BS: Postcard from Alonissos (Greece) 2002

Subject: Postcard from Alonissos
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 25 Sep 02 - 05:07 AM

Just back from another sundrenched fortnight in Greece. Well, the first week was raindrenched: water flowing through our (fortunately fully-tiled) cottage, the sea red with washed down mud, roads blocked by landslides, while the second week was more normal so the tan has been topped up.
We stayed at Glyfa Beach, 5 minutes along the beach (no road) from the village of Steni Vala, a very pretty fjord-type harbour popular with yachts, containing 5 tavernas (one already shut for the winter), 2 bar-cafes (one doing the Greek sweets I love too much) and two shops selling everything (stamps ran out by the second week so we posted most real postcards in UK!) and we dutifully shared our trade among them. Not many other tourists, mostly Northern European,or Italian. Lots of fresh fish, almost straight from the boat, and good barrel wine. Actually did a couple of walks during the damp period, otherwise just chilled out, usually alone on the beach (She claims my unpleasant personal habits keep the rest away, I think it may be the aura of garlic that surrounds us - from overdosing on skorthalia and tzatziki.
We nearly went into the main town once but by then the bus had stopped for the season and we couldn't be bothered to get a taxi.
No music to speak of, though two young men did have a spontaneous bout of bouzouki playing one evening in a taverna but seemed embarrassed when we applauded.
One taverna had a resident parrot that didn't speak or sing but had a repertoire of whistles, clicks and other sound effects. We discovered the source for its impressive throat clearing sounds when we discovered an old fisherman who seemed to live on his little boat called MPIL (Bill, which was the nautical equivalent of Steptoe's Yard (old carpets, massed of demijohns and jerrycans and lots of plastic bowls) and whose singlet bore silent tribute to the variety and rich range of colours of the meals he had consumed over the past few weeks (months?).
There was a typical Roger moment when one of the barmen said my Greek was as good as his. I preened with pride until I discovered he was Romanian! He was tall, with shaven head and dressed in black. The same bar had a very wolf-like dog, grey with yellow eyes and, come to think of it, we never saw them both at the same time….
As well as reading , watching the birds on the beach: cormorants, a stork, kingfishers, and overhead the usual eagles and falcons, swifts and, in the olive trees, lots of warblers, I spend the time working on my Great Novel and Great Screenplay. Sadly, other people always rip off my ideas, alter the titles and have a success. So that is why the world will never be able to appreciate Jess of the Dormobiles, Triassic Playground, Corporal Bonetti's Ukulele, Lady of the Bangles, Carpathia and many others. However I may have hit the jackpot with my latest where Cujo mates with Lassie and produces a dog that may rip your leg off but then goes for help.
I can recommend Steni Vala for a peaceful holiday (assuming the four Italians with motorbike and speedboat are somewhere else).A group of German bikers with chopped Harleys in pristine leathers were around which is strange as there is only one decent road on the island but they were very much the Tame Ones.
Sometimes in the evening on our patio with a pre-prandial glass of something or other, the only sound we heard was the sea 20 yards away and ripe olives dropping off the tree in front of the cottage. There were the usual Greek cats around hunting lizards but, fortunately, we seemed to be adopted by the local dogs, one of which would often come for a walk with us and go to sleep on our patio and help keep the cats away.
You won't want the enhanced version of the great storm or the drama of the white horse so I'll get back to the holiday washing.
Ya Sas
RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Postcard from Alonissos
From: smallpiper
Date: 25 Sep 02 - 07:20 AM

Sounds bloody perfict! I'm jealous!

Subject: RE: BS: Postcard from Alonissos
From: Morticia
Date: 25 Sep 02 - 10:02 AM

I want the drama of the white horse, you little tease,you!!

Subject: RE: BS: Postcard from Alonissos
From: Amos
Date: 25 Sep 02 - 11:56 AM

AND the great storm, perikolo!! You lucky doglet, you. (I LOVE 'Cujo mates with Lassie'!).

A

Subject: RE: BS: Postcard from Alonissos
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Sep 02 - 12:08 PM

Waiting for the rest of it, with baited bated breath!!

