On a windy evening I was on the
island of Nisyros, standing beside a tiny, surreally perfect blue and white
chapel high above the village of Nikia, surrounded by warm orange light as the
sun went down. I heard a cow somewhere below on the slopes towards the sea, or in
the caldera of the volcano. The wind was cool, so after I'd descended the steps and Yiannis finished taking photographs, he suggested a shot of tsipouro for the road at the restaurant where we'd parked the bike. I drank it and
walked out to see a full moon, bright and yellow, against a dusky blue sky.
My Greek friend Yiannis is a
photographer, but he also has a day job, from which he had two weeks’ holiday.
Since I get a chance to write about Greek islands a couple of times a year for
a newspaper or magazine, I need to keep exploring them. I am deliriously happy to be
back home on Tilos, but June is a good time to travel. We cooked up a plan to
spend a few days in neighbouring Nisyros (an hour away by ferry), be back in
Tilos for Yianni to open his Home Gallery on the weekend, then take a longer trip
to Kastellorizo. Friends had agreed to look after Lisa; Yiannis had gently reminded
me that we could take her but we wouldn’t get to do as many things - I’d told
him about a disastrous time when I’d had to take her
along to Crete.
We rented a scooter on arrival in Nisyros that lunchtime, after dropping stuff at the hotel (Three Brothers, at the port). Twenty minutes later, up a winding road and on a bumpy, rocky, pot-holed track, I remembered I get terrified on the back of a scooter when I’m out of practice. ‘Er, do you mind if I walk?!’ I asked, feeling like an idiot. What a start to the trip. But it turned out to suit both of us, as he’d be stopping often to take photos.
And so, the scooter bumped
along ahead and I wandered slowly and happily along a track I’d
explored before, looking at spiky plants with dusty-pink flowers, poking my
nose into a chapel built into the rock. As he
photographed an old tree, I walked up a slope and found the remains of a house
with a threshing circle and cistern and vaulted stone rooms, overlooking the
centre of the volcano. Further along, I visited the little monastery of
Stavros, finally descending towards the volcanic craters, reaching a white and
yellow point on the path where I caught for the first time the earthy sulphur
smell from the fumaroles that always makes me feel close to something mysterious and
deep.
Because it’s a unique place,
though, coachloads of daytrippers can present a bit of a problem. Suddenly I
heard a noise and spotted not one but two – no, three – coaches coming down the
road in the distance. People would be here soon.
Stephanos crater is a vast white
sunken circle streaked with yellow and grey, with steep walls and a flat,
cracked mud floor punctuated by a cluster of blow-holes. Around the edges of the crater,
bright yellow openings release hot vapour, rising in wisps as if to inspire the
oracle. I knelt close to listen to the hissing and gurgling within, and was
momentarily blinded by the steam on my sunglasses.
Soon, I overheard two English women,
talking about volcano experiences they’d had. Apparently at one,
they cook you food over the heat. ‘Oh yes, I’ve done that,’ said the other. Why do some people travel in a way that makes them jaded?
We drove away, up to the rim of
the caldera and then around towards Nikia where we saw the rugged north-facing cliffs
of Tilos across the sea: over there, a cloud hung above the mountain where I
knew the monastery of Ayios Panteleimonas was. Here we took a little
road downhill, past abandoned stone houses and wandering cows, and found ourselves
at another church of Ayios Panteleimonas. Steps led down to a cove of jagged
and pocked black lava. This was Avlaki; I’d seen photos of it in the volcano
museum on my last trip. Somewhere in the waters below, hot springs bubbled up.
A few once-genteel buildings now
stood beautifully desolate around a small harbour, their plaster crumbled away
and their balconies rusting, returning to the natural grey and red stone. I was
mesmerised, thinking of the stories that might be unearthed of this place; maybe I'd just inhaled too much sulphur. I
went for a swim off the jetty to wash off the dust of the road, while Yiannis
took a photograph of water spilling over rocks. High above us at the top of the
hill, the sides of buildings were lit by late afternoon sunlight.
I was getting used to the
scooter, and grinned as I admitted that we wouldn’t have done nearly so much without it. Later, after sunset at Nikia, we drove back up and along the
caldera’s rim to the half-dilapidated village of Emborio, where cats leapt
across the alley from one roof to another.
Next day, we found the Roman
shrine of Panayia Thermiani, and continued along the coast via Cape Katsounis
to see the layers of volcanic eruptions in the cliffs: then at the end of the
road we left the scooter and walked around the cliffs to Pachia Ammos, where
the grey, red and white of Nisyros rock merge to form sand that looks chocolate-brown,
and behind the dunes are lavender bushes and olives – perhaps once there were
farms.
Nisyros felt wild and natural
and abandoned. A man we met at lunchtime at the lovely meze restaurant at
Loutra said, ‘In old times, people made things. Now we break them.’ But it’s a
wild abandon full of beauty and colour.
 |
| The meze restaurant at Loutra |
Yiannis had compiled clever
itineraries to make the most of our short trip. One of the books mentioned a
ruined castle at Parletia, but it wasn’t marked on the basic map we had. The
lady in the restaurant kitchen at Nikia said we’d find it, and pointed us in
the right direction. We walked along a rough and overgrown path, losing our way
a couple of times in the scrub as it seemed to peter out, scrambling down
gravelly sections, resolving a couple of times just to keep going to see what was
around the next outcrop of rock. Eventually we found some broken walls on a
very steep lava neck with fantastic views from the top, and decided that was it.
Heading back to Nikia, I realised I was starving, and at that moment a group of
piglets launched themselves down the hill, squealing.
We’d been out at dawn – optimal
photography hour – and now it was late afternoon were getting tired. ‘Let’s go to the sauna?’ suggested
Yiannis. I’d pointed it out to him at the entrance to the village of Emborio, a
tiny cave where hot steam rose up naturally out of the rock. Yiannis thought we should change into swimsuits to make the most
of it. Laughing, we stuffed clothes into the bag and parked the scooter across
the entrance. We sat inside on a stone bench, surrounded by green rocks,
feeling around for the hottest steam vents, relaxing in the peace.
I heard a coach pass by on the
road outside. And then it stopped. We peered out, and the people in the coach
waved. They all trooped out... Time to throw clothes on, and get back on the bike.
