Crete. It's in the Mediterranean, so, warm. But most of the island is elevated, so the temp can drop 20 degrees farenheit in a half hour if the sun goes away. This other American and I are walking from village to village, chasing agricultural work, after the olive harvesting season ended in Arkalochori, in the middle of the island.
We eventually make it down to the southern coast near evening. It's a 15k drive down a dry riverbed . . . down, down, down . . . to the (then) would-be tourist town of Arvi, the only place in all of Greece where bananas are grown. We're told that the weekly mail truck will be going down there the next day, and that we can probably hitch a ride in the pickup bed.
There's a pension we could stay in, cost of 70 drachma, then about two dollars. We refuse to even consider paying such an exorbinant fee. Mostly, we'd found shelter with the famously welcoming Greeks in tiny villages on the way there. Not this time.
So, we bed down to await the dawn. Many more times than I wish to remember while traveling, I've been out in the cold without enough to keep me warm. Makes for a very, very, very looooong night. No real sleep, just misery. And the dawn can't come soon enough.
But . . . redemption in the morning! The mail truck comes, and we descend down to Arvi. Africa lies just across the Mediterranean. The sun is beating down, and the white sand of the beach beckons. We doff our "homeless guy on the streets" layers down to trunks.
Baking in the sun on the beach as the soft, insistent systole and diastole of the emerald green waves came in and out was . . . HEAVEN ON EARTH.