In early April, I had three days in the traditional mountain village of Embona. The weather was warm but not too warm. The flowers were all out and
spring was at its best, and yet there was no-one around. I would spend my afternoons walking around Embona.
Attaviros
Attaviros (or Atavyros)
mountain is 1,215 metres, the highest peak on the island of Rhodes. I didn’t have a map,
but in the Attaviros Hotel they said it was easy to find the way up. I’d scouted out the first
section the evening before, up a semi-paved road that twisted and turned amid
tiny vineyards and wildflowers to a gate. I noticed quite a few shells from hunting rifles; in Tilos there’s a hunting ban, but here the hunting of hare and partridge and smaller birds was allowed in certain seasons.
Having found a blog with
directions, I set out around midday with cheese and halva, oranges and tomatoes and paximadia in my backpack. I followed the path over an iron ladder
straddling a fence. From there, it was pretty much a question of following a shingle
gulley with a steep gradient up the mountain.
Stopping for a rest in the
shade of a tree, I looked down to see red earth and vineyards; then a patchwork
of pine forest and olive groves from Embona to Kritinias Castle on the coast,
then all the little islands towards Halki; there was a clear view of the port
at Halki and the road winding up from it; and I could make out the steep
triangle at the south end of Tilos, and beyond that Profitis Ilias.
Higher, the path began to level
out and the terrain became lush with grass and flowers. Sitting on a rock
ledge, I could still hear the kids playing in the school in Embona;
but could also hear so many birds, see hawks gliding overhead and goats scrambling
over the rocks. The view was panoramic along the
northwest coast of the island.
Further on and up, the smooth,
flat tops of the mountain peak were green, pasture-like, dotted with trees;
then they fell away in layers of rock. Embona disappeared from sight and sound,
too far below the steep mountainside. It was still and peaceful, just birds and
buzzing insects. It had taken two and a half hours, with lots of stops to enjoy
the views. I walked around the empty crown of the mountain to find the
massively impressive ancient site of the temple of Zeus. Most beautiful of all to me was
the view to the south – the mountain falling away into smooth ridges and a
river valley, green and grey with grass and rocks and the dark green of the
trees, and the musical clattering of the sheep’s bells.
A lovely footpath descends
gently from here to Ayios Isidoros. I followed it for a little while, then
joined the dirt track road that wound down the mountain – a long way home, but
easier than the near-vertical shingle gully and it took me towards the coast as
the sun was descending.
When a truck drove past I realised I’d seen no-one else the whole afternoon on the mountain. Another truck drew up as I was leaving the pine forest and an old farmer offered me a lift; I was completely exhausted but it was only another five or so kilometres back to Embona, and a lovely evening, so I chose to continue walking, making a final stop at the little chapel of Ayios Georgios Sarantari and feeling very happy about my adventure.
Kameiros
Skala, Kopria Beach and Kritinia
I passed a very old woman doing
her washing by hand in a sink in her front yard around 7am. I wandered around
the village looking for a place with internet, and ended up at Anamnisis café,
which looked fancy from outside but was nicely full of middle-aged men loudly discussing
the price they get for their wine.
Picking up a traditional spinach pie from the bakery, I looked up at the steep, rocky mountain
which bellied out into an inverse amphitheatre of rich soil divided into fields
above the village. The people of Embona and Kritinias came originally from
Kriti, or Crete. Maybe that’s why they picked a place with the pastures on the
high mountain, fertile highland plains.
‘Is it possible to walk to the
sea?’ I asked at the hotel. They said yes, it wasn’t far, directing me to start
from between the sports ground and the cemetery. From there, beyond some
ambiguous signage, a well-marked, wide track meandered gently down through pine
forest. It was a little dull but easy walking for an hour or so, luckily as
my legs were still a little weary from the day before. At what I reckoned must
be the dam, the fragma, though it was
dry and looked like a quarry, were piles of thin branches with string attached
- trimmed vines, I realised. The path met the road and I turned left past farms
along the coast.
Around 2pm, less than an hour
and a half from Embona, I reached Kameiros Skala where vehicles were making their
way to the Nissos Halki ferry, which sat beside small wooden fishing boats. The
water in the tiny, pretty harbour was blue and clear, and I thought how nice it
would be another time to travel from Tilos to Halki and then on to here, and up
to Embona. A triangular carving in the cliff and a few cave-like hollows I
recognised as the ancient Lycian tomb, similar to the one in Kastellorizo.
There was a bus back to Embona
leaving soon but I hadn’t yet had a swim. Just around the headland I was back
at pretty Kopria beach, busier today. After an invigorating dip and a refreshing
nap on the sand, I headed out, weighing the pros and cons of taking the same
route back or risking a longer but more interesting alternative. Naturally
opting for the latter – because one thing I’ve realised about myself is that
I’d rather get a few scratches and scrapes than be bored – I wandered on and
off the road for a little while, enjoying the late afternoon spring sunshine, a
glorious view of the medieval Kritinias Castle perched on a rock overlooking
the sea, the fields around all lush and green and lovely.
