Monday, May 07, 2007

Beautiful Folegandros

Travel in Greece in May is pretty much ideal. The weather gets hot but not scorching during the day, and the nights are cool, and therefore comfortable for sleeping. The first half-dozen tourists are trickling in, but for the most part the squares are still sleepy and occupied primarily by locals.
A few things I'd like to share:
1. Doing laundry in a sink by hand is tedious. However, it does allow for the upper body workout mostly missing from our hikes.
2. We're staying in a place called Anememolos Apartments, on the top floor, in a little studio. We have a sweeping, flying view off the top of a cliff out over ridiculous swimming-pool blue water. Misty distant dream islands float on the horizon, which appears to be rising up as your eyes follow it, presumably due to the shocking drop to the rocky beach directly below. Looking landward, thousands of years old ghosts till hundreds of acres of steep terraced hillsides. Sheep graze contentedly on a precipice below our window. The shower is like showering in an airplane would be--there's a tiny porthole window that looks out over open air and sea, no land in sight at all. Also, the shower is about 2 1/2 feet by 2 1/2 feet square, so it's about the same size as an airplane shower would be.
3. Our morning breakfast is Fage yoghurt (10% fat, YUM), with fresh fruit and local honey, eating on our flying verandah.
4. Donks (to borrow a term from Swallows and Amazons) are everywhere, comical ears pricked forward, snuffling at my cupped hands with their velvety muzzles, carrying old men and water along precarious trails to even more precarious flocks of goats, greeting each other joyously at dawn across the curved, steep, echoing hillsides.

And some Words of Wisdom:
I was out for a solitary hike yesterday morning while Ian worked. At one point, I turned west across the ancient terraces, choosing to avoid the church and farmyard to the south ahead of me. I lost my way, but after bumbling along for a bit in the thorns and granite and slate gravel, I came upon a clear track leading back in the direction of home. Soon, to my relief, I came upon a pile of donkey poop blocking the trail (goat poop, we've found, is no indication of a safe route for huumans). As I stepped over the pile and continued, I thought "Ever so often, a pile of shit lets you know you're on the right track."
And then I thought "Whoa, Calin. Deep."

No comments: