Appollonas and Around

In our next tiny rental car, we headed north out of the port onto the coastal road that became almost immediately one of the twistiest, treacherous, deserted and most precariously perched roads I have ever ridden on (until we headed over the mountains in the other direction the next day!). It was also breathtakingly awesome scenery – high, high mountains rising on the right side, sheer drops to glistening sea coves on the left. Basically you can never get out of second gear (and if you don’t drive a stick shift, you will have a hard time finding a car to rent), there were occasional brief (three minute) stretches of third gear and once I even got into fourth for a minute. The last gas station is in Eggares, only 7 kilometers out of the city, and there are no others all the way to Appollonas – and none there either. After an infinite amount of climbing, we came around a curve and saw a gleaming white village with a beach, shining in the sunlight, in a valley at the bottom of two steep cliffs.

It was not hard to find the Hotel Adonis – one of the largest buildings in this tiny town, where absolutely nothing was really open yet for the season, although around the little harbor, the cafes and restaurants have their doors open and a few tables outside which are occupied by the same few men every day drinking espresso or citron out of cups and glasses as tiny as the town, which has only 100 year round residents, and swells to 400 during the high season of summer (there are only 5 children in the school). But Stamatis Andris, with whom I had had a lively email correspondence regarding reservations in the last few weeks, was at our hotel to meet us and provide the usual above-and-beyond Greek hospitality. We get lots and lots of attention, particularly because we are the first guests of the season and the only guests here! Our room has a balcony with French doors that open out onto a view of the sea and the sun streams in during the morning hours.

A lemon as big as your head

Because there is really nowhere else around here to eat or even buy food, we eat breakfast and dinner at the hotel each night and it is all fantastic home-cooked Greek dishes, prepared by Stamatis’s mother using all local foods, because that is what the people here have to eat. At this time of year there is a lot of goat/sheep cheese, homemade yogurt, pumpkin, potatoes, greens, some lettuce, fresh fish when they can catch it, eggs, and bread from a bakery in the next town that comes by van. There is also a variety of things made from the citron lemon (pronounce Kit-rone) which is a giant version of the regular lemon and has a much thicker skin, from juice to liquor to candy to seasonings. We drank the local wine until it ran out – now we are drinking wine from Crete. Stamatis even taught us some Greek dances on the porch one night.

A girl from the highest village east of the Mississippi visits
the highest village in the Cyclades

The first day we left our remote home base and drove south through the mountains, climbing higher and higher on intense switchbacks and roads that narrowed to one-lane bridges with donkeys, goats and sheep tethered (or not tethered) at surprise random intervals along the roadsides and up the slopes. Greece is all shades of green in the spring which most tourists don’t get to see – by summer it is dried and brown. There are flowers everywhere, wild and domestic, and when we reached, Koronidas (also known as Komiaki – every village has two names for some reason!),  the highest village in the Cyclades at 2900 feet, the flora very much resembled the White Mountains, with apple trees and lupines and maples, things one does not expect to see in the Greek islands. We continued slowly on through the wonder of the rural villages and the mountain peaks until we reached Apiranthos, a beautiful traditional village where all the streets are paved in marble and the hand-crafting tradition has been preserved. A few hundred years ago refugees from Crete settled in Apiranthos and have maintained and celebrated its heritage. Although there are many lovely places to eat and shop, there is nowhere to stay there – which speaks volumes. I bought some handmade sheep bells as souvenirs; there melodious clanking is a sound that will always remind me of these islands.

After hearing about the impending winds that were coming to the island, we decided we better take advantage of the perfect weather and calm seas to do a day at the beach and so Sunday we drove south (you can only drive south from here) to a place that is very crowded and popular in the summer and is of course deserted as hell this time of year. It was a relaxed and pleasant day. We returned to Apollonas and hiked up to the Kouros, which is a marble statue of a male god that was carved about 2000 years ago but never erected, probably because it cracked before it was finished, and has rested on its side on a hillside overlooking the sea and the village ever since. It is one of the few antiquities we have been able to find on Naxos and on Paros – the signage always starts off strong but then generally disappears completely making it impossible to locate ancient monuments, temples and statues.

