A Greek Riot

Reminiscing on that fateful summer in Greece, July 2014.

“This is what you call a Greek riot” Joan said, skimming his palm against the steering wheel as he swerved our small truck around the mass of roving sheep, scattered across the pockmarked roadway ahead. I was two weeks into my first solo sojourn into the world; a three-month backpacking trip across Western Europe. Volunteerism had crept into my itinerary, as I found myself alongside the remaining staff and volunteers of the Ionian Dolphin Project, packing into our rumbling Toyota, rambling along the hillside of Vonitsa, Greece. We set out early that morning to launch our small motor boat into the beckoning Ionian Sea. The objective was identifying and recording the dolphin population along the coast. Warming waters and pollution from fisherman effected the groups’ health over the years, we were there to shout over sea-salt spray when we identified the playful survivors.

Skin weathered to dark, mahogany leather from his hours at sea, Joan Gonzalvo was our fiery, spirituous leader. A Barcelona native, he seemed just as Greek as the villagers who claimed him as one of their own. He resided in multiple worlds with ease, part man part fish, part Catalan part Greek. He claimed David Bowie had once stepped on his foot at a cathedral. I felt he was made up of the stuff of old legends, rock stars and mythical sea Gods.

Two sleepless days of air travel and a long, hot and dusty bus ride through the Peloponnese mountains (with one anxious hour spent broken down on the side of the road) led me from Athens to Vonitsa and then to Joan. Searching for the town’s main pier, our rendezvous point, I walked tiredly past a bakery, butchery, and cafe, finding the familiarity of bread and coffee more profound than I had reason to. As unceremonious on land as he was authoritative on sea, Joan introduced me to his spirited Greek-English research assistant Eirini and her soon-to-be replacement, Viktoria, a lovely Hungarian woman.

I was to be the lone volunteer that week. He churlishly led me off the pier as I dragged my sweaty body behind – what had I gotten into? Joan made dinner that night and told us stories of his childhood pet Pastanaga (a disappearing turtle), his brush with hallucinogens and his subsequent quest for Tinkerbell-a phantom Julia Roberts incarnate he would chase through the underbelly of London. Riotous and fanciful, passionate, bold and intellectual, Joan’s life work was the underwater world of the Delphinidae.

The week was full of tumult and melee at sea. Mesmerizing dolphins at my fingertips, focused data collection, thunderstorms and a sublime trip to a neighboring island where summer’s European joys almost made me forget how unbearably American I felt. Hours in the late-evening heat were spent trading stories over beers by the seaside. Joan was the infuriating, endearing captain of it all. He seems almost a fable to me now; personification of the gift and grit and spirit and trouble of travel. Sun forever on his skin, dirt forever on his feet and the sea always in his mind's eye. I fondly remember my days spent as a visitor in his world. Quite the riot.