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I had long wished to explore Mount Athos, but between bad weather and Juan’s never-ending complains, in the end I reluctantly accepted Crete as an alternative destination for our winter trek.

At Piraeus we had chosen the shipping company that best matched our cause (read: the cheapest one) and finally, in another freezing Athenian night, we boarded a half deserted ferry. Tourists were non-existent. Greek islands shut down with the departure of the last holidaymakers in October not to reopen until April next year, but this I only came to understand in the following weeks. Meanwhile, we were travelling undisturbed, comfortably sleeping between rows of seats, lulled by the monotony of the engines and with the whole vessel virtually ours.

Crete has become over the years a mass tourist destination for two reasons: its beaches on the north coast and the archaeological site of Knossos, but we were motivated by very different intentions. I had read some time ago that back in the '70s hippies communities had been created all along the south coast. I had seen photos of bays and inlets with no titanic hotels and free from those sad, ubiquitous tons of pale meat exposed to bake in the sun. A Dutchman we met in Athens then, had told us about a path, the E4, that crosses the whole island from west to east. It was enough to convince us, that coast became our goal.

The bus climbed the steep slopes of Lefka Ori, the mountains range that split the island into north and south as neatly as a well-sharpened knife cut a ripe melon in two halves. The landscape was totally dominated by olive groves. Enormous plants with the collecting nets still drawn beneath them. January is certainly not harvesting time for olives, therefore I suppose that, contrarily to what happens in Italy, here they just leave the net underneath the trees year round. Then the descent towards Paleohora and towards the sun. In a few hours we had left Europe behind and we were now on the Libyan Sea, the one masterfully described by Nikos Kazantzakis in Zorba the Greek.

Paleohora is a village of no more than two or three thousand inhabitants. Discovered in the early '70s by north-European hippies, it still maintains those colours and independence spirit symbols of a rebellion eventually turned bourgeois. There are a few hotels, the inevitable fish restaurants along the seafront and a string of rooms for rent aligned as pieces of a domino, but you can tell this is still a "homemade" tourism. Anyway, could have been a problem in summer, but this time of the year the town was all ours.

Early next morning we set on walking eastwards. The plan was to walk along the south-west coast of the island, then turn north along the stunning Samaria Gorge to the centre of the island and finally hitch a ride to Hania or Heraklion. The trail wasn’t very difficult to deal with, the day was glorious, the landscape breathtaking with the slightly crisp Mediterranean reflecting that sun we had longed for for far too long. We met goats in large numbers, the kind that manages to climb even on trees and a German shepherd chained to a rusty cross in the middle of nowhere. He was mad from loneliness and fear and ferociously barked and was foaming and tried as hard as he could to break the chain to attack us. One of the many sad scenes of animal mistreatment I would have witnessed in my Cretan sojourn.

After five hours walk we reached a valley whose existence we ignored. There was fresh water, shelter and firewood in abundance so we decided to make bivouac. It was a special place. Open to the sea on one side but tightly protected on the other three by steep mountains. There were no roads and it could only be reached on foot or by boat. There were olive trees, some colourful (and pleasantly scented) lemon trees, two churches and a hut used in summer by the guardian of the camp. There was a fresh water source with a sink located next to a disused stable, myriads of goats and finally, on both sides of the valley, remnants of some ancient civilization unknown to us. On one side the remains of the palaces of the living ones, on the opposite side -better preserved- something definitely looking like a necropolis.

I’ve described here in few lines Lyssos valley, but it took us days to discover what this magical place was. What was due to be a simple one night bivouac became our winter refuge. It is said that the greatest aim when it comes to holidays is to find a desert island, behold, we had found one. I wanted Mount Athos penitent silence, yet I had found the natural one here in Lyssos.

I find somehow difficult to describe in an interesting way weeks of solitary life. Those fortuitous and curious meetings that create interesting details when it comes to talking about a trip were here missing, yet it was for me one of the most unique experiences I’ve ever lived. Even the most common daily activities, such as groceries shopping, became something out of a routine in this situation. Sougia, the nearest village, was an hour and a half away walking distance located at the end of a spectacular gorge, but it was for all practical purposes a ghost town locked up for the winter season. Restaurants were closed, hostels were closed, the doctor had left, the police had left, the groceries store was also closed. Only one kafeneia was open. