Pics from Amorgos

All around the mulberry bush . . . turns out they're pretty tasty!
Some of the local wildlife--cute little kitties.
Friendly local dogs (glad they're chained).
For some reason, it's weird to see geese paddling in salt water as if it were a lake.
Look! A frog! In a pool of water! In the Cyclades!

More Pictures

That wide gulf down the middle of the cobbled street is the gutter. You can see Naxos gets a lot of rain.
Happy Mother's Day!
I think I'd be afraid of letting small children use these stairs . . .
Note how the boat level and the horizon level don't match. L would've *hated* this several-hour journey. It was a pretty big boat to be so tippy. For so long.
Look closely--it's a goat in a boat!

Horse Pictures

Fedra, who ate bamboo the entire time we were out, seeing if my camera is tasty.
At the beach.
Stopping to tighten everyone's saddles. It was just before this stop that I noticed Fedra's roundness and lack of withers--every time we trotted, I was pretty sure the saddle was only staying on with luck.
Self portrait on horse.

Back on Amorgos

This will be quick, as it's dinner time and you don't want to see Taylors when they're hungry. We're back on Amorgos, where we spent several days three years ago. We found Dimitri, the somewhat eccentric hotel owner we stayed with last time, waiting at the ferry (no sign or anything, but we recognized him, and I should note he didn't know we were coming; he was just waiting to see if anyone wanted a room . . . which is generally an effective way to get guests . . . if you have a sign . . . ), and we're even back in our old room. It's 25 Euros per night, and has a double bed, a single we use as a flat surface, a crazy, down-at-the-heels easy chair, a balcony, a teeny kitchenette, and a bathroom. Evidently, we're leaving Greece just in time--we take off the 23rd of May, and on the 25th prices double and crowds increase exponentially.

Amorgos is wetter than many of the other Cyclades. For instance, it rained here once or twice over the winter, and there are at least a handful of springs around the island. It's a long narrow mountain range, covered with crumbling terraces in the lower elevations, and with some surprisinly tall olives and even an oak in some of the narrow, steep valleys. The hilltops actually look a lot like the Scottish Highlands, only tilted a bit. Amorgos isn't quite all acute angles and precipices like Folegandros, but it's far from flat. Anywhere.

I do have a couple pictures of Fedra the horse and--wonder of wonders in the Cyclades--a frog, in a spring-fed pool of water--but I can't seem to get them off my flash drive right now.

My cold has progressed . . . on to Ian . . . so all's pretty much going as expected here. We'll be on Amorgos another 5 nights, and then we'll be starting on our way to a new part of our adventure . . .

Horse!

Erika, this one's for you.

I was thinking the other day about how long it had been since I was been on a horse (maybe two months? Maybe less? Can't be bothered to do the math . . .), and how I didn't really miss it, surprisingly enough. But then we got to Naxos, and everywhere we went--literally--we saw a sticker for Naxos Horse Riding, "horses for advanced riders and beginners," with a number to call. All of a sudden, my familiar prepubescent obsession with horses came back with a vengeance, so I called, and joined yesterday evening's sunset ride (Ian got a haircut and did some works). Iris Neubauer asked on the phone how much experience I had and I said "30 years", and she sounded excited and promised me a horse that would be fun to ride.

Iris is German, so the whole thing was incredibly well organized, and she was right--she had horses for beginners and for advanced riders, and everyone in between. I was put on Fedra (Phaedra), a lovely white and freckled Lusitano/Andalusian mix who was taller than the Naxian horses most people were on, and not quite as bomb proof (read: more fun to actually ride.). The most beginner of the group was a late middle-aged British man with one prosthetic leg; both of us had a great time, and felt that our mounts were chosen well for our abilities. Fedra was built much like my dear friend Shadow--i.e. no withers and very round after her winter of not too much work--and would probably have been a perfect horse for bareback riding through the waves, if we'd been allowed to remove saddles.

