South to Schinnoussa
...somehow, I thought it would be just another quiet island...
...neither Naxos nor Paros yet something in between.
Perhaps a little brash and rather friendly, maybe musical and colourful,
...neither Naxos nor Paros yet something in between.
Perhaps a little brash and rather friendly, maybe musical and colourful,
but no,
Schinoussa could be never anything more or less
Schinoussa could be never anything more or less
than itself.
It was twilight. I stood on the silent balcony of our pension resting my gaze on the darkening shapes of some even smaller islands floating on the lilac sea.
Again, no horizon. The only sound was the even flow of my breathing.
As I watched, my mind gently came to rest and I knew I had no memory of anywhere more clear or peaceful than this gentle island of Schinoussa.
And now we were leaving...
Looking back, the crossing from Naxos had been a dream. Smiling, thoughtful faces in search of the 'other' Greece, the 'real' Greece, poured over maps or stretched on tired backs, calmly mesmerised by the rolling Aegean; lost in private reverie.
There is something deeply reassuring in the knowledge that havens of humanity remain unsullied by the Americanisation of our psyche. There is something incredibly refreshing when you've been trying to communicate with a someone of a foreign culture and neither of you understand the other's tongue and then you make yourself understood by reverting to the universal language of mime and grunts and, hopefully, much nodding. Just like at the beginning.
And to sit with foreign people, listening to their babble and knowing full well that no one in that group can speak your language, and to be made aware that you are welcome and included within that foreign circle... well, that continually gives me hope. I love to be where people exist by choice without the dictates of fad and fashion in splendid naivete, where schedules have hardly any weight.
At the bow we met Spiro, an Albanian who'd lived on Schinoussa for the past eight years after defecting and making a marriage of convenience with a Russian doctor in Athens. He showed us a sad little picture of his wedding. Last week, he'd fractured his forearm and had been to get it X-rayed on the big island. He knew of a place we could stay and could arrange a lift up to the village. So when our boat pulled in alongside the island's quayside, Sandy, Spiro and I were the only ones to disembark and that's how I came to have the flowery vision from a balcony on an island in the Aegean. In the picture below you can just see Sandy sheltering from the heat in the shade of the bus-truck while I was fiddling with the camera.
The owner of the pension Anesis was Stratos, a little round man who never stood still but who rolled his truck in good humour up and down the hill from the port in lieu of an island bus service. His equally rounded wife, Oriana and their cleaning lady Nadia, who says she's from Bulgaria but who Stratos says is a Turk, did everything they could to make us comfortable. Stratos even cobbled my broken sandals and offered us mosquito repellent although I think his repellent is more repellent than the mosquitoes.
Then something happened that only happens to the blessed and to TV doctors.
We find the mini-supermarket and buy some chocolate drinks. Margarita, the mini-proprietress, is almost crying with toothache. She has to suffer like this for two more days before she can go to Naxos for the dentist. Sandy rushes back to our pension and returns with two extra-strong headache tablets and tries to explain she should take half right away and the other half when she goes to bed and if it is still bad next day, to take the other one. We aren't at all sure she understands.
Apart from the tinkle of goat bells, the lowing of cattle and the braying of our two neighbouring donkeys, the dusk is completely still. Its sky is orange fading into purple night. And you just know that when the light has completely gone there'll be a twinkling mass of stars covering the space above your head - only brought occasionally to life by the flashing of a darting star - and there, in the stroke of a brush, embracing all living beings, lies the sash of the magnificent Milky Way, a breathtaking ache of the heart that comes with an awareness that this precious life will not last forever and that it's essential we make the best possible use of it....and that's when you sigh.
When we discovered the local kafeneio served the most delicious food of all we made it a home from home and sat outside in the one long street that snakes through the village before it loses interest and fades into sand. More than once we had to lift our table out of the way to let the island tractor past. Moths dance around the light bulb. Bats swoop and dive. Cicadas play maracas. Dogs and children bark in the dark. Townsfolk sit and quietly gossip in lengthening shadows. They tilt their heads and smile in our direction. We feel accepted as we stroll amongst them, mesmerised by the silence and the fragrance and the crunch beneath our feet, enchanted by the panoramic visions of the coastline still floating above the sea in crystal clear illusion.
Next morning I had Greek tummy surprise.
