Some photos from Spetses, from Jonathan's last night and day there. His siblings will recognize the relatives pictured--they are followed by today's posting:
Jonathan arrived in Messinia—the extreme southwestern tip of
the Peloponnesse--by car yesterday afternoon. Leaving Spetses on the 10 o’clock
ferry, aboard an anciet tub that quakes and belches, the vessel crossed the
Saronic Gulf in 15 minutes. He picked up his car in the sleepy coastal town of
Kosta, and set off through the Argolid—the northeastern arm of the
Peloponnesse—heading toward Nauplion, Greece’s first capital, and then on
toward Argos, where he became hopelessly lost in the center of this busy market
city.
This eastern section of the Argolid reminds him of the
Tableland at Maine’s Mount Katahdin: remote, windswept, but punctuated with
verdant valleys, well-tended olive groves, and gorgeous villages such as Adami.
The decendants of many of these villages, whose forebears where Dorian invaders
from twelfth century BCE and then, later, Albanian maurauders—may have been
among the peoples who crushed the Mycaenean fortresses of Mycaene and Tiryns,
who today speak an unusual dialect, and many of them are curiously
blonde-haired and blue-eyed.
The rental car, a Fiat Punto, deserves passing mention.
Perhaps best described as a toaster oven, riding on golf cart wheels and
powered by a chainsaw motor, Jonathan has dubbed it “the Mazzerati.” It is
cleary a paragon of European automotive efficiency—light, small, and voiceless.
Clearly it is no competition for the Mercedes and BMWs that pass it
effortlessly on the uphill sections of road. But look out for those those
downhill sections! At one point, on the new National Highway, the speedometer
read 130 km per hour in a 60 km zone, a fact that the driver noticed only as he
passed three parked police cars, the occupants lazily smoking cigarettes by the
roadside. One of Greece’s finest simply nodded at the Fiat’s hapless driver as
he passed. Ooops.
The Argos plain is a seemingly endless panorama of orange
and lemon groves, where literally thousands of fragrant trees extend along the
horizon as far as the eye can see. It was an interesting if lengthy drive
south.
Observation 1: If texting while motorcycling were an
enforceable crime, half of the country would be incarcerated.
Observation 2: Passing a convoy of gypsies driving
quarter-ton pick ups south of Tripoli, each vehicle carrying four (yes, four!)
mules, oriented side to side, head to tail, with not a centimeter to spare
between these forlorn creatures. Your correspondent would have paid top Euro to
have observed either the loading or unloading of these large animals—it seems
that only a crane or helicopter could have achieved such a remarkable feat of
packing pack animals.
The National Road now extends as far as Kalamata,
eliminating some impossible hairpin sections, but it is largely empty because
cash-starved Greeks can neither afford the venzeni
(gasoline, measured by the liter, now costs about $10 per gallon) nor the
tolls on this highly engineered four-lane road. One of the tunnels—a product of
German engineering--passes through a vast mountain range, emerging on a wide
agricultural valley called Artemission. The transition from grey and desolate
landscape into well-irrigated farmland is surprising and sudden.
Descending through the seemingly endless ocean of olives
groves in the approach to Kalamata, familiar sights came into view. Jonathan
first came to this area in 2007, to visit friends who were enjoying a
sabbatical year to sow the seeds for his familhy’s own tenure here; all five of
them—Jonathan, Ann, Manny, Lucia, and Evyenia—arrived in February 2009, for
what was planned as a one-year family sabbatical (sadly cut short by Jonathan’s
mother’s illness); and then again in 2012, as part of extended family vacation.
Now they aspire to make this place a second home, the consummation of a very
long fixation with Greece.
The twisty road to southern Messinia provides a feast for
the eyes: groves of olives, highly productive vineyards, stands of cypress and
mulberry trees, herds of sheep and goats, and glimpses of the cobalt sea at
nearly every corner.
Stopping in Pylos for a refreshment, his pulse rising during
the final 15 kilometers toward Finikounda, Jonathan finally arrived at around 4
p.m.—nearly five hours after setting off—during the hottest part of the day. A
swim in the ocean was the first order of business, then a quick ride to the
house on the cliff’s edge to admire the handiwork of the mastoras. Although the house is habitable, friends have have offered
their ancient, unoccupied stone house by the ocean until the work is completed.
A two-minute walk from the beach (as opposed to a ten-minute
walk from the house currently being renovated), this 150-year-old structure has
a rare personality, the kind in which the walls “speak” a lost history. The
owner’s father, an agrotes (agriculturalist)
with a penchant for organic farming, has created a minor paradise: olives,
lemons, oranges, figs, palm trees, and—of course—a garden that would be any
farmer’s envy.
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After settling in, Jonathan visited his friend Dimitri. The two caught up on family news, while drinking cups of thick Turkish coffee—or Greek coffee, if you will. Dimitri invited Jonathan to join him at a demonstration at the military wing of the Kalamata airport. The Greek government has apparently given the United States permission to use Kalamata (and Souda, in Crete) as forward bases for the senseless, pointless, and criminal attack on Syria. Senseless because innocents will perish (they always do); pointless because it will accomplish nothing (other than make military contractors even richer); and criminal, because murder is murder, regardless of how finely you dress it up.
Instead Jonathan will join Dimitri for a jazz concert in
nearby Koroni on the weekend. A joyful celebration of America’s heartbeat here
in Greece
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Later in that evening, Jonathan caught up with a host of old
friends on the village waterfront. People left their cafeneion chairs to dash out
to the street and offer the standard kiss on both cheeks and the insistence of
a drink, a sweet, and a meal. It is remarkable that people remember the names
of our children, inquire as to their lives, Despite his best efforts, Jonathan
only returned to the old stone house at 2 a.m.—the earliest night in a week.
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The “big news” from home, courtesy of his daughter Evyenia, is that we
have a tree full of pears. Planted 10 years ago, it chose to bear this year.
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A visit with the Greek accountant, a sojourn to the bank
(with its double, bullet-proofed doors in sleepy Methoni), and then an
afternoon on Finikounda’s glorious beach. And then a precious siesta for the
late afternoon, another swim, and another night in the village.
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