Our ride wound through rustling, creaking bamboo forests (I have a scrape across one cheek from an errant, wind-blown stalk that makes me look at bit like the Joker), around fields full of world-famous (so we were told) Naxian potatoes, and eventually onto the beach for a sandy gallop and a trot back through the shallow waves. Fedra really was pretty calm through everything until we got to the beach, and then some flapping flags freaked her out and she pranced around a bit and pretended they were going to attack her. She was irritated at me for not letting her gallop ahead of everyone else when we galloped (we were second in line after the guide), so she pranced around a bit more and tried to kick the horse behind her. At the beach we paused for 15 minutes at a cafe and had sodas and water and used the bathroom; when I got back on, Fedra, impatient to be on the move again, started digging holes in the sand with her left front hoof. This was all fine until she caught her foot on some long slender stick which evidently reminder her of a snake; she leapt around a bit like a big goof for a few seconds, but then calmed down again and the return home was uneventful.

On the ride I met a young American woman, K (or C?) on her first trip to Europe. She joined us for dinner, which allowed us to order more than the usual two dishes, and, since we had someone to talk to, actually made dinner last more than about 20 minutes. Also, the proprietor gave us a a 1/2 liter of wine on the house (to go with the 1/2 liter we'd bought), then dessert on the house (something his children had made up for his wife to cook for them--cookie crust, thick custard middle, pink jello top), and some little shots of Kitron, the local liqueur, also on the house.

In all, a fine Naxian day (aside from the fact that I have a cold).

And a couple corrections, which Ian pointed out (my fact checker, i.e. me, isn't as careful when she's typing directly into blogger at an internet cafe): The place we stayed on Folegandros was Anemomilos Apartments, and our conversation about St Pantalaimon actually had me saying "St Pantalaimos," to match "St PantaMIMEus," because that's what the St was called on our map. But I think everything else is more or less correct.

Thanks for reading!

And, the last pictures for now . . .

Me in a narrow street . . .
House for sale on Sikinos!
Late ferry unloading on Sikinos (we were at the one restaurant in town, looking down on the scene)
Ian coming out of our bathroom in Lucas rooms. Note the interesting shelf and mood lighting above his head.
On the ferry to Naxos, where we are now Conversation: Ian: "I seem to remember a place that I think is a barber shop . . . or it's a gyros place." Me: "Yeah, I know what you're talking about . . . I can't remember either."

Turns out, the place is Mustache Gyros. Yum.

Well, You Were Tired of Me Writing, Right?

That's our studio perched there on the top of that distant cliff.
Here we are on Sikinos now, at the lovely and friendly Lucas Rooms.
A carving on a random stone in the middle of an old footpath. How old? Could be days, could be millenia.
This tractor is likewise old.
And this donkey is about to add to the population.

Yet Again, Even More Pictures . . .

Sprite's Limon Plantation.
Another sweeping view.
Calin scratching a friendly goat. After she was done, her hand smelled like cheese.
The Church of St Pantalaimon, in its pastoral setting.
The pool at our hotel. The rock was really cool to play on.

Still More Pictures . . .

Calin's deciding whether to jump. Ian's deciding whether to push her.
Sheep will graze anywhere. Here, they're below our bedroom window.
Breakfast on our balcony.
Late evening, everything turns blue.
This truck was evidently here when they repaved the road.

More pictures . . .

More beautiful clear water.
Bell tied to keep from ringing in the Meltemi, the wind from the north that blows all summer because of the Sahara.
The view from the top of the highest peak on Folegandros, which I hiked up a couple days ago. In the far distance is the Panagia chuch above Hora, where we stayed.
Another church.
Brave little flower!

Pictures!

I was walking on a low road . . .
The courtyard of the church of St Pantaleimon. Conversation: Calin: "Who's Pantaleimon the patron saint for?" Ian: "I don't know." Calin: "People who play Charades." Ian: " . . . " Calin: "Oh, I'm sorry, that would be St PantaMIMEus." Yeah.
Ian hiking down a hill. Or up a hill.
Hippo Rock.
Wading in clear, clear water.