We had no medication and there was no pharmacy, just the doctor. We were running out of money and there was no bank just the extortionate exchange rate inflicted by the travel shop. We were too unprepared to stay very long so we decided to preserve our beautiful memories and return to Naxos within the next few days.
Across the road from our pension was a small restaurant with a pretty patio in a garden decorated with purple bourgainvillia, geraniums and something Sandy said was frangipani, although I think she was making that up, and under a banana tree, heavy with fat green fruit, we took a chance on food again and breakfasted on stale bread, jam and coffee milkshakes and a promise to treat ourselves to a banquet later if we could find a more imaginative restaurant.
That morning, a dark cloud drifted over the village and almost apologetically released a sudden downpour for a couple of minutes before the heat from the sun regained control and shooed it away, leaving shadows return in drifting in slow motion. During the deluge, everything that could took cover; from people, cats and dogs, donkeys and kids, cows and goats, down to spiders and insects. And everywhere was the balm of dust and wild jasmine.
In the afternoons, when it was too hot to move, we went skinny-dipping and snorkelling in isolation. Swimming naked from these deserted beaches seems so reasonable and natural that it makes one wonder what all the fuss is about. The lagoon itself was a work of art in pastel, a huge oyster shell under the warm, turquoise sea. We suffered there until we could take no more and were forced to take shelter in the shade of an ancient swaying pepper tree. We let the afternoon sift between our fingers and dozed and dreamed and listened to the cooing from a beautiful white and blue dovecote and the drone from twenty or so beehives that dotted the hillside behind.
We walked back from the beach in full glare of that merciless sun. Recklessly, I`d left my hat in the pension and it wasn't long before I felt stinging heat all over my dome. Salt crystals causing atoms of magnification, effecting pricks of burning spikes. I was sunstruck. My body was on fire and my face was a bearded tomato. I was unwell. Now I understand the wisdom of some swimmers who rinse their heads from a bottle when they come out of the sea.
And I was still suffering from sudden tummy surprise.
On the way through the street we pass the mini-market, Margarita comes running out and makes us take what first appears to be the entire crop of local grapes until I look again and realise it's only about an armful. She taps her teeth, points into her mouth, strokes Sandy's arm, bows, grins and claps her hands. She says now her husband is very tired (nudge, nudge). Wherever we wander that day, passing villagers smile at Sandy and incline their heads and look and nod. Sandy is beatified.
After three days we still had not found the post office. We interrupted some scallywags playing in the dust and asked them the way. They led us down a narrow flowery path into a yard where a man was chatting to a donkey. The elder boy smiled and presented the old man as, "The Post Office".
The old man became serious, straightened his back and sighed then led us up the steps into his house. I asked for ten stamps, "Europe, parakalo." He rummaged inside a tin box before declaring, "I only have enough for six. And you need three on each card to make up the revenue." I nodded and then, with cards almost covered in stamps, I looked about for the post box. "Just leave them on the side-board, I take down to the ferry later."
We decided to nail the arrangements for our exodus as soon as possible because when one`s body is full of disgusting surprises, one begins to wonder just how long one can manage without a friendly chemist.
"All Your Holiday Needs" boasted the sign outside the 'Tourist Centre Super Market', a lean-to tacked on to the last house in the village (though overlooking some breathtaking scenery). I asked the young assistant when the ferry left for Naxos.
"Naxos? Every day!" Clearly, my intrusion was not welcomed. He was busy interrogating some friends at the counter.
"Thanks. Do you have a timetable?"
"Outside. There is a notice board!" He continued his bullying rant. I went outside. No sign of a notice board. Politely, I asked him once again. He shot me an impatient glance.
"Behind the wall!"
Outside, there was nothing behind the wall but an old shoe.
This time, I returned and stood in the doorway, interrupting without apology, arms outstretched in the local 'definitive' stance and spoke in Greek (this means with a certain impatience at his stupidity) and asked him to come and show me.
All eyes were on the crazy Englishman. He marched out from behind the counter muttering something to his friends and signalled for me to follow. We were so close and so in step, it looked rehearsed. Rounding the corner of the shop, he glared at me and jabbed a finger in the direction of a glass-fronted notice board containing a square of paper, its wording long-since faded by the sun. His gang started laughing. When he turned to look, he couldn't believe his eyes. His head jerked back, his eyebrows jumped onto his forehead, he squinted, grunted then turned and pushed his way back through his gang and disappeared inside the shop. They remained outside until they'd finished sniggering behind their hands.
