While participating in a summer school session abroad in Greece, my closest friends, Heather, Anna, Margie, Christie and I experienced things I had only dreamt of while growing up in Humboldt County. I experienced the sublimity of the remains of the Parthenon in Athens.

We sat on the very steps where such great philosophers as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle discussed theories of form and matter, equality of women and the ideals of democracy. We ventured to Delphi in search of the same oracle King Agamemnon of Mycenae consulted before waging war against Troy.

We drove motorbikes through the country roads of central Greece, taking in the rich tapestry of flora and fauna, imagining nymphs and centaurs partaking in festival orgies for Dionysius, the god of wine. We raced each other across the Olympic Stadium in Olympia, imitating the athletes from the first Olympic game in 776 BC. We spent our days on the beach in front of our hostel in Alicats, a town outside of Volos.

We spent our nights in a local Tiki bar where the local Greek 20-somethings hung out on weeknights. I could not ask for more. None of us could. We were in heaven.

One night while taking shots of Uzo on our usual barstools at the Tiki bar, a Palestinian friend of ours named Imad mentioned a beach that he claimed to be the best in all of Greece.

The best to that point had all been breathtaking. Could there be an actual best? We were intrigued, and listened enraptured by Imad's description of Mylopotamos.

According to Imad, Mylopotamos was a hidden paradise that had somehow gone undiscovered by the massive hordes of tourists. The ocean was a brilliant, glimmering shade of aquamarine while the beaches were made of a sand comparable to velvet. Along the shore, set into the rocky cliffs of the Pelion peninsula, were romantic, mysterious caves that recall the myth of Echo and Narcissus.

Mylopotamos was the jewel of Greece, the essence of a world long since changed and transformed through wars and the inevitability of time. Mylopotamos was Greece as it was in 3000 BC, unchanged and glimmering amid the ruins of an ancient world. Mesmerized, we decided in the Tiki bar that night that we would find this lost world, conquer it in the name of our small band, camp there and come home with the tans that would prove our victory.

The next day, with our backpacks packed with hostel blankets and pillows, sunscreen and a few apples, we set out for Mylopotamos. As Imad had suggested, we began our journey at the Volos bus terminal. Just as Jason and the Argonauts set sail from Volos on their quest for the Golden Fleece, my fleet set out by bus into the Pelion peninsula in search of the perfect beach.

As the bus left the city, climbing high into the narrow, twisting roads of the Pelion cliffs, a current of sheer excitement passed through me. I looked at Heather, Anna, Margie and Christie and found on their excited faces what I was feeling internally. It was clear that we were embarking upon one of the greatest adventures of our lives.

For an hour, we all sat alert and chattering near the front of the bus soaking in the surroundings. On one side of the bus sat Margie and Christie gazing out the windows on their side at the luscious green ravines and rich foliage, intertwining trees, and exotic flowers. The shade of green in the Pelion was of a brilliancy that is otherworldly. The green shrubs and leaves of plants glimmer and shine as if recovering from a storm or just awaking under the dew of a new day. Even in the dry, unbearable heat of Greece at high noon, the green foliage maintains an appearance of fresh crispness.

As one ventures deeper into the cool, dark forest of the Pelion, a wealth of trees heavy with fruit compete with wild olive groves, horse chestnut, oak, walnut, eucalyptus and beech trees, for the light of day. Constellations of bright and colorful flowers complement the green of their environment, inviting the passerby into the dark realms of the forest.

On the other side of the bus, where Anna, Heather and I sat, was a spectacular view of the Aegean Sea. The serene, peaceful existence of the Aegean made it almost impossible for me to comprehend the warfare and bloodshed that has marked the history of this land.

The sea we gazed upon now was the exact sea that housed the mermaid followers of the sea god, Poseidon. This timeless body of water was the environment from which Aphrodite emerged, drenched in the afterbirth of sea foam. The Aegean bore silent testimony to the rise of the gods, the beginning of man, and all events, mythological and historical, that lay in between.

After about an hour of intense observation and excited chatter and exclamations, most of us fell asleep, feeling the affects of the Tiki bar the night before. We dozed comfortably until the bus abruptly stopped and the driver, in broken English and many sweeping hand gestures, indicated the end of the line.

Groggy but excited, we all stumbled off the bus with our heavy loads, squinting into the stark rays of a typical Greek summer day. We stood on the side of the main road and looked around us. Across the street was a tiny, silent grocery store. To our right was a tiny gas station that had two gas pumps that looked as though they had been transported straight out of the 1950s.

Below us was a long, steep, paved road that we assumed led to the beach of our desires. Without a map and a person to ask, we set out down the hill, believing Mylopotamos to be just right around the corner.

