The sound of silence

The sound of silence

Waldo and I decided yesterday that we were staying in far too much and that we were restricting ourselves to only going out when we needed to; shopping, visiting friends, going to the bank or post office; or going to the airport or port. When we have visitors we have honed our trips down to a few key ones. Over the years we have learnt that people will not spend more than about 45 minutes in the car; 'pit stops' for food, drink and toilet have to be every 2 hours or so; there should be no more than 2 old ruins per day; and by 4 o'clock everyone starts to get a bit scratchy unless we get home for a cup of tea by then!

We are intrepid travellers and for us the journey is as much an integral part of the experience as the destination. Wherever we travel, whether by car or motor-home we have our travel kit with us; binoculars, bird identification book, notepad and pen, maps and usually the Lonely Planet of wherever we are roaming. Here on Kythera we don't always remember the map, but can travel mostly by the aid of local landmarks. Maps are not necessarily essential once we have done a journey once; and we did once set off to visit friends in Belgium with a map of France in the car! In Kythera we also take a bucket and spade with us so that we can bring back various wild flowers, rocks or drift wood that might take our fancy and be deemed an attractive addition to our garden or patios.

It has been another glorious day today with the afternoon temperature reaching 34.5'C. We set off with the intention of going to explore some of the villages that sit along the spine of the island; they are not on the way to any beach, monastery or place of interest, nor have we heard of good tavernas in them and hence we have not visited them. We decided to go up our mountain road as we have not been that way for some time. In places the thorn bushes are really overgrowing the road and the car swerves drunkenly as Waldo avoids them and potholes. Our neighbours have been busy cutting down trees, no doubt to better their view and provide precious logs for the winter. I know most of the flowers on either side of the road and point out which heather bushes are in flower, the occasional beautiful pink asphodels, mountain sage, crab apples and many other old seasonal friends.

When we got to the top road, the asphalted road from Karavas to Potamos we turned left as we needed to go through Potamos to get to our villages. On the way we passed an olive press with it's door open as the owners no doubt are preparing for the harvest to come. Just to the side of the building is a road signposted to Aghia Marina, somewhere we have never been. I was just saying 'Let's go down here.' when Waldo turned down the road. At the back of the building there was a large pile of the dried remains of olive pressings, ground pips, skin and general rubbish. This must have been taken from cleaning down the system for the island presses only use oil from the first pressing. Once the thick, greenish oil is extracted the residue is packed into plastic drums and sold to bigger presses in the Peloponnese who will extract the last drops of oil from this with bigger crushers and a hot water wash; this is then sold as the cheap, thin, yellow oil of supermarkets or sold to manufacturers where olive oil is an ingredient of their goods. No self-respecting Kythera would touch this second class product.

We were surprised that the road, just a narrow single track, was cemented. This came to an end after about a mile, just before the first house along the road. This happens frequently in Greece. A road surface of cement or asphalt will end, in the middle of nowhere, with no logical explanation as to why the work was budgeted to to end so. The stoppage is usually some way short of what might be a logical place to stop. This shortage can never be accounted for until one realises that most of the driveways in the vicinity have brand new concrete or asphalt, or that a certain amount of money has been 'creamed' off as the budget is devolved through each stage of the order and building process. No government can manage a country where tax avoidance is the national game and corruption has seeped into every crevice of society - starting with the governments!

The road is pretty rough and we bounce along through a wonderful valley. On the south facing slopes there are substantial patches of cultivation with vines or olives neatly planted in rows. the occasional 'shepherds hut' is clearly visible - there are not always actually used by shepherds but in the days before the ubiquitous Toyota pick-up were the temporary residence of the olive or grape pickers who would not waste time every day walking to and from their own homes. They are still used today but more often as a one night camping treat for the children or for boozy, macho parties of Greek males who go out hunting and shooting'. There are only really hares and ptarmigan here to shoot and they are not often disturbed by these affairs which focus more on food, camp fire stories and retsina or ouzo.