So from the balcony I watch our neighbours, the donkeys, play-fighting in the acre of scrub and sandy hillside below until they call a truce and casually stand stock still, snorting and flicking their tails at the ubiquitous flies. I like donkeys because they are peaceful, patient and wise. I throw them some carrots and wave goodbye.
Every now and then we stumble into paradise on earth and find such peace and tranquillity that it is practically a sin to breathe a word about it to another living soul.
Timeless, tiny Schinoussa is just like this. This is rural Greece; a farming community hardly changed from the beginning of the century and we must pay heed. Its allure comes from being so disarmingly unsophisticated and the last thing it needs is careless tourism.
The view from the ferry is of an unassuming harbour with half a dozen fishing boats bobbing and swaying before two optimistic tavernas and you might well be forgiven for not exploring further, but for those who do succumb to her seduction and step ashore, please go with care.
Schinoussa is blissfully enchanting and never to be forgotten.
A slightly different version of this piece (and of me) was originally published in
Greek-o-File Issue 2001/1
that's me on the right...er, I mean the left
It was twilight. I stood on the silent balcony of our pension resting my gaze on the darkening shapes of some even smaller islands floating on the lilac sea.
Again, no horizon. The only sound was the even flow of my breathing.
As I watched, my mind gently came to rest and I knew I had no memory of anywhere more clear or peaceful than this gentle island of Schinoussa.
And now we were leaving...
Looking back, the crossing from Naxos had been a dream. Smiling, thoughtful faces in search of the 'other' Greece, the 'real' Greece, poured over maps or stretched on tired backs, calmly mesmerised by the rolling Aegean; lost in private reverie.
There is something deeply reassuring in the knowledge that havens of humanity remain unsullied by the Americanisation of our psyche. There is something incredibly refreshing when you've been trying to communicate with a someone of a foreign culture and neither of you understand the other's tongue and then you make yourself understood by reverting to the universal language of mime and grunts and, hopefully, much nodding. Just like at the beginning.
And to sit with foreign people, listening to their babble and knowing full well that no one in that group can speak your language, and to be made aware that you are welcome and included within that foreign circle... well, that continually gives me hope. I love to be where people exist by choice without the dictates of fad and fashion in splendid naivete, where schedules have hardly any weight.
At the bow we met Spiro, an Albanian who'd lived on Schinoussa for the past eight years after defecting and making a marriage of convenience with a Russian doctor in Athens. He showed us a sad little picture of his wedding. Last week, he'd fractured his forearm and had been to get it X-rayed on the big island. He knew of a place we could stay and could arrange a lift up to the village. So when our boat pulled in alongside the island's quayside, Sandy, Spiro and I were the only ones to disembark and that's how I came to have the flowery vision from a balcony on an island in the Aegean. In the picture below you can just see Sandy sheltering from the heat in the shade of the bus-truck while I was fiddling with the camera.
Then something happened that only happens to the blessed and to TV doctors.
We find the mini-supermarket and buy some chocolate drinks. Margarita, the mini-proprietress, is almost crying with toothache. She has to suffer like this for two more days before she can go to Naxos for the dentist. Sandy rushes back to our pension and returns with two extra-strong headache tablets and tries to explain she should take half right away and the other half when she goes to bed and if it is still bad next day, to take the other one. We aren't at all sure she understands.
When we discovered the local kafeneio served the most delicious food of all we made it a home from home and sat outside in the one long street that snakes through the village before it loses interest and fades into sand. More than once we had to lift our table out of the way to let the island tractor past. Moths dance around the light bulb. Bats swoop and dive. Cicadas play maracas. Dogs and children bark in the dark. Townsfolk sit and quietly gossip in lengthening shadows. They tilt their heads and smile in our direction. We feel accepted as we stroll amongst them, mesmerised by the silence and the fragrance and the crunch beneath our feet, enchanted by the panoramic visions of the coastline still floating above the sea in crystal clear illusion.
Next morning I had Greek tummy surprise.
We had no medication and there was no pharmacy, just the doctor. We were running out of money and there was no bank just the extortionate exchange rate inflicted by the travel shop. We were too unprepared to stay very long so we decided to preserve our beautiful memories and return to Naxos within the next few days.
