Southern Chios
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Chios,
Greece
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Sunday, a somewhat decadent sabbath around the hotel, on the pebbly beach with book and a liquid lunch. I taught the terrace bartender how to make a decent American martini and she tested her knowledge by making me a second for free. She passed. I've always believed in this sort of cultural exchange. The following evening, I spread the martini gospel to the night bartender, too. I would be happy to offer my skills to the Peace Corps if they have a suitable position for me.
Monday morning and time to do a little exploring. I rent a tiny KIA for 2 days and we decide to spend the first of them poking around the southern part of the island where they harvest the resin of the mastic tree. (Used medicinally, in cosmetics and to flavor a strong type of ouzo. Wars have been fought over it). Back we go into twisty mountain two-lanes with sweeping views of the Aegean from the high rocky spine of the island. After the baptism of fire in Pelion, I'm getting fairly cocky about my driving skills, slipping up and down through mostly appropriate gears as we navigate switchback after railess switchback.
First stop of the day is Pirgi, a 14th or 15th century medieval village that's been home to the mastic harvest from the earliest days of settlement. (The island has been in Greece and Turkey, returning to Greece most recently in 1912.) The village hasn't changed much over the years. Without the power lines and TV aerials you feel like you've landed in another century. We park near the small square and spend some time walking through the narrow winding streets past the ornate, geometrically patterned black & white facades of the slope-shouldered two-story buildings. Old women dressed in homespun black dresses, their heads wrapped in scarves, smile as we pass. One struggles with her donkey. It's tied to a post and not particularly interested in what she is saying.
Further south we stop in Emporios, where a single taverna sits at the end of a small, cobalt blue harbor, dwarfed by towering rocky headlands. Two white ducks sleep on the sea wall, their heads tucked beneath their wings. We follow a trail along a nearby beach of sea-polished black lava stones, before heading southeast for a few kilometers to the small beach side village of Komi where we tuck into a lunch of sardines and cold beer at a taverna and spend a couple of hours on the beach chairs recovering.
But it's not all beach today and by 3.30 we're back on the road heading north toward the mastic village of Olimpi. Like Pirgi and Mesta (our next stop), it dates from the 14th century. Surrounded by tall uneven stone walls, it's a maze of streets just barely wide enough for a tiny KIA to pass through without gouging creases in its doors. Of course by the time we make this observation, we are well into the center of the village where it is impossible to turn around. Backing out doesn't seem to be as much fun as crawling forward in first gear, so we do that for awhile behind a man driving a small three-wheel tractor, taking the occasional 90-degree turn and squeezing through the tunnel like side lanes just to sharpen my skills. At the first place we find that's wide enough to abandon the car with a reasonable expectation that it won't be pounded into scrap metal by the next vehicle through, we set off on foot. I snap a picture down one cobbled street where an old woman is shuffling toward us perhaps a block or so away. When she draws close, I smile and say hello and she lights into me with a torrent of enthusiastic abuse that I'm very happy not to understand a word of. Most likely she's just camera shy.
We stroll on through Olimpi, not so much to enjoy the ambience of this sleepy little medieval village now, but to reconnoiter a route for the car out of town. After a few false starts, we find a likely possibility and 15 minutes later, when we have located the car again, I'm back at the wheel of this theme park ride trusting in Disney, dodging dogs, cats and pedestrians and telling myself all things are possible, if not passable.
Out of the warren, all roads are superhighways in comparison. I have never had a more intense and demanding low-speed experience behind the wheel. If you come to Greece, don't even think about not renting a car. You will miss most of the fun.
Mesta is the besta. Of the three mastic villages, it's in the best condition and it fairly glows in the wash of late afternoon sun. This time we park well outside of town so as not to frighten the citizenry. It's like walking through tunnels. The stone buildings lean so close together across from each other that their balconies almost touch. White washed stone walls are splashed with brilliant bursts of bougainvillea and wisteria. In some dark lanes oil lamps flicker on the walls. The doors of many houses are painted in vivid colors. Others have rotting planks over the windows and dusty doors sagging on their hinges. So many generations have made this simple place their home. In the square, a handful of Scandinavian tourists are drinking beer in front of the enormous 19th-century cathedral.
Inside the gloom of the church it's cool and silent. A mustached man in his late 60s begins to tell us about the large silver icons which he says came from Russia. His English is very good and I assume he is a sort of deacon-cum-tour-guide until he starts to talk about the miracles and the hundreds of lives saved by the power of this particular house of god. He says the most recent one happened five years ago when a mother was returning from a trip to Athens with her son who had been diagnosed with a terminal disease. Behind them on the plane were seated two generals in full uniform and as the plane passed over Chios and the village of Mesta, one of them tapped the woman on the shoulder and pointed out the town and cathedral below. "That's where we live," he said. "Come visit us." The woman looked through the window and turned back to speak to the generals. They had disappeared. The woman later visited the church with her son who was soon cured.
"I am here for this reason also," says the man. It turns out he's from Pittsburgh where he heads a construction company with his sons. Recently, he had surgery which resulted in severing some nerves in his head and creating problems with infections -- we couldn't really follow the details -- but he has come to this place to find relief no doctor can give him. We wish him luck and return to the sunny square outside.
We take the long way back to Chios, climbing high into the mountains where each curve brings a new exquisite panorama of cliffs dropping into an impossibly blue sea.
Today is Tuesday. The car is ours until 10 tonight and it's time to head north to the place according to legend that Homer was born.
