Free Cathedrals of the Flesh by Alexia Brue Page B

terminal.
    Right away I learned that Greek Adonises do exist. Alexandros swaggered over as I was asking a uniformed man to direct me
     to Korinth, which is like asking a random person on the streets of Manhattan to direct you to Rhode Island. In halting English,
     Alexandros explained that he too was en route to Korinth. I thanked the gods. Alexandros was what you might call strapping,
     and his appearance brought to mind a half-remembered fragment of Ca-vafy: 'Hair as though stolen from Greek statues, / always
     lovely, even uncombed, / and falling slightly over pale foreheads.' We transferred buses three times to reach the main station,
     and with each transfer I was more grateful for Alexandros's presence. He wheeled my suitcase, then translated for me while
     I bought my ticket, and we raced to the final bus just as it was boarding. Two bus drivers argued over who would take this
     route. Alexandros explained that last minute haggling over routes was standard bus driver protocol. 'He try to crade him Korinth
     for Mycenae.'
    The driver who ended up with Korinth acted like the winner. He took his seat grinning, and as I sat back in mine, I hoped
     all my travel karma would be this good. Alexandros sat next to me on the bus, and I admired the gap between his two perfectly
     straight front teeth. His English was good enough to explain that he was in the army and wanted to be a veterinarian. When
     he found out I was twenty-seven (he was nineteen), he became deferential and asked me if I had children. I had been demoted
     from Aphrodite to Hera. I tried to smile and asked him how to make tzatziki, thick yogurt with garlic, cucumber, and lemon.
     The trick is to strain the yogurt three times.
    After thirty minutes, when we'd made it beyond the industrial factories on Athens's periphery and the bus chugged along stony
     beachfront highways, Alexandros asked, 'Why you go to Korinthos?'
    'I want to learn about the baths.'
    'Bath. What is bath?'
    'You know, thermae, gymnasium. An ancient bath.'
    'Oh, gymnasium. Yes, yes. I know. They are all gone. That was ancient Greece, not Greece now.'
    'Yes, I know. I will visit ancient gymnasium.'
    'Ahhh, you archaeologist?'
    'Not exactly. I'm a student,' I said to simplify matters.
    Now he understood, but seemed to think I was a rather old student. Fine. It was clear Alexandros and I had no future after
     this bus ride. I was an old student looking for baths that no longer exist.
    I got off the bus at the Isthmus of Korinth stop, which sounded more like a movie Kirk Douglas might have made after Spartacus than a bus stop. The Isthmus is a narrow, seven-kilometer-long sliver separating mainland Greece from the southern Peloponnese.
     All north-south traffic in Greece once had to pass through the Isthmus, making Korinth, within ten miles of the Isthmus, the
     second most important Greek city after Athens during the classical period. Pausanias, the ancient travel writer, referred
     to this part of the Peloponnese as 'well-watered Korinth' and home to one thousand sacred prostitutes on a hilltop. Yet I
     was completely alone on a long stretch of silent, dusty highway. I needed another Alexandros to swoop down and guide me to
     the Rooms Marinos.
    'The Rooms Marinos, Ancient Korinth,' was all I had scrawled in my notebook, and I cursed my idiotic optimism that I would
     stumble onto the place. Several hundred yards away stood a highway truck stop where leather-skinned men sat outside on plastic
     patio furniture, drinking beer. The gruff proprietor called me a cab. Five hours into my stay in Greece and I was already
     noticing something that would be confirmed again and again: Greeks, in general, aren't nearly as friendly or hospitable as
     Turks. (The Turks make better baklava, too). A silver Mercedes showed up to collect me (most Greek cabs are in fact Mercedeses,
     but I didn't know that at the time and worried that I would be seen as uppity for arriving in what I assumed was a higher-priced