Across the road from our pension was a small restaurant with a pretty patio in a garden decorated with purple bourgainvillia, geraniums and something Sandy said was frangipani, although I think she was making that up, and under a banana tree, heavy with fat green fruit, we took a chance on food again and breakfasted on stale bread, jam and coffee milkshakes and a promise to treat ourselves to a banquet later if we could find a more imaginative restaurant.
That morning, a dark cloud drifted over the village and almost apologetically released a sudden downpour for a couple of minutes before the heat from the sun regained control and shooed it away, leaving shadows return in drifting in slow motion. During the deluge, everything that could took cover; from people, cats and dogs, donkeys and kids, cows and goats, down to spiders and insects. And everywhere was the balm of dust and wild jasmine.
In the afternoons, when it was too hot to move, we went skinny-dipping and snorkelling in isolation. Swimming naked from these deserted beaches seems so reasonable and natural that it makes one wonder what all the fuss is about. The lagoon itself was a work of art in pastel, a huge oyster shell under the warm, turquoise sea. We suffered there until we could take no more and were forced to take shelter in the shade of an ancient swaying pepper tree. We let the afternoon sift between our fingers and dozed and dreamed and listened to the cooing from a beautiful white and blue dovecote and the drone from twenty or so beehives that dotted the hillside behind.
And I was still suffering from sudden tummy surprise.
On the way through the street we pass the mini-market, Margarita comes running out and makes us take what first appears to be the entire crop of local grapes until I look again and realise it's only about an armful. She taps her teeth, points into her mouth, strokes Sandy's arm, bows, grins and claps her hands. She says now her husband is very tired (nudge, nudge). Wherever we wander that day, passing villagers smile at Sandy and incline their heads and look and nod. Sandy is beatified.
After three days we still had not found the post office. We interrupted some scallywags playing in the dust and asked them the way. They led us down a narrow flowery path into a yard where a man was chatting to a donkey. The elder boy smiled and presented the old man as, "The Post Office".
The old man became serious, straightened his back and sighed then led us up the steps into his house. I asked for ten stamps, "Europe, parakalo." He rummaged inside a tin box before declaring, "I only have enough for six. And you need three on each card to make up the revenue." I nodded and then, with cards almost covered in stamps, I looked about for the post box. "Just leave them on the side-board, I take down to the ferry later."
We decided to nail the arrangements for our exodus as soon as possible because when one`s body is full of disgusting surprises, one begins to wonder just how long one can manage without a friendly chemist.
"All Your Holiday Needs" boasted the sign outside the 'Tourist Centre Super Market', a lean-to tacked on to the last house in the village (though overlooking some breathtaking scenery). I asked the young assistant when the ferry left for Naxos.
"Naxos? Every day!" Clearly, my intrusion was not welcomed. He was busy interrogating some friends at the counter.
"Thanks. Do you have a timetable?"
"Outside. There is a notice board!" He continued his bullying rant. I went outside. No sign of a notice board. Politely, I asked him once again. He shot me an impatient glance.
"Behind the wall!"
Outside, there was nothing behind the wall but an old shoe.
This time, I returned and stood in the doorway, interrupting without apology, arms outstretched in the local 'definitive' stance and spoke in Greek (this means with a certain impatience at his stupidity) and asked him to come and show me.
All eyes were on the crazy Englishman. He marched out from behind the counter muttering something to his friends and signalled for me to follow. We were so close and so in step, it looked rehearsed. Rounding the corner of the shop, he glared at me and jabbed a finger in the direction of a glass-fronted notice board containing a square of paper, its wording long-since faded by the sun. His gang started laughing. When he turned to look, he couldn't believe his eyes. His head jerked back, his eyebrows jumped onto his forehead, he squinted, grunted then turned and pushed his way back through his gang and disappeared inside the shop. They remained outside until they'd finished sniggering behind their hands.
Every now and then we stumble into paradise on earth and find such peace and tranquillity that it is practically a sin to breathe a word about it to another living soul.
Timeless, tiny Schinoussa is just like this. This is rural Greece; a farming community hardly changed from the beginning of the century and we must pay heed. Its allure comes from being so disarmingly unsophisticated and the last thing it needs is careless tourism.
The view from the ferry is of an unassuming harbour with half a dozen fishing boats bobbing and swaying before two optimistic tavernas and you might well be forgiven for not exploring further, but for those who do succumb to her seduction and step ashore, please go with care.
Schinoussa is blissfully enchanting and never to be forgotten.
A slightly different version of this piece (and of me) was originally published in
Greek-o-File Issue 2001/1
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