At the entrance to the village
of Kritinias, a sign said Embona was 8km straight ahead. There wasn’t any
particular reason to detour to Kritinias, but it seemed a shame to pass right
by without taking a look. Maybe I’d get a frappe for energy. A dog lounged in
front of a mechanic’s garage. Past a run-down square with an abandoned house
was a café where a group of men and one woman were sitting. I shouted out ‘Yeia
sas!’ and people waved and invited me over.
Well, I can’t now remember all
the things we talked about but suffice it to say, I was welcomed like a
long-lost friend. I was given tiny local calamari and fried cod, tomato with
sea salt and bread, and a couple of glasses of home-made wine. We laughed and
chatted. The lady who ran the taverna (‘Spyros’) gave me a swift lesson in
preparing thick stalks of caper leaves for salad, which she first soaked in hot
water from the tap overnight, pressing the capers down with a bowl to keep them
underwater, before changing to cold water for another day, and then adding one dessertspoon
of salt per litre jar of water for preserving them, with a touch of vinegar. Someone
gave me a slice of lemon to eat, dipped in sea salt – wonderful.
The people were proud of their
village and I thought again how sociable this country is and how much people
care about the good things in life – meeting people and eating good, natural,
local food.
When eventually I forced myself
back onto the road, all payment was refused. And about a kilometre up the road,
a truck pulled up and there was one of the guys, offering to drive me to
Embona.
Around
Embona
It was funny to be back in
Embona seeing people I recognised from my visit a few years before, people I’d
written about. I wished I had a copy of An
Octopus in my Ouzo to show them. The next morning at the café, the owner – a big man wearing the biggest T-shirt I’d ever seen – asked about my work, and we
discussed his interest in collecting books about beekeeping and honey in
different regions. Here in Embona, I think he said, each bee can produce 25
kilos of honey per season.
The friendly old ladies in the
tiny house next to the hotel were always busy; this morning the white-haired
lady was cleaning and had sat some just-washed teddy bears on the front wall to
dry, which looked rather surreal. Swallows had built a nest above the light fixture at
the electrical goods shop, and flocks of swallows or martens swooped at the
edges of the village. Lovely light spilled over the mountain as morning
progressed. The group of cyclists staying at the hotel were getting ready to
set out.
I was due in Lindos the next
day and although some mad idea of walking and hitch-hiking there had entered my
head, I had work to do in the morning that prevented such an epic adventure;
I’d wander around the side of Attavyros instead. I enjoyed taking photos of all
the different flowers, wandering along tracks through the fields; bees were
going crazy on the sage flowers.
I stopped at St Raphael and Nicholas church,
whose unpromising exterior gave away nothing of the beautiful icon paintings
within. Then, having reached a dead end at a fence, I cut through an overgrown
area and – whoops – twisted my ankle a little. It didn’t seem serious but it
did swell a little and there was a jarring pain when I put weight on it in a
certain way. A sign to take it easy. I made my way carefully down to the road.
Two men by a truck shouted
hello and we exchanged a few friendly words. ‘These are our sheep,’ one man
said, indicating a flock under the trees. ‘Come back at Easter and we’ll make a
barbecue!’
I loved watching the mountain
change colour and shape as I walked along the road around it, passed only very
occasionally by a pickup truck. I loved the smell of pine trees in the hot sun,
and the clattering bells and complaining noises of the sheep as they noisily
gathered in the valley below. I sometimes saw an eagle above, or hoopoes, and
some big lizards. I’d come back another time and walk to Ayios Isidoros from
Embona, maybe then all the way down the spine of south Rhodes to Prasonisi… For
now, I turned back, resting for a while in the shade of a pergola over a
spring, or sitting on a bed of pine needles, listening to the sound of the wind
whooshing wave-like through the forest, building up and then dying off.
I reached the truck I’d passed
earlier, but no sign of the two men, even though the radio was playing music.
Then I looked into the olive grove and saw them sitting in the shade at a
little table laid out with food and glasses. They beckoned me over, and thus I
got to know Philippas and Christotomos. I sat on the earth by the roots of a
tree and they poured me souma and gave me cheese and cucumber and salt to go
with it, and I laughed at the wonderful scene.
‘They can’t take this away from
us – not even Merkel!’
