RAKI uff´m Dorf
18. Oct 2026 · Loukia, Griechenland · 5 min read
On this way to Raki I saw another one of those guys on the street again.
What a song. Just briefly. I love my playlist. It's so magnificent.
Picked up another guy. His name is Iannis. So me on the road again, from Elounda towards the mountains somehow once across country through, past Heraklion etc. Shit, nose hairs burnt. Weird situation. Well okay, then I don't have to trim them. We had that last time too.
Okay, so there's this guy walking on the street and I think to myself, let me just quickly check on Google and think to myself, fuck, the next village is eleven kilometers away. So I pulled over to the right. He gets in of course, speaks neither English nor French, nor Italian, nor Spanish, let alone German. I really tried everything. It was really funny. I'm also a bit practiced at it by now. Maybe I should learn Greek....LAUGH... Absolutely not. Anyhausen. So I drive with him, I think, six and a half kilometers and there he was sitting like in the middle on the road. So in Greek with somehow pointing here curve and something and slowly and anyway there's this little square and there's this sales stand. Someone sells honey and wine and a few fruits there. That's his friend, that's where he wanted to go. I think he doesn't have a driver's license, something, I don't know. Anyway, I get there and first get to drink white wine and then the phone rings of the guy who actually has this shop there and he tells me in English, so he has to leave real quick. I think to myself, okay, sure, I'm sitting here now with the guy who speaks neither my language nor I his and yet we really had a funny time together, because the guy drove off and got his family. So his wife and his son. The son could speak a bit of English then. And it comes out, this is now not even somehow, I think, that was six or nine kilometers away from the place where I was actually supposed to meet Iannis Number Two, who is actually Iannis Number One. On the other hand, personal meeting counts first, somehow, whatever. Anyhausen, already the second time today, I then eventually drove off again and and actually come through a village where even Google says, I'm out. You can't imagine, I drove past walls where I had a thumb's width on the left and right. That means really maneuvering precisely and that wasn't even walking speed, to in the end actually be guided in by two people, one in front of me on the right, one behind me on the left, because up above, above the street, hung this really thick, fat water hose that they use for irrigation. They had just stretched it across the street. And Frankie is a bit higher because of the canisters on top. And the canisters of course also touched this hose. I really scraped by there by the skin of my teeth and let the hose drag over the canisters. Totally crazy.
And then I arrive in this village.
And these are the following pictures.
I was at a private family celebration, because they celebrate when they produce Raki. That means they bring their wine from the last three years and in this case it's Iannis and his family, so mostly cousins and their partners and children plus Hristo.
Hristo I think went to sea for 40 years. Has at least two recognized sons. He told me today what else is different there.
And because they don't get in touch, he says, it's just somehow not like that. Is married to a Dutch woman. And Christo also had Raki produced today. And the Raki producer is a total one-of-a-kind. There's a separate picture of that.
Anyway, now come these pictures from where I arrived there. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Have fun!
What a song. Just briefly. I love my playlist. It's so magnificent.
Picked up another guy. His name is Iannis. So me on the road again, from Elounda towards the mountains somehow once across country through, past Heraklion etc. Shit, nose hairs burnt. Weird situation. Well okay, then I don't have to trim them. We had that last time too.
Okay, so there's this guy walking on the street and I think to myself, let me just quickly check on Google and think to myself, fuck, the next village is eleven kilometers away. So I pulled over to the right. He gets in of course, speaks neither English nor French, nor Italian, nor Spanish, let alone German. I really tried everything. It was really funny. I'm also a bit practiced at it by now. Maybe I should learn Greek....LAUGH... Absolutely not. Anyhausen. So I drive with him, I think, six and a half kilometers and there he was sitting like in the middle on the road. So in Greek with somehow pointing here curve and something and slowly and anyway there's this little square and there's this sales stand. Someone sells honey and wine and a few fruits there. That's his friend, that's where he wanted to go. I think he doesn't have a driver's license, something, I don't know. Anyway, I get there and first get to drink white wine and then the phone rings of the guy who actually has this shop there and he tells me in English, so he has to leave real quick. I think to myself, okay, sure, I'm sitting here now with the guy who speaks neither my language nor I his and yet we really had a funny time together, because the guy drove off and got his family. So his wife and his son. The son could speak a bit of English then. And it comes out, this is now not even somehow, I think, that was six or nine kilometers away from the place where I was actually supposed to meet Iannis Number Two, who is actually Iannis Number One. On the other hand, personal meeting counts first, somehow, whatever. Anyhausen, already the second time today, I then eventually drove off again and and actually come through a village where even Google says, I'm out. You can't imagine, I drove past walls where I had a thumb's width on the left and right. That means really maneuvering precisely and that wasn't even walking speed, to in the end actually be guided in by two people, one in front of me on the right, one behind me on the left, because up above, above the street, hung this really thick, fat water hose that they use for irrigation. They had just stretched it across the street. And Frankie is a bit higher because of the canisters on top. And the canisters of course also touched this hose. I really scraped by there by the skin of my teeth and let the hose drag over the canisters. Totally crazy.