Afternoon Stroll

Every afternoon, after Ian's finished his morning works, we take a stroll somewhere new on the island. These strolls generally involve elevation lost and gained of several hundred vertical feet. Occasionally we have a dip in the crazy blue Aegean as our reward . . . for the downhill. As you know, we live at the top of a cliff. We've frequently marvelled at the uphills, and how it appears we're merely scaling a cliffside. It's also amazing how fast you can go up a hill, particularly when it's essentially like climbing a rude set of stairs. At times, it seems that the environment here is made up of only 5 elements--sun, rock, thorns, plummeting cliffsides, and goats. Of course, we climb in sandals--Ian in Chacos, me in the new open-toed Keens.
We're always smugly exausted and can't believe we went so far by the time we get home.
Yesterday afternoon we set out in a new direction, following a trail to a little settlement, and eventually planning to hit a beach, then wend our way along an easy (i.e. paved) road the one km from the beach to the port, and catch the last bus the 3 kms back to our clifftop home. As we reached the middle of open, hot, thorny countryside, we came upon a quartet of middle-aged Europeans; two Brits, and two French.
"Are you out for a long walk?" the British man, wearing hearty hiking boots, shorts, and a purple tank top, greeted us.
"Well, uh, I guess so." Ian and I were non-commital. We have no idea how long our walks are. We usually forget to have a watch with us, and frequently we lose track of distance as well. "We're planning to take a trail down to Livadi beach."
"OH!" said the man. "You can't take that trail in those shoes! It's a trail, but it's like hiking there," and he waved at the rocky, thorny hillside behind us.
We tried to explain that we hiked every afternoon in such conditions, but he would have none of it.
"We walked up it," he said, "and the trail's easy to see, with piles of rocks and red paint dots marking it," (way more information than we usually get for trails!) "but it's way too long. And those shoes won't work."
"Maybe you should walk up that hill to the church up there instead," his wife suggested. "That would be nice."
"We would be completely lost, wandering around," the French man said, "if we hadn't found these people." His wife nodded, and also looked askance at our footwear.
"Mmmhmm," we said, and "Have a nice walk back." We parted company, found our trail, and had a glorious afternoon leaping down a rocky track, then swimming in the clear chill waters of Livadi Beach.
The patronizing of the English man was very, very mild . . . and therefore practically unnoticeable . . . and so therefore all the more irritating. "The thing that gets me," Ian said, "is that he said it was too far."
But then, I'd probably feel superior if it was two pounds to the dollar instead of the other way around.

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."

Pictures from Milos

Boats don't have to be huge.
The valley we walked through . . . four times in two days . . . part of the reason I'm tired . . .
Nearing sunset.
Half litre of rose.
The catacombs (unofficial. Empty.)

The most beautiful dock we've seen. And ducks. And a cute boat. And crystal clear water.

I'm Tired

We arrived safely in Milos yesterday around noon, after a fast boat ride that reminded me immediately of the difference in smoking rules between Greece and the US, namely a period of about two decades in relative second-hand smoke issues awareness. We were seated in a “non-smoking” section of the business class area (we would’ve chosen economy if we’d realized there was a choice), but as the smoking section was simply across the aisle and not in a completely different room, the differentiation was semantic only. Just a moment ago Ian smelled the sweater he was wearing yesterday to see if it should go in the dirty clothes bag and said “Ew! This is awful, but I can’t think what it smells like!”

“Smoke from the ferry?” I suggested. Yep, that was it. Goes to show how spoiled we are in Seattle.

We found a lovely little hotel by stopping at a travel agent on the waterfront and waiting while he called “a relative with a car” . . . dubious words . . . but the place is walking distance from the ferry and has cost us less than $40 for a double bed, a little fridge, our own bathroom, AC, a TV, and a safe, and a balcony. Ah, Greece.