Philippas, the owner of the
sheep and the olive trees, had left Embona to work with metals in Belgium and
Austria; when he left around 1967, Embona had no electricity so he was amazed
to see electric lights – ‘Not just in the house, but on the road!’ And he’d
never seen a train before. But eventually he returned to Greece, for the good
life, where you sit in an olive grove in the sunshine and wait for friends to
stop by. At first he’d got a few sheep just to graze and keep the fields clear
of grass, but when the flock grew he started to keep them professionally. He
was zealous about getting a fair price for Embona lamb, and had even tried to
set up a co-operative at one point. He was against the supermarkets taking too
much, when it’s the farmers who have to be up on the mountain in the middle of
the night if it’s freezing cold or it there are hunting dogs about that can
kill baby lambs.
Christotomos, or Tommy, wore a
brown tracksuit and traffic-cop shades. He was convinced I must smoke drugs
because I seemed so happy. ‘A little wine’s enough for me,’ I said. ‘Ah, as the
song goes: Wine, moonlight, and my boy…’ Eventually he got a call and had to
leave, and we heard him say, ‘I’m busy, working…’
I stayed with Philippas and
asked him if it was true that the EU had paid farmers to pull up their vines.
He confirmed they had, four years ago, and that it seemed a pretty dirty thing
to do during the economic crisis. People should have known there was something rotten
about being offered money to do nothing, but many of the farmers were
uneducated and simply took the offer. But a few families, whose children had
been to school until the age of eighteen, had refused and were now doing well.
There was work for local people
at the big hotels, he said; but he knew a couple who had worked all season and
neither of them got paid. It reminded me of someone I know who worked for six
months on new construction in Rhodes and didn’t get paid either. Times were
tough; last time Philippas went to Rhodes town, he saw a friend who invited him
for coffee at his home (instead of a café) and then sent his wife next door to
borrow the coffee. In some parts of Rhodes, the local councils give out basic
provisions to the poor families. At least in a village, one person might have
potatoes that they’ll give to another in return for some goat, and so on.
Philippas’ grandson came by,
and then another sheep farmer who wanted to discuss the prices for the animals
they’d slaughter for Easter. Ilias had a village accent and lived up on the
mountain and kept a pig and chickens too, and picked at food using the tip of
his pen-knife, which he then stuck in the wooden table when he left for a while
to feed his animals.
After sitting for a couple of
hours, I continued back to Embona, thinking I should buy some honey from the
café-owner. As I approached Anamnisis, the café seemed closed and he was occupied
with unloading something from his truck, so I walked by. Then a girl ran after
me and said her father was asking me to come and taste the honey.
They’d collected honeycomb
and gave me pieces to eat. Stavros showed me and his daughter the eggs; the
queen can lay 2,500 a day in spring when there’s a lot of food, he said. We
tasted the pale honey, made from a variety of spring flowers, and the powdery orange
yiri. I asked about the darker pine
honey and learned that the white foamy substance I’d been seeing on the bark of
pine trees is a kind of bacterium, and the droplets hanging from it a type of
honey. I’d learned so much today. I bought a kilo of mixed pine and thyme
honey, strong and fragrant, which Stavros gave me for a very good price,
instructing his daughter to pack a box of honeycomb for me as a gift.
At a little café next to the
petrol station, I enjoyed the last of the early evening light and received an
email from Karen at Exclusively Lindos about lunch the next day. I
would be heading to a different part of Rhodes in the morning. I paid a
euro fifty for my coffee which seemed a little expensive compared to the other café
and I laughed, thinking of the guys in the field earlier saying when they went
to Rhodes town and were charged three euros for a coffee, it stuck in the
throat, wouldn’t go down…
For days I’d just had picnic meals but I
wanted to try Maroullakis Taverna in the middle of the village; it had seemed
fairly busy every night, and I was feeling a little down about leaving Embona. I
ate very fresh salad with creamy feta and good bread, and a mix of meat and
cheese fritters, with some semi-sweet red wine; locals tend to prefer it to
dry, and it’s growing on me. The tyrokeftedes
or cheese fritters were like spongy little doughnuts with melted cheese
inside, and the others were very meaty and full of herbs – delicious. Suddenly
a man with a wild Afro-style hairdo and a denim shirt half-open banged on the door
and made a grand entrance, carrying a bag of broad beans, which he distributed
to all the tables before sitting down to tell a story about catching an eel.
When I went to pay, I got into conversation with the proprietress, Irini (the restaurant had been in her family for 95 years), who gave me cakes for my bus journey in the morning.
The sun was coming up through cloud over Embona as I made my way north by bus along the coast. By midday, I'd be in Lindos and had another adventure to come.
Attaviros Hotel, Embona, Rhodes: 0030 22460 41235, 0030 694 262 9556
Proprietress: Vassilia Antonaki
www.ataviroshotel.gr
Maroullakis Traditional Taverna, Embona, Rhodes: 0030 22460 41215, 0030 694 820 1220
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