Several corners, a few miles, and two hours later we were still walking. The sun had risen high in the sky and was beating down on us with rays that could melt skin. My heavy backpack was digging into my shoulders and my pillow kept falling on the ground. We were all tired, blistered and running out of water. The luscious forest that appeared to be so damp and cool from the windows of the bus, gave way to half-developed fields and crumbling clay homes. The shrubbery I had seen from the bus that had looked so cool and inviting had given way to prickly, dry plants and scissor grass. The path echoed with crickets and a strange rattling that I assured myself could not be a rattlesnake. Bells and the gentle bleating of goats would at times drown out the buzzing and rattling of the exotic Greek insects, while the sent of horse and mule manure hung heavy in the air.

Then it happened. All the water I had drunk since the beginning of our journey had finally caught up with me. I had to pee. But where? There wasn't a store, restaurant, outhouse or port-a-potty for as far as the eye could see. We stopped in the street to assess our situation.

"Well," said Heather, "can you hold it? We must be close to Mylopotamos by now."

"I don't know," said Margie. "That's what we all thought an hour ago."

"Why don't you go behind that old tractor?" said Anna, the most rugged and experienced outdoorsman of us all.

"What if someone sees me?" I said. "I have a shy bladder."

After pondering my options for a second, my bladder made the decision for me.

"Try not to pee on yourself!" Christie yelled after me, giggling.

Anna and I climbed under a broken wire fence and ventured close to the rusted-out metal ruins of someone's old tractor. I glanced around and thought to myself, "I'm from Humboldt. Why is this such a big deal?" Anna stood watch to make sure no passerby spied my first outdoor bathroom experience.

After I had done the deed, we once again united and resumed our journey, laughing and joking about a Humboldt Honey who had never peed in the wilderness before. I made them promise not to tell a soul, and as far as I know, they never said a word.

Finally, we caught our first glimpse of the sea. We were getting close! We stood there, hungry, hot, sweaty, scraped up and mosquito bitten, gazing out at our prize. Yes, this Holy Grail of a beach was within reach. We could all feel it. We continued onward past a beautiful Greek hotel situated on the cliffs overlooking the ocean.

"Ohh, we should camp there," I suggested.

"You can, but we're gonna camp on the beach. It's probably super-expensive anyway," Christie replied from the head of the group.

A bit disappointed, but too tired to care, I walked on with my band of rugged girls. Through a wild olive grove we marched, down a loose dirt path we trod, around yet another bend, and then, there before us was the beach! We had arrived!

The sand was indeed cool and smooth like velvet, just as the beach was indeed isolated and private. However, it was not what we had imagined... AT ALL.

To the left was an old abandoned building that must served once as a restaurant. The windows were all boarded up, tables and chairs were stacked along the concrete patio, a Coke machine stood lonely and obsolete beneath a straw-thatched roof. High up on the shore were ghostly remains, not the remains of brave Greek battleships, but of simple, tired fishing boats. The sea was a beautiful shade of blue, but it was not glimmering, and the romantic caves Imad so passionately described looked more like mining shafts than anything else.

With that, Margie and Anna decided to backtrack up the hill in hopes of finding a store with food. Christie and Heather started setting up camp. And I, disappointed and exhausted, took a nap in the shade of the lonely Coke machine. This was not the Greece I had envisioned.

Two hours later, Margie and Anna returned empty handed and shaken by a run-in with a herd of goats. I had awakened, and sat on the beach looking out at the ocean. Christie and Heather sat alarmed, having observed a man who had been spying on us the entire time we were on the beach. Tired, hungry and scared of the weirdo hiding in the cliffs, we unanimously decided to go with my earlier suggestion of staying at the picturesque hotel we had passed hours earlier. Repacking our belongings, we hiked away from the ghostly beach toward the hotel.

The hotel looked like a building taken directly off the pages of a Renaissance architecture book. With arched hallways and a cobblestone courtyard displaying an innumerable amount of exotic, manicured flowers, we entered cautiously. The reception area was dark and empty and pleasantly air-conditioned. A Greek man quickly came to our service after Christie rang the small bell situated on the counter beside a vase of flowers that looked to have come from the courtyard.

"We would like a room, please," said Christie, matter of factly.

Blank stare.

"How much for five girls?" asked Christie slowly and delicately.

Blank stare.

Then he spoke, tentatively at first, in a slow voice. He did not speak English, only Greek. He called what appeared to be the owners of the hotel to the counter. They too did not speak English.

We started to get a bit worried. After a few minutes of silence, we managed to finally communicate with the hotel keep through the same sort of broad, sweeping hand gestures the bus driver had used on us. He replied using the same gestures, and we had a deal. For 12 American dollars each, we were allowed to stay in this beautiful hotel, safe, clean and comfortable, with the luxury of a toilet. We were all enthusiastic.

After we had each claimed beds, unpacked and used the toilet, we set out for the ocean. The hotel keep directed us to the hotel "pool," which turned out to be a private cove nestled into the shore below the hotel. It was a natural, perfect little swimming pool, where the only man-made thing was a steel ladder, which guided us into the pool. The pool was surrounded by the slippery rocky cliffs the peninsula was made from, and the water was just as Imad had described, an aquamarine that was otherworldly.