Anyway, we decide yesterday afternoon, after our nap, that we would walk up to Plaka, an ancient settlement about 5 km uphill from the port of Adamas (reminds me of Battle Star Gallactica) where we’re staying. The main driving road is narrow and winding and full of switchbacks and insane drivers and screeching brakes, but, having looked at a map at the port at one point, we were aware of another possibility, a dotted line easing through a fertile valley past the obligatory two churches and flock of sheep, and up to the Kastro crowning the highest hill in Milos, through the back door, as Rick Steves would say.

We came to a road leading off into the valley and took it, even though it wasn’t marked (you develop a sense for these things pretty quickly), and it was perfect. We huffed along next to a series of ant highways, used so strenuously that they were actually clear tracks along the old stone road, teeming with ants going about their officious business.

The views from the top, of the sun setting and the arid hills and the glowing blue sea, were unbeatable, and worth the climb, and dinner came with a surprise dessert of cherries in syrup and candied orange rind in syrup (fortunately just enough for a taste because more would’ve felt like someone was serving us our just desserts). It was mostly dark by the time we made it back to civilization and fell into bed.

We slept last night for about 9 hours—it was the first time since arriving in Greece that we didn’t have anywhere to be super early—then breakfasted on yoghurt, honey, pear and almonds, took a brief stroll, and I fell back into bed while Ian worked and I slept for another three hours.

The afternoon was spent visiting an ancient Roman amphitheater near the top of the hill that we climbed last night, and some catacombs carved into the crumbling sand and pumice hillside nearby (the official catacombs were closed for repairs, but we peeked into one unofficial one that was definitely a catacomb and not just a cave).

This evening my brief fear that our early morning departure for Folegandros and the fact of our landlady’s still having my passport would come together in an unfelicitous way was assuaged when she arrived home to wash her husband’s wet suit on the verandah where we were eating bread and cheese and baclava (hoping to catch her, it’s true). He had been diving and caught a 2 kilo octopus! We saw octopus drying in the sun next to a café yesterday . . .

All to say that I’ll sleep well tonight, even though I’ve slept very, very well in the last 24 hours already.

And tomorrow: Folegandros! For who knows how long! (boats don’t go to Folegandros every day . . .)

PS—Happy Birthday, Gma Bea!

Athens Fish Market

It Begins

We’ve started our summer of nomadism. I’m not sure how coherent this entry will be because I’m suffering from long-haul-traveler’s narcolepsy. An example: We finally boarded our flight to Athens yesterday evening, about 18 hours after leaving home. Yes, we’d cashed in airline miles for business class tickets from Seattle to London, so we did have flat beds, but who can possibly sleep well when they’re heading off on a big adventure? Not me, certainly. So by the time we had had showers at the BA arrivals lounge, left our very heavy day packs at left luggage, meandered around London Borough of Hounslow for several hours, and eaten a tasty dinner at Giraffe back at the terminal, I was pretty much wiped out.

We were seated in an exit row from London to Athens, and a flight attendant sat facing me in a jump seat for take-off. I warned him as he sat that I was about to fall asleep; I didn’t warn him, however, that I would sleep deeply, head lolling, string of drool forming at the corner of my mouth, for only about 5 minutes, and then I’d wake up, snap, and start asking him questions. “Are you based out of London? Do you always fly this route? Where did you start? Oh, Dubai and UAE! Well, that’s certainly farther than Paris!” etc etc. And then I fell asleep again. Until the three men seated across the aisle from me reached some level of drunkeness and became extremely loud, and extremely boring. Isn’t that always the way.

Today we took the 3-year-old subway into Athens and meandered around for a couple hours. The subway, built ostensibly for the Olympics and undoubtedly using EU money, seems to be the first step in turning the country into the bland EU cultured pearl that so many other places have become. I won’t say it isn’t nice—it is. Air conditioned, on time, clean, sleek. And well-monitored—in our four rides today, our tickets were checked twice, and people who hadn’t bought tickets were issued citations, right there in front of us. Also, some man got on and was harassing riders for money; at the next stop, a security guard found him and kicked him off.

Shopping streets are becoming posher, too, with Sephora and Camper and Diesel luring in the young Athenians.