We woke up on Monday to gusting winds and high seas – our calm peaceful view now resembled the coast of Maine, on a bad day. The local people were bundled up in down jackets ( but they actually are bundled up like that much of the time) but to us it really did not feel that cold just very blustery. But yes, I am wearing all my jackets and warmer clothes now, all the things I very nearly ditched permanently in the heat of Southeast Asia, never believing I would ever really need them again on this trip. I am wishing I had a cozy cashmere sweater or a thick wool turtleneck. Or maybe my hairy Uggs(my god, I haven’t thought of them until just this minute – maybe there is something from home that I miss…).

We drove off again, high into the mountains to visit the “villages” and it was a great day, reaching Filoti, at 2500 people, the largest mountain village and clearly the center for all the others. I think you could learn a lot about Naxos, especially the agriculture and food, by staying in Filoti.

There were local shops and cafes and actually a bit of a bustle of business that did not depend on tourists – and even one place that said “Rooms to Let”…maybe next time around…We wandered on down the road to Halki, where the Citron distillery is located and had a private tour of that ancient facility and watched them making this local liquor the same way they have for hundreds of years.

We have had the pleasure of drinking Citron several times on this trip – sometimes shopkeepers will give you a shot when they realize that you are actually going to buy something.  We have noticed this along the way, but particularly in Halki, where the word goes out that we are in town and stores seem to open up magically and if we look in a window of a closed shop and express interest, the shopkeeper next door will make a phone call and the store owner will appear within moments to unlock the door and show us around.

By the end of the day we had bought 2 baskets, 2 woven bags and a scarf at reasonable prices from local producers and admired many other products including ceramics, lace, jam, candles, cheeses, spices and much much more.

We tried to find Demeter’s Temple, one of the best ancient ruins on the island, and this was the only place where we ran into other adventurers staring with puzzled expressions at their maps and the cryptic signposts. Everyone was daunted by the strong winds and all, including us, gave up without seeing the site. We did run into a Dutch couple at a very old church in the mountains an hour later who had ridden bicycles to it the day before and said you could actually drive to it – apparently not from the approach we and the others had made. It is somewhat discouraging how hard it is to find so many of the good ruins, although I don’t care about them as much as Pat. I love the countryside and the scenery and the local culture more.

Our last visit of the day was Moni, another village perched high in the mountains with a spectacular view and lots of narrow marble paved streets that was closed up so tight on this windy, pre-season day that it seemed as though it was a ghost town that had not been occupied for years, with empty village squares and boarded-up stores. It would be interesting to see the contrast with summer months -  it would be probably be equally appalling and delightful here.

Returning to Appollonas, we were astounded to see how much the sea had risen and how high the waves had become. I am flying out Naxos on Wednesday so it is not a problem for me, but Pat was supposed to take the ferry to Santorini on Tuesday; the Blue Star ferry which generally runs no matter what the weather had been cancelled for Tuesday for a strike so she was planning to take a smaller ferry that goes to all the little islands along the way, which sounded kind of fun until this weather came up. Now we are not even sure that ferry will run, so she is going with the flow and hoping to still reach Athens by Wednesday night.

At present we are hotel-bound for the evening due to the high winds and will see what tomorrow brings. Mostly I am in shock that my travels are almost over – I feel like I could go on for another six months – that, of everything I have done in the ever-increasing years of my life, this is what I still do best. 

A Sri Lankan Head Nod to Galle and Colombo

Before I go any further I have to attempt to describe how a Sri Lankan nods yes. Rather than the up and down movement that we Westerners do, when a Sri Lankan wants to signify “okay” or “yes” they bobble their head from side to side in a wagging figure-eight movement that immediately seems to mean “maybe” or just gives the impression that they are crazy. It is a gesture that is almost impossible for me to do without getting dizzy and even after half a month here still disconcerts me as a response to a question even though I know it means “yes” it always seems to indicate “comme si, comme sa.” It is one of the quirkiest things about this island – I think they also do this in India.

After our relaxing interlude in Mirissa, we headed to Galle, staying in the Galle Fort section which is picturesque, safe and pretty touristy. Because of its great harbor, Galle passed from Portuguese to Dutch to British hands over the centuries. The fort area is very European in its ambience with its brick-paved roads and tunneled entrances, although it seems to be predominantly Muslim (which always means it is very hard to get a drink!).