Looking around, we found that we were in total isolation and privacy. Off with our clothes and into the cool, clear, velvet water we dove, laughing out of sheer joy and relief. Our tanned bodies floated and glided along, blending into the earth tones that surrounded us. The only evidence of our being there was the glowing orbs of our white behinds, but we didn't care. We were free.

When we finally got out, got dressed and started up the hill to our rooms, we received sideways glances and smirks of people who knew a secret. The secret they knew was ours. They had seen five naked American girls swimming out in the ocean from their vantage point on the roof of the hotel.

The next day, a 20-minute hike led us to the sought-after Mylopotamos. It was truly the gem of Greece. The water was clear, blue-green turquoise and as calm and still as a lake. The sand was comprised of millions of polished pebbles that appeared glassy under the stark sunlight of the afternoon sun. Unfortunately, Mylopotamos was not as isolated and hidden as we imagined. The beaches were full of local Greeks, sunbathing and playing paddle tennis topless up and down the beach.

Over the next couple of days, we spent nearly every waking hour exploring the watery caves of Mylopotamos, floating effortlessly in the cool water of the Aegean, sunbathing along the pebbly shore, and observing Greek people on their holiday. It was indeed a paradise. When the time came to head back to our hostel and Tiki bar in Alikais, we were sad and a bit worried.

We still had no idea where we were exactly, we did not have a map and could not clearly ask for directions. It was all up to us and our inner compasses, which was scary. With our backpacks packed and ready to go, we all piled into the reception area to pay our debt, thank our kind hosts for their hospitality, and head off.

The hotel keep looked at us with disbelief in his eyes. Surely, he thought we were crazy. He offered to call us a cab, which we gratefully accepted. Our relief was short-lived, as no cab would dare venture down the steep dirt road to a hotel located literally out in the middle of nowhere.

He looked at us sorrowfully. We all knew our fate. He called what we believed to be the married owners of the hotel to the desk and quickly described our situation. They looked at us with our backpacks in disbelief. They immediately got on the phone and made some calls.

Fifteen minutes later, two small cars pulled up and out hopped four Greeks. The hotel keep, the owners and the drivers greeted each other affectionately with hugs and kisses. They then assessed the scene, shaking their heads at the precarious situation we had gotten ourselves into.

Grabbing our bags and dividing us up by weight, they put us in the proper cars. They explained that since their cars were so small, the hill so steep and the bags so numerous, they had to be careful and conscious of weight.

With that, off we went in a small caravan up the steep, winding road away from Milopotamos. It took nearly 45 minutes by car to get to the top of the main road, where the bus had let us off four days earlier.

We were convinced that we would have never found our way out alone, and probably would have died trying. Past the bus stop we drove. We began to feel a little uncomfortable, as we did not expect them to drive us all the way back to Volos.

But that was the direction in which we were heading, and who's to look a gift horse in the mouth? I rode with Anna and Heather in the back seat; we were silent almost the entire way. We could not believe our good fortune.

The middle-aged Greek couple in the front seat chattered casually, and every once in a while tried to engage us in conversation. Not understanding a single word, we just smiled politely.

Finally, we saw the city lines of Volos. The car ahead of us containing Christie and Margie pulled over to the side of the road.

"What are they doing?" we all wondered. "Should we get out now?"

The answer was no, the couples had decided outside that not only would they drive us the entire way back to our hostel in Alikais, but they would also buy us some fruit by the roadside stand we had stopped in front of.

We were so astounded by the generosity and kindness of these strangers that we could not help but sit there with huge, stupid smiles on our faces. When we finally pulled up to our hostel in Alikais and got out, we were a spectacle for our classmates to behold. We, our bags and five Greek strangers emerged in a flurry from three packed-full cars.

We wanted to repay these kind people, and offered them what was left of our travel money from the weekend. The drivers scoffed and dismissed the idea, as if what they did for us was no big deal. But it was a big deal.

While some of us fought back tears of relief and gratitude, some of us cried. The older fellow and ringleader of the group approached us, and with one finger tapping his cheek, looked at each of us. Laughing, we drowned our guiding shepherds with kisses.

Pleased and tickled by our exuberance and shower of affection, our kind shepherds left in their caravan, leaving us behind in a cloud of dust. We stood there on the dirt street outside the hostel gates, our backpacks scattered on the ground, staring after our kind guides.

Yes, we had discovered Mylopotamos. We accomplished our goal. But that was not important. The generosity and charity these strangers exhibited was something I will never forget. It is something none of us will forget.

That day we realized that the true essence of Greece did not lie in some Holy Grail of a "perfect" beach, but in the genuine kindness these strangers demonstrated.

The heart of Greece, or any place in particular, does not lie in a destination. The true essence of Greece lives in the people.