"Philoxenia" – Friend to the stranger

One week after we launched Pegasus this year, we were exploring the beautiful Chora of Patmos looking for a place to draw. The options were endless in this UNESCO world heritage site with the monastery perched on top of the rocky outcrop and the beautifully preserved old houses and small churches tumbling down around it.

 We walked through a passageway, down a narrow alley and came out into a tiny square with an exquisite small church. Two men were sitting in the shade of the Church. I smiled at them and wished them a good day in Greek and told them that they looked very peaceful sitting there. The older of the two responded enthusiastically and invited us to sit with them.

And so began our day of experiencing “philoxenia”, literally translated from Greek as “friend to the stranger” but deeper than this - generosity of spirit, hospitality to and love of strangers. In ancient Greece, “philoxenia”, was a virtue ranking high on the list of virtues, and clearly in modern Greece this virtue is still highly valued.

Jon Megaris, an enigmatic Greek man living in New York but spending 7 months every year on Patmos, entertained us with stories of local lore, history, and politics. When we told Jon that we were planning to paint and draw, he insisted that we come home with him as we would be seduced by the beautiful view from his house. We climbed in his car and drove down the mountain, past wonderful gorges and olive groves until he stopped the car in-front of one of the most beautiful settings we have ever seen in Greece. 

Jon’s large but modest house was built on terraces amongst citrus, fig and olive trees overlooking a small, sheltered bay with fishing boats at anchor. Jon bustled around, offering us cake and drinks and we were soon absorbed in trying to capture the magical setting in paint or pencil.

We spent the rest of the day with Jon – he drove us to the far north of the island to a remote taverna on the beach that only locals know about. We drank a toast to “philoxenia” with delicious Patmos wine and ate seafood meze until we were stuffed. 

In all our years in Greece, we have experienced this love of strangers many times, but Jon was the first who gave it a name. It is very similar to the Zulu / Xhosa word “Ubuntu” – a person is a person through other people. Perhaps having grown up in South Africa and knowing Ubuntu, we are particularly open to “philoxenia” and the highlights in all of our sailing adventures are these moments when we experience this Greek generosity of spirit.

By the time we met Jon, we had already spent 2 days with our Rhodes architect friend, Anastasia Papaioannou, discovering the history and architectural gems of Symi; our old friend Mercurious of the Raki and Rembitiki music had driven us to his farm in the mountains and to the oldest and most out of the way monasteries in Symi and our French sailing friend Jeff had taken us on a tour of his most interesting sites in Leros. 

  
But more of these 'philoxenia" stories to come.......

Reckless Poseidon

Our sailing adventures this year have been peppered with surprises – most good, a few bad. The worst was obviously the earthquake that hit Plomari and terrified the living daylights out of us. Our friend, Gerhard Euler, wrote to us just after the earthquake and the title of this blog is thanks to him:

"Wow, so reckless Poseidon has frightened you. It is not for nothing that he has the epithet of earth-shaker! But if you have survived such a terrifying event without damage, it is remembered as an adventure. 

Perhaps Henry should sacrifice regularly to Poseidon. However, a glass of wine is not enough! I believe the sailors of the ancient world sunk horses in the sea."

Unfortunately Henry did not sacrifice his horses, and a few days ago reckless Poseidon frightened us again, when we experienced the worst storm Northern Greece has experienced in 10 years – snow on Mount Olympus, gale force winds, thunder, lightning and fierce rain – all of this while “sheltering” in what at first glance was an idyllic harbour but turned into a nasty surprise. The swell inside got so bad that I could not even climb onto the boat and we were forced to check into a hotel. But we survived that as well and Pegasus emerged unscathed.  

We waited a few days for the sea to return to a manageable calm and then set off for the island of Samothraki, the north eastern most Greek island. The forecast promised fine winds – but it lied! Reckless Poseidon had struck again - the waves were vicious, high and frequent; only a couple of meters between each crest. Pegasus bashed and slammed her way into them, the wind howled and I cried. Henry is so sweet and comforting when I get like this (only once this year). It is hard for him to understand the shear terror that grips me when the conditions are like this, but he does try.

