Jen’s Greek Tragedy
21 September 2010
"Hey guys!", the Captain excitedly exclaims, "whaddaya say we go rent motor scooters and explore the island?" "They're only 10 euros for the day so we can each get our own."
The skipper and Amy are gung-ho, Jen and Kath a bit hesitant. But off we go to the rental shop (Avis, none-the-less). Kath decides to ride with Craig so they rent a bigger bike, Jen and Amy stick with the 50cc smaller ones, even though the old man seems to be saying, "No!, No! to Motor Scooters", but that was Greek to us.
First is a practice ride for beginners Jen and Amy down a side street and they do fine after some initial wobbles. Then it's off to explore. We head for the waterfall, have a great hike and swim. Then we then head to a local bay that's down a winding and narrow road. And that's when the tragedy struck.
Kath and Craig were leading, followed by Amy and Jen, and were checking their mirrors regularly to see all was in order. Going around a sharp curve they lost sight of the others, but shortly Amy appeared. No Jen! Kath hopped off as Craig wheeled around knowing that something had happened. Blasting back he quickly spotted several stopped cars and people standing about - then to his relief he saw Jennie sitting on the side of the road - really banged up but clearly not in life-threatening jeopardy.
Clearly needing medical treatment, though, one of the local women graciously drove Jennie and Katherine to the medical center. Craig and Amy followed on their scooters, needless to say, driving very carefully! Jen got excellent initial care from a young, good looking Greek doctor, which didn't hurt at all! What did hurt, though, was scrubbing all the road dirt out of her extensive abrasions - ouch! But a soothing antibiotic spray (not available in the US, oddly) and proper dressing brought her to the hobble-around-painfully stage and ready to check out.
Later on Kath rented a car and took Jen to the hospital for X-rays (that skull pic shows no concussion!) while Craig and Amy got all three bikes back to the shop. The last shot is Jen giving the thumbs-up - not that she's ready to go riding again as the helmet may imply, but that she's pretty sure she'll heal after some time goes by.
An interesting footnote is that this all cost us 9 Euros! Imagine if it were in the US.