You sure paint some pretty pictures...I can just feel that sand and see those wolf-eyes...now, let's do this the nice way...you tell the rest of the stories and we won't twist yer arm!**BG**

Subject: RE: BS: Postcard from Alonissos
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 26 Sep 02 - 04:40 AM

In response to underwhelming demand, arm duly twiated, here's the second half…
On our first Sunday there was light drizzle in the morning so we decided to walk to the where the coast road ended, a beach called Ayios Demetrious, which was popular with day trip boats and boasted a couple of tavernas, to have lunch. On arrival we found everything closed so, after a drink of water (yes, really!), we started back and stopped off at another village, Kalamakia, which has three tavernas all with their own associated fishing boats, and had lunch there. It poured with rain while we were there but it eased off enough for us to get back afterwards reasonably dry.
We always pack a small magnetic travel Scrabble set for use during airport delays and settled down for a game until the rain eased off. Instead it go worse and worse, thunder, lightning and torrential downpour.
We suddenly noticed a growing puddle round our feet. The ceilings were dry but rainwater was seeping through the walls. The hillside was terraced and between the stone facing of the terrace and the back of the cottage was a space of a couple of feet. Water running off the hill and the roof had built up in this gap, the ground too sodden to absorb it, and in the absence of a damp-proof course, seeped through the base of the walls. The cottage has fully tiled floors so we set to with mop and broom to sweep the water out of the door so it could flow on down to the sea. As the rain got heavier this was a bit like Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer's Apprentice scene in Fantasia but gradually it eased off and after an hour we were winning. When the rain steadied to a drizzle the lady who looked after the property (she was the mother of the owners and lived in a caravan nearby with another old lady, or in the next cottage when it was vacant) came to bemoan the damage done to the shrubs she'd planted along the path which had been washed out of their planting holes. When she saw what we were doing she added her mop and bucket to our efforts and called on God, the Virgin, Sts Sophia and Peter to aid us. With this team on our side and a bit of hand-wringing as well as mop-wringing we soon dried out. Opening the door and shutters as soon as the rain stopped the floors finally dried off.
When we went outside to see if a dove had come back with a branch we saw the sea was discoloured with all the soil washed down ( "thalassa kokkino" -red sea- the old ladies agreed) for several hundred yards out, but there was also a wonderful rainbow ( I hope the photo came out). Several roads were blocked by landslides, tarmac pushed up by overloaded culverts, great trenches were cut in the beach, even quite large pebbles swept away into the sea where the natural channels ran, the locals had not seen anything like it at this time of year.
There were not a lot of animals about, most of the locals grew olives, fished or only came out from the town to the villages to run seasonal businesses, unlike Kalymnos where goats are everywhere. This made it very quiet near the cottage: no donkeys braying, no insomniac cockerels, no goat bells. So it was with some surprise when we heard a commotion coming from a group of Germans in an apartment further up the hill (this was on the morning of our last day). Something about someone falling off a horse? We hadn't seen any horses, and only one donkey, and that was with two men patiently flattening rocks with mattocks on the course of one of the footpaths (they'd done about 20 metres on the flat, the path was 3km downhill through boulder-strewn terrain, it may take them a decade to finish). When I came back from the village with the fresh bread for breakfast I could se the two old ladies from the caravan on the jetty with binoculars. I could then see the white horse they were looking at which had somehow got off the road on to the path behind the beach which was very stony and stepped in places. A pick-up arrived, a man with a rope got out and headed towards it, the horse lumbered away and much arm-waving and shouting ensued.
We gathered later that the Germans had seen the horse, which had stumbled on this path and seemed unable to get up. They feared it had broken its leg and wanted to 'phone the police, Animal Rescue, Rolf Harris, whoever. We only had an obscured view though the olives so couldn't see much of the attempted "rescue", though we could hear the shouting, but at least I'd seen the horse was on its feet and mobile.
As our taxi to go to the ferry wasn't till mid-day we had a last couple of hours on the beach and found the horse contentedly munching the grass in the olive grove behind us , limping slightly and with a scraped patch on one leg where it must have hit a stone stumbling down the rocky stepped path. It was still untethered and obviously had not allowed anyone to catch it.
Sadly, we had to leave before hearing the end of the story, the great round-up probably took most of the population most of the day, and no doubt even more saints were invoked to help.
Now until next summer we've only memories, photos and a large bottle of Metaxas to keep us going through the British winter.
RtS