The valley seems to close before us and the road winds through a huge rock crevasse and we enter a new valley; wild and unspoilt. We came to a fork in the road. A road sign of the very old Greek style was still standing; a metal square on a metal rod. A village name had once been visible but the Greek rural custom of using road signs as target practise for guns had made so many holes and pock marks, it was now unreadable. We decided to take the right hand fork. As we did so we could see, just to the left hand side of the other road a very large, unfinished property made of local stone. The building looked to be on stop, but it had the making of a large, fine property, totally isolated and with a view down the valley to the sea.

As we bounced along the potholes road we could see more and more large black birds playing in the air currents. Four, six, ten, more and more came into view. We stopped to take photographs of them and to watch then enjoying the thermals with such ease. As far as I could tell, I identified them as Alpine Choughs. There was a substantial colony for we counted 30 in the air at any one time.

The road started to run down hill for a time and in the distance we could see a new building, a large three storey house with a large patio area to the front and very large balconies on the top two floors. As we drew near we could see that work was continuing on the site, although there was nobody around today. They had already erected a small wind driven generator. What an isolated spot, so quiet and unlikely to be disturbed. The view took in some short distance of a flat area before the steep cliffs dropped down to the sea. A wonderful spot to walk along the cliff edge ad look at the navy, azure, turquoise and greens of the sea below. Suddenly a cow, or rather a young bullock came into sight. he clearly was interested to see who was around and no doubt, whether they had brought food with them. he was a fine looking beast, along the lines of a Jersey breed with large dark eyes and two tone ears. but he did not look kind and we kept our distance.

We drove on past the bullock, the house and a pile of stones dumped by the side of the road, up a small slope and then over the top and came to a narrow plateau. The road turned down to the right but we sensed that Aghia Marina might be to the left. Waldo stopped the car and we found a narrow path to the left. We walked some distance and then could see a small bay. Zigzagging over the slopes above the bay was the other road. This would have taken us down to the beach, except that we could see quite a substantial rock fall had blocked the road for some two hundred yards; we would have had to turn back anyway. The path took us past two relics of stone houses, reminders of the days when the island had a population of around 23,000 people. Those were the days when it produced wine, wheat, oats, olives, fruit and vegetables which were traded with Smyrnia on the Turkish coast. It never fails to surprise us what a vibrant island it must have been before the war. German occupation of the island provided a vital command post covering the seas towards the mainland Peloponnese and the sea between here and Crete. But the brutality of occupation followed by the devastation of the Greek civil war meant that the island population reduced to some 3000 people. Only in the past few decades has that increased with around 400 resettled Albanians and a similar number of assorted ex-patriates: German, British, Swedish, French and Italian in the main. The summer population swells to around 10,000 people which includes a transhumant working populatio0n of people who work in Athens in the winter and Kythera in the summer and those Kytheran Australians who summer 'down under' and then summer in Kythera. Long-term summer tourists who return to their family homes for months at a time account for a large proportion of the swollen population whilst the weekly or fortnightly tourists count for a few hundred.

Our path was littered with rocks of all shaped and colours; white, orange, silver, grey, brown and gold. They recreated the layers of the earth's crust shattered in turmoil many years ago. On the way back I collected a few attractive specimens to add to my patio collection. There were some large rocks near the car and Waldo selected three of the largest flat slabs that he could lift and put them in the car. these would be used for weighting down the clothes drying rack on the kitchen patio. No matter how large the rocks we used, at some point the wind would blow the drying rack over, lifting the rocks and the impact as they hit the ground again split them into pieces. So we were always on the lookout for new rocks.

We bounced our way back to the main road, took an easy decision to go the long way round, following asphalted roads. No matter how many times we make the trip, rounding the corner and seeing the north Eastern coastline of the island, the blue sea reaching over to the Maleas Peninsular and Aghia Pelagia nestled at the botto0m of the slope, makes us both catch our breath. Apart from our own house view, it is the best view in the world.