After 7 hours of horrific wind and waves, we rocked and rolled into Samothraki harbour feeling exhausted – asking us why on earth we had sailed so far to some far flung little island we had been told by more than a few was not worth the bother. And looking around us at the port, we agreed that this was probably a bad mistake.

Wrong! Samothraki is the biggest surprise of 2017. When we woke from our exhaustion induced siesta, we walked through the, to be frank, dreary little port town, and caught the bus to the Hora (village capital in the hills). On the way, we passed rolling, sometimes craggy, hills chequer boarded with neatly ploughed fields. Henry got quite emotional when he said to me – “My heart feels like bursting when I see this kind of beautiful agriculture”. 

We drove higher up, rounded a corner, and what a remarkable sight! A gigantic, sheer piece of rock with the remnants of castle walls clinging to it, loomed up in  a crevice between the mountains, protecting a tangle of red roofed houses.

Samothraki has a special energy. For thousands of years, pilgrims have journeyed to the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, the second most important spiritual site in all of ancient Greece, to be initiated into the mysteries of the cult. St Paul failed to convert the Samothracians to Christianity in the 1^st Century AD, and a kind of stubborn, proud other-worldliness still prevails. 

The cafes throng with New Age followers, tavernas and shops steadfastly refuse to advertise their wares in anything other than Greek – unlike Thassos where advertising boards in Bulgarian, Russian, English, Turkish  and German dominate the streets.

We loved wandering the narrow streets – and Henry got his drawing mojo back. Sitting in café To Stenaki (the narrows), gazing, drawing, musing or writing was heaven.

And then there was the sanctuary itself, which dates back to the earliest fertility goddesses of the Mediterranean and was the site of a mystery cult that attracted Egyptian Queens, Odysseus and, something that surprised us, Alexander the Great's parents met here - about 300 years BC. 

The statue, the Victory of Samothrace or Nike, was found here but sadly we would have to go to the Louvre to see it. The large sanctuary, built between two hills with a river bisecting it, evokes a feeling of serenity and majesty.

As we walked among the ruins we marvelled at the thousands of people through antiquity who had sailed so far to be initiated into the mysteries of the cult - and walked along the very same paths as we were on. 

The island is rich in natural wonders - high mountain ranges, fast flowing rivers, secret waterfalls, pine forests, sandy beaches – all a little wild and craggy, much like it’s inhabitants. We loved it.

And some other surprises…..

The wonderful expressionist art museum just outside Mytilini town in Lesvos with a remarkable collection of works by Matisse, Chagalle, Picasso and others. 

The ancient marble quarries on the island of Thassos are awe-inspiring. The pure white Thassian marble has been prized  since the 7th century BC. To imagine how gigantic pieces of marble were quarried, columns or huge statues were carved and then loaded onto ships alongside the quarry is mind boggling. 

And still on Thassos, exploring the ancient ruins of Limenas and marvelling at the thought of a whole fairy tale city built of the sparkling white marble in the 7^th century BC.

Following our favourite Greek travel writer, Matt Barrett, who always gives us the kind of advice we love, we tracked down To Stavro café up high up in the mountain village of Agiassos on Lesvos. Adorned with antique implements and artefacts it, made a feast for the eyes, not to mention the delicious meze that was served along with our cold beers.

The startling turquoise waters of Thassos which begged for unplanned lunch stops and lengthy swims.

Kavala on the mainland in Macedonia delighted us - the Roman aqueduct, beautiful old town and castle - and the superb deli’s! Cheeses, sausages, cured fish, olives..... As we were gazing into the window of one, a man sitting at a small table outside offered us some of his freshly steamed mussels to taste. When we came out laden with provisions for the boat, he handed us each a piece of bread dripping with a few oily anchovies – which sent us straight back inside to buy 4 tins.