But, as yet, the pearl coating is pretty thin. The city is still a noisy, belching, glaring 7-story sprawl of many square miles, studded here and there with thousands of years old ruins, sometimes just in a vacant lot around the corner and not announced at all. And the central market—the agora for which the fear is named—is still thriving—dried fruits and nuts along the streets, a huge fish hall inside, and in another huge hall, dozens upon dozens of skinned sheep with their heads still on, naked eyes staring, or sometimes indeed just a pile of the skinned heads.

Tomorrow we head to Milos on the fast boat, hoping to get to Folegandros, but happy to stay in Milos for a few days if that’s what it takes.

Limbo?

Here’s the thing about living in the moment. You’re never actually in limbo, you’re always simply living your life, the life you’re supposed to be living at any given time. So the fact that you may be breathlessly awaiting confirmation that you’re moving to the other side of the world doesn’t mean that you do nothing but wait—there’s packing to do, people to visit, accounts to put in order, large items to sell, and the usual mundane things as well: dogs to walk, underwear and jeans to wash, apples and bread and peanut butter to buy. So when you find out that you’re not, in fact, moving to the other side of the planet (at least not when you were expecting to), it’s not the end of the world. Because you’ve packed things and sold things and organized things all along, and you’ve kept your clothes clean and you’ve been fed a good balanced diet and your dog is happy and not too chunky, and you find that all your groundwork, and all your living, has prepared you to suddenly accept that the entire world is yours. You’re not limited to just one small (but beautiful) country deep in the ocean on the underside of the earth.

And so you choose (because living in the moment rather than emotionally investing in something you have no control over allows you to see the choices and therefore make them) to have four glorious months of summer nomadism. And you recognize that this summer is an amazing gift—freedom from responsibility, from bills, from adulthood. A time of sun, and romance, and diving deep into a glorious ocean of undefined possibility.

Limbo? Not for me, thank you. Life.

I Want To Go

I want to go. I want to run away. I want to flee the unnerving knowledge that I’m not in control of my life. That, plan as I might, life happens the way it’s going to happen. I’m lucky if I can react in time to salvage any grace whatsoever, before I fall flat on my face. I want to flee the work I’ve made for the people around me, the chaos I’m leaving in my wake. I don’t want to stay and smooth things over. I want to go.

I want to go. I want to leap into the unknown. I want to revel in the incandescent knowledge that I’m not in control of my life. That, plan as I might, life happens the way it’s going to happen, and I’m lucky if I can react in time to dance away, before I fall flat on my face. I want to leap into whimsy, let my intuition tell me where to experience next, wake each day with the sole expectation of wonder and the thrill of discovery. I want to go.

I want to go.

So, Okay, Not What We Were Expecting

We got word from New Zealand Immigration today that my visa was denied. Seems that recent cancer is an issue for a nation with socialized medicine, no matter how strongly the person who had the cancer believes she’s done. I understand, and Ian understands. We’re in Phoenix at the moment, because when our visas didn’t come through last week, we decided we really needed to leave our house on April 15^th no matter what, and by Seattle standards it’s already summer here (although it did rain during lunch today).

I was briefly angry—I mean, how frustrating to have someone declare you can’t do something that you believe you want to do! But then, after a delicious lunch of two large margaritas and some food, I felt better. Because the fact remains that we’ve rented our house, we’ve sold our cars, we’ve sold a bunch of furniture, and we’ve moved virtually everything else into storage, so we have some cash and basically no responsibilities.

And so, with the world our oyster (minus New Zealand, true), we’ve decided to spend the summer in Europe.

We’re leaving April 30^th, and planning to return to Seattle August 31^st. Where will we be? Who knows! What will I do? Could be anything! What will Ian do? Well, finish his dissertation, of course. He is going to apply for a different type of NZ visa, so it’s not entirely out of the running, but we’re not holding up our adventures waiting.

Life. Crazy, huh.

So on Sunday We’re Going To . . .

Phoenix! To spend some quality time with the sun, and a pool, and of course lovely friends and their adorable daughters. Will New Zealand be next? Only the universe knows . . .