Galle was also the scene of the worst tsunami damage in the country. 45,000 people died in Sri Lanka, the majority in the Galle area. About 1000 of them died when the wave washed over a train and twisted it unbelievably off the track.

After my first adverse reaction, the safety and peace of the quiet streets, cafes and shops of the fort area grew on me and I wished we had a little more time (which probably translates to half a day in Intrepid tour terms) before moving on with a 6 am breakfast call and 7 am train to catch to Colombo.

This time we traveled second class – which meant we had to haul our own luggage onto the train and scramble for seats. This train was much more modern than our previous ones, with tray tables and multiple fans to cool the entire length of the car. It was also much more crowded, on a major route into the capital city. Over much of the route the tsunami damage was still really evident and it was chilling to travel beside the Indian Ocean and think of the water surging over the train cars.

We were all pretty burnt out from the early start, bad breakfast and two weeks of travel and as usual Indika did not tell us what the plan was until we arrived. Probably because he knew we wouldn’t want to do it. It was a lot of driving on congested roads in a sweltering unairconditioned van and seeing some landmarks and one extraordinary stop to walk through “the busiest place in Colombo” which was exactly my claustrophobic nightmare of Asian cities and why I had avoided them.

Okay, it was fabulously interesting and colorful despite being smelly, dangerous and unbelievably crowded. There were all kinds of old-fashioned vendors of vegetables, fish parts, fabric and everything else that could be sold. But from there the rest of the tour was about shopping in malls and modern stores – yes, Colombo wants to be really contemporary but mostly all it seemed to us was homogenized and it was not the kind of shopping that we wanted to do at the end of our tour. In fact, we even had to eat lunch at the food court of the biggest mall, so yes I guess we have seen it all now, from the timeless tea-pickers to the fast foodies.

After checking into our hotel, I took a tuk-tuk to the House of Fashion, which is the discount clothing store like Filenes or Loehmans and bumped elbows with the Lankans in the four-story tower of cheaper priced merchandise. Again, shockingly up-to-date with scanners at the checkout counters ( have seen that nowhere else in Southeast Asia). Of course there were 20 lines with probably 300 people waiting to check out but it moved surprisingly quickly. The tuk-tuk driver back could not find the hotel, which was a little scary but he asked and it worked out okay.

We had our final dinner at the Cricket Club Café, a restaurant that kind of recreates the colonial atmosphere but mostly focuses on celebrating famous cricket players. As with all once British countries, cricket is a big time sport in Sri Lanka and Indika is a big fan. I didn’t much care about the cricket but I had a great piece of grilled fish which I did care about a lot. We said our goodbyes in a drawn out ceremony standing outside with Indika presenting each of us a little book about Buddhism with something written in the front of it

he is such a proselytizer!) and walked home to our hotel through the dark noisy streets of Colombo.

Indika

After a last Sri Lankan breakfast of egg roti and chapatti, I headed up to the Golden Star Beach Hotel in Negombo again, the place where we started (and where I had left my winter luggage). It was a smelly, hot and smoggy drive and I was happy to get to a place where I could at least cool off in the breezes under the palm trees on the edge of the beach. Even after more than two weeks, I was still not at all used to the sweltering heat. Even walking out onto the road after 5 pm, when the sun was low enough in the sky so that the street was in shade, I was still dripping with sweat, barely able to peel my drenched clothes off my body afterwards. It was a good choice to go to Negombo for the day and evening, even though I had to leave at midnight to go to the airport.

I spent very little money in Sri Lanka (beyond what I spent on the Intrepid tour originally which was more than enough) – so I did not feel bad on loading up on souvenirs before I left, since I don’t think there will really be anything to buy in Cyprus or Greece. It just means I have to haul them around for the next 3 weeks…

The last supper - Cricket Club Cafe

Getting in the hotel van at midnight was the only time I felt a little bit iffy about my safety in Sri Lanka. The taxi driver immediately told me it was his 50^th birthday and so of course I congratulated him at which point he pulled the van over and extended his hand so I could shake it – then he took my hand and kissed and held it up to his nose and inhaled deeply. I don’t know if this was customary or not but I kind of don’t think so, especially when he then began asking me if I was married and whether I was “full enough” on this trip and when he began saying something that I finally interpreted to be about Sinhalese body massage, I started to get a bit freaked out and just said, “airport, airport.” I am sure he didn’t want to jeopardize his job but it was rather unnerving driving around in the late night closed-up city with a driver who was suddenly very distracted.

