, local godfather in Matala. He gave me an allowance each week, kept back a portion of my pay. I worked on various construction jobs he had, was hardened, tanned and strong when he paid me off.
He held back a bit for himself, just to make sure everyone knew who was the boss. If he hadn’t saved some of my pay for me, we both knew I would have blown it all.
The ferry from Iraklion to Piraeus was boring and uneventful. Just as well. After living for six months in Matala, on the southern coast of Crete, never leaving, it was a slow emergence into the outside world.
One of the most embarrassing occasions in my life occurred just then. I had the crabs. I got them in Matala and was at the stage of exterminating them which required sexual abstinence. There was to be no carnal contact, not even snuggling, in case of infection of another and a rebirth of the cursed bugs. But I was ashamed. I was too embarrassed to tell Anne.
God knows what she thought.
Anne had lived in Matala long enough to know that I wasn’t gay. She was attractive enough, the ex girlfriend of a guy who was the grandson of Robert Graves, the poet.
But I passed up perfect opportunities and situations which thrust us together. You don’t get much closer together than when you hitchike together. I had recently been through hell, living in my makeshift tent in the campground, scratching at myself. I wouldn’t have wished it on anyone. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.
It was bad enough telling Costas and the boys in Matala. They all took a step away from me.
Costas wrinkled his nose when he asked why I didn’t tell him sooner. Later, he admitted that when he got them, he separated himself from his family home and friends until he got rid of them.
After a few smog filled days in Athens during which we were treated as fair game, ripped off everywhere we turned, we concluded that the air fare to Britain was too costly. There was an election on in Greece, something catastrophic was happening in Northern Europe, living in Athens, even on our skimpy budget, was too expensive. Reaching London could be done, cheaper, by hitching most of the way.
Anne was fighting with her parents, proving her independence. She could easily get the required air fare home but refused to make the call, thereby signalling to her family that she was dependent upon them.
I thought she was crazy.
A guy seemed to meet us in Brindisi, when we landed in Italy. He appeared, smiling like a long lost brother, gave us pizza and a room for the night, ostensibly, for free. He finally demanded payment in sexual favours, from Anne, but too late. By the time he sneaked away from his wife, it was morning and we fled.
On the motorway, heading north, it was easy to see why veteran travellers advised always to hitch with a woman in Europe. Even eighteen wheelers with full loads stopped for women.
The first big rig which came by, skidded to a fishtailing halt, up the highway. The driver didn’t care about the truck, t