And then I arrive in this village.
And these are the following pictures.
I was at a private family celebration, because they celebrate when they produce Raki. That means they bring their wine from the last three years and in this case it's Iannis and his family, so mostly cousins and their partners and children plus Hristo.
Hristo I think went to sea for 40 years. Has at least two recognized sons. He told me today what else is different there.
And because they don't get in touch, he says, it's just somehow not like that. Is married to a Dutch woman. And Christo also had Raki produced today. And the Raki producer is a total one-of-a-kind. There's a separate picture of that.
Anyway, now come these pictures from where I arrived there. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Have fun!
Nobody understands the system. No way at all. After noticing in the last image uploads via Telegram that the pictures that were clicked last always appear first, I've now, in this case, done it the other way around. 🙄
And this damn system uploads them exactly as I clicked them. 🤣
So in this case you'll have to look at the pictures backwards again. 🤪
So I arrive at this farmyard, everything's full of cars. This is a street in the middle of the village, nothing's moving at all.
This funny little tractor is home-built. Pretty cool. Can transport a really, really large quantity, those are those big blue barrels, that he hauls back and forth with it to his little garage where he produces the raki. 🥰
I'm sending the next picture completely separately, because then you can see what kind of character this guy is. 😎
At some point I was standing there with him and chatting with him. So he speaks some Cretan mountain dialect and I don't understand him. Well, I did understand him and he understood me too. I chatted with him in German. We had a fun time. 🥳
I'm not saying I carried on driving after that. Actually, I am saying that. Because I'm here now, where I am.
The pictures are following too. Following too. Funny. Wait just a moment.
That's ZZ Top, isn't it? Man, I love this random generator. Thank you so much, dear universe. 🙏
And you all have fun viewing the pictures and listening to the funny voice message.
I don't know how the transcription will turn out in the end, whether it'll capture this mumbling too. I always have to smooth out the Berlin dialect.
That means, from "ick" it eventually becomes "isch" at the end. Did I say "isch"? Yes, I did. Doesn't matter.
In any case I'm having fun, a wonderful evening. It was a fantastic day. I'm totally grateful.
Iannis number two, it was a festival for me to have been allowed to be part of this today. Thank you. 🙏
And this damn system uploads them exactly as I clicked them. 🤣
So in this case you'll have to look at the pictures backwards again. 🤪
So I arrive at this farmyard, everything's full of cars. This is a street in the middle of the village, nothing's moving at all.
This funny little tractor is home-built. Pretty cool. Can transport a really, really large quantity, those are those big blue barrels, that he hauls back and forth with it to his little garage where he produces the raki. 🥰
I'm sending the next picture completely separately, because then you can see what kind of character this guy is. 😎
At some point I was standing there with him and chatting with him. So he speaks some Cretan mountain dialect and I don't understand him. Well, I did understand him and he understood me too. I chatted with him in German. We had a fun time. 🥳
I'm not saying I carried on driving after that. Actually, I am saying that. Because I'm here now, where I am.
The pictures are following too. Following too. Funny. Wait just a moment.
That's ZZ Top, isn't it? Man, I love this random generator. Thank you so much, dear universe. 🙏
And you all have fun viewing the pictures and listening to the funny voice message.
I don't know how the transcription will turn out in the end, whether it'll capture this mumbling too. I always have to smooth out the Berlin dialect.
That means, from "ick" it eventually becomes "isch" at the end. Did I say "isch"? Yes, I did. Doesn't matter.
In any case I'm having fun, a wonderful evening. It was a fantastic day. I'm totally grateful.
Iannis number two, it was a festival for me to have been allowed to be part of this today. Thank you. 🙏