At the airport I needed to get Euros to bring to Cyprus and I ended up having to change my money into rupees and then into Euros – apparently it was the only way. There was never an exchange fee at any ATMS in Sri Lanka; perhaps they wanted to encourage people to spend their money, which is a smart thing.

So after nearly 6 weeks in Southeast Asia it was time to move on. My feet felt claustrophobic in shoes and socks. What will I miss – the lushness of the landscapes, the kindness and caring service of the people, the mystique of the cultures. What won’t I miss – the garbage smells, the traffic, the places that were just too damn hot. I will miss having the whole trip ahead of me – it feels like a fast tumble down a long slope from here on out.

Beyond the Tsunami – To the Beach at Mirissa

A morning’s drive through the spectacular mountain views of Ella Gap brought us to a midday stop at the “Elephant Transit Home.” Contrary to what it might sound like, this does not mean it is a place where people transit on elephants, but rather a halfway house for baby elephants who have lost their mothers and need to learn to live in on their own in the jungle again. Young elephants from 6 months to 5 years can roam freely within the grounds which include a large lake where they spend a lot of time cooling themselves down but they always appear at lunchtime for a feeding of milk from a long tube at a feeding station and for some nice green onions as a snack. We could not get close to them, of course, but they were cute and entertaining and it is a good place with a good cause.

Several hours more of traveling in our “private” bus (which was more uncomfortable than a public bus, without air-conditioning, windows that were hard to open and some that were shattered) we finally arrived on the southern coast of Sri Lanka at Mirissa, a perfect curve of soft white sand against the quintessential turquoise water with enough surf for board-riders. Surprising that the Indian Ocean here could be such a pure and gorgeous color while on the west side it is somewhat dark and murky.

We were led into what appeared to be a somewhat upscale beach resort until we got to our little bungalow rooms. Sweet and homey with porches and comfy chairs that looked out on the sea, inside they were stifling hot, small and dank with no air-conditioning, just a fan and a skinny window with no screen. But other than the heat at night and the lack of space to unpack, it was actually okay, decent beds, lights etc. and the most perfect location ever, just steps from the beach and with an amazing view at all times.

During this trip I have had to share rooms with Stella or Aiofe (that’s Eva in Gaelic) – two nights with each and the two nights alone and then we rotate again. They are both young (26 and 33), slim and pretty and can drink most people I know under the table quite quickly, always in a multi-mix of cocktails, beer, wine and and straight hard liquor. The first night in Mirissa, Stella stayed out with a glass of local red rum to walk the full moonlit beach (there is a very low-key late night scene) and literally came into the room after midnight, dropped her pants, fell on the bed and passed out. Then got up at 5:45am and went on a whale watch. And then slept off both the rest of the day. Oh, the stamina of youth. Both Stella and Aiofe were excellent roommates, polite and respectful and it was really never a problem sharing, and despite our age differences, we have become quite close in an offbeat way, Stella reminding me quite a bit of Genevieve.

We actually had a day off to relax at the beach, no speeches from Indika, no forced marches to see sights, and I did mountains of laundry and took the big pieces to the laundry service to be done.

Like all the south coast of Sri Lanka, Mirissa was devastated by the tsunami 9 years – everything in the entire village had to be rebuilt and many people died. Apparently right before it hit, the tide suddenly went out about a mile and people started running out excitedly looking at the fish and crabs and sea life that were all suddenly exposed and then the wall of water suddenly appeared and they could not run away fast enough to save themselves. It is shocking and sobering to think about as you sit enjoying the peace and beauty of the beach.

Beyond our “resort” the beach was lined by other small restaurants and hotels, several of which were reggae bars. This was the first place in Sri Lanka where the smell of ganja smoke was a regular occurrence. In every country I have visited, Indonesia, Thailand (especially) and now Sri Lanka, Bob Marley is the celebrated and adopted as a hero. I don’t think we totally understand the far-reaching effect his revolution had. And the other welcome card I have gotten everywhere is – “USA? Obama! Yes!” with a big thumbs up. Everyone thinks it is so wonderful that America has Obama now – it is always a shared joyful moment.