VN October 2020

Vetnuus |Oktober 2020 34 The flight on a Boeing 747, newly released for service, swiftly and smoothly brought Colin Wenman, George Fairley and myself to Greece. Athens airport building was just a huge hall at that time, crowded with people, milling around the counters and coffee shops and tourist gift shops. As we walked into the crowded atmosphere with the mixture of aromas from many bodies of various cultures and a cacophony of noise, I was completely taken aback when the loudspeakers blared out our names over all the noise, instructing us to move to a specific counter. Our tour leader who had represented Rotary international, George Fairley, had kept rather a low profile while we were in Israel. His job was to liaise with the various organisers and oil the wheels as it were. We had forgotten that he had been the head of Cooke’s International, probably the biggest travel agent in the world at that time, for the whole of Africa south of the equator. The Cooke’s office in Athens had obviously been alerted that he was arriving on that flight and to my astonishment we were met by their representatives and treated like VIP’s. They took our passports and we were whisked through a side door into a large black limousine which swept us into Athens, parked in the basement of a multi-story building and then up to the penthouse offices of Cooke’s, where we sat and had tea while our luggage and passports were sorted out back at the airport All around us windows gave us breath-taking vistas of the Capital of Greece, spread out before us. Towering above everything else of course, was the famed Acropolis, but everywhere one looked there seemed ruins of huge buildings, temples etc. Nearby, tall marble columns, remains of the ruined temple of Jupiter soared into the air and in the distance one could see the famed Olympic athletic stadium. What an introduction to this amazing country! This week was sort of courtesy of SAA and Rotary International. When we had been selected originally to be part of the team, way back in SA, we were told to each go individually and sort our tickets out at Cooke’s. As I sat in their office that day the agent said that Rotary was paying for the airfare to Israel, but SAA had a special on at the time where we could visit any one of 12 cities in Europe at no extra cost. Wow, what an offer! I couldn’t really afford the time but felt I had to make at least a little use of this gift and seeing that I had not been to Greece before, opted to go there for a week at the end of our Israeli tour, and so here we were. Through a contact in Israel, Colin and I had arranged to stay in a room at a flat, sharing a week’s accommodation. He would stay from Thursday to Monday, while I went on a tour of the Greek Islands and then I would stay from Monday till the next Thursday. I was really excited about the prospect of exploring this exotic city and the islands, but I had real mixed feelings, because I was missing my darling Emily so much as well as our three children and was itching to get home. Recollections 37: A Breath of Greece then Home Ian du Toit Story