Unexpected Danger while Geocaching!

Geocaching… a trip to paradise places that you never had a chance to visit before…places that you didn’t know that they existed in your homeland….and a game that wakes up the things we loved in our childhood!

A new style of treasure hunting and a feeling that even for some time you are a new Indiana Jones!

Yes… there is a lot of fun when you are caching but sometimes you may come face to face with danger!

You have to be careful but what happens when you can not do many things about it?? 

It was winter in Rhodes, but do not expect heavy winter here! Snow is so rare and you have to go to the highest mountain, Attavyros to see some! One day we decided to go up there but not to see snow this time! We wanted to find the cache that was hidden there!

On the top of this lovely mountain you can see the ruins of probably the greatest ancient Greek temple of the island! The temple was dedicated to God Zeus! Many ancients were coming here to pray to Zeus for them or for their animals! Archeologists who made some excavations had found many “gifts” to the god from the ancients! Most of them were small bronze statues and tiny bronze ox statues! We have this even now! We ask the help of a saint for something (to heal our leg for example) and as a payment to the Saint, we are taking, most of the times a placket (silver or gold in the old times, but nowadays they are only in color) showing engraved the leg that has been healed!

Anyway… the area is protected by laws! You can not go and dig or something! If you do anything there, you are illegal and you are facing the jail!

The day we decided to go and find the cache was a nice one for a winter!

The sun was shinning the sky was clear but it was cold and windy!

Well… we were expecting that!!! J

We went by car until a few, meters away from the top! We started walking and we decided first to visit the temple and then the cache! After all, that was exactly what the geocachers who placed the cache did, and…we didn’t know the exact place the cache was!

The temple was nice but nothing much left from it! Some walls only! We saw many stone pyramids there! They were probably made by visitors!

While we were walking in the temple area and the area around it, I saw that there were small digs in the ground! Small round, most of the times, digs! I started counting them…. They were many!! At first I thought…. Rabbits! They found something to eat and…. While I was walking and finding more and more holes, I realized that the holes were too deep to be from a rabbit! …And…. What a rabbit was doing up here where there is almost nothing to eat??? The sun was blinding me so I kept looking down! 

I was a little further from my sister and my brother in law so I decided to see where they were! I turned my head and saw a man with dark clothes and a jacket looking at me! I saw that he was holding a metal detector and a small shovel!!! I was quite close to him no more than 20 meters away but a wire fence was separating us! I couldn’t see his face clearly because of the sun and because he was wearing sunglasses and cap! I am sure he was looking me clearly!!!!

The guy was the one who made the wholes and the digs!!! He was illegally searching for ancient things!!! He was a criminal!!! I do not know why… maybe because I used to work as a guard of antiquities, maybe because I love history, ancient sites and my place… I started yelling at him!

“What are you doing here with all that??? Huh???? ”

I do not know if he heard me because the wind was strong and was blowing from the other side! He tried to come closer but he suddenly turned his head and saw my sister and my brother in law who were coming close to me, and started leaving the area quickly!! My sister yelled my name and I am afraid he heard it! Both my sister and my brother in law came close to me and asked me what that was! They had seen the guy and the metal detector!!! 

By that time, the guy who was near some big rocks, suddenly disappeared!! Where did he go??? We could see all the way down but we couldn’t see him! He was probably hiding somewhere! We didn’t want to go chase him because this would be a stupid and extremely dangerous thing to do!

So, we continued our way to the cache! After some time we came to the cache area!

Oh!!!! The cache was exposed and thrown some meters away from its hiding place! The guy probably had found the cache and since it didn’t have anything for him he had thrown it away! I checked if everything was ok, I logged and we left the area quickly!

After all that we started feeling hungry so we went to one of the taverns in the village close to the mountain to eat! Our mind was still in the incident and we thought that everyone was looking at us! The guy had seen our faces but we haven’t seen his face!

What fear can do….

All night we were talking about that! The next morning we called the Archeologist office! We explained everything and we answered all their questions! The woman archeologist who was talking, asked us what we were doing up there! We told her about geocaching and that there is a cache near there (I never said the hiding place!!), and we were ready to explain what geocaching is when she told us that she knew the game! She had been to another country and she knew about it! She was happily socked when she learned that this game finally came to Greece! We told her that we are the only geocachers in the island!!!

I gave all the details I had kept in my mind about the guy, and believe me I am good in details! She told me that I was very lucky! These guys are very dangerous and who knows… he may had a gun!!! Oh boy… this never passed from my mind!!!

I do not know what has happened, but I feel good for helping my country authorities, to find out what was happening in such an historic and beautiful place in Rhodes, and that I helped a little, so the ancient treasures of Rhodes, to stay in Rhodes! :-)

                                                      Nikos Stamoulis

                                                         GATOULIS

By Nikos Stamoulis

Nikos is from the Island of Rhodes in Greece. He is the Author of the Column "GATOULIS Caching Stories"

Comments(2):

1. I enjoyed your story - You lived to tell the tale! (MrsB)

   Thursday, July 23, 2009 Lucilla

2. Treasures of Rhodes

   Thank you for sharing your geocaching adventure in Rhodes, Greece.

   Saturday, December 05, 2009 Robin