And the latest not so good surprise – being woken up by that vengeful Poseidon - joined by Zeus this time - in Samothraki harbour a few nights ago by the boat rocking fiercely in an inexplicable swell - and seeing bubbles rising from the sea bed around the boat when we got up a few hours later. We only found out a bit later that there had been another earthquake, much further south near Bodrum and Kos, but with enough vengeance to affect us up here. There have been a few more of these strange swells in the harbour, releasing a sulphurous smell and the bubbles continue to rise. 

As much as this freaks us, we have not been able to drag ourselves away from this island and it’s charms.  It seems that sacrifices are indeed due.....

101 USES OF A CEMENT MIXER

Henry and I were having our now habitual siesta one afternoon in Skala Loutra, a small fishing harbour in the Gulf of Gera on Lesvos, when we were woken up by a dull and rhythmic thwack, thwack, thwack. We dozed on a bit and then a cement mixer clunked into life, breaking any chance to carry on sleeping. We dragged ourselves upstairs and saw, on the opposite side of the harbour, a man whacking what looked like a wet t-shirt onto the quay with an arcing arm motion.

 After a few minutes, he threw the long, straggly t-shirt to a man sitting next to him and he proceeded to hit it over and over again with a paddle. We ventured round to have a look and watched in fascinated horror while dozens of octopuses were beaten to a soft and palatable pulp. 

We strolled back to the boat, past a yellow cement mixer which was reverberating continuously on the far side of the quay. 

A man was periodically pouring what looked like sand from a bucket and water from the harbour into it. We stopped to have a look – it was strange as the mixer was right on the edge of the harbour and it did not seem to be mixing cement so we were curious. When we got closer, we could see that he was throwing what looked like coarse salt, followed by a bucket of murky harbour water into a churning mass of ………..octopuses. 

From the back of the boat, we watched fascinated for the next hour as, after 10 minutes or so of being tumbled in the cement mixer, the octopuses were loaded into a crate and driven around the harbour to the two on the other side who, only then, began the over-arm whack and paddle smash.  The very friendly fishermen told us that they supply all the tavernas’ and kafenions’ in Lesbos with fresh octopus, a much loved delicacy, the tentacles eaten grilled and slightly charred with ouzo.

Henry's sketch of the taxi with Perama in the distance

Just a few hours earlier, we had enjoyed the most memorable lunch of our trip so far. We had walked the 2km from our simple little harbour through olive groves to an even smaller harbour where a small taxi-ferry took us across the Gulf to the village of Perama on the other side. 

We had read about this industrial agricultural town which, along with the rest of Gera, had helped to make Lesvos prosperous with the production of olive oil in the 1800’s. The shoreline is dotted with the strangely beautiful ruins of these old, disuded factories with their tall, slender chimneys. 

After wandering around the town, we stopped for lunch at what we later found out was one of the most famous and excellent tavernas in the whole of Lesvos - a large island with many great restaurants. 

From the taverna back to Skala Loutra

Two men next to us were drinking ouzo with a giant sea-food platter in-front of them. When we asked for the same, we were told that this was ouzo mere which comes with ouzo - at Euro 8 per person including ouzo. We would have to order the standard sea food platter – at Euro 30.00 excluding drinks, a bit over our budget. So, ouzo it was - for Henry at least. The owner allowed me to have the ouzo meze with a carafe of the house white wine, and so for Euro 16.00 including drinks, we tucked into a pile of the most delectable sea food, all just hours out the sea – succulent sardines, tiny crispy deep fried shrimps, grilled squid tentacles, fried tender calamari rings, mussels, clams and ….. octopus of course. 

At the time we did not feel queasy at the idea of eating these most delicious creatures, grilled to chewy perfection over a hot fire. The meal was sublime, the view breathtaking, the drinks deliciously chilled. We clambered back onto the taxi-ferry, full and happy – and got back to the boat for our siesta – the same one that we were so rudely awakened from earlier!

The cat waited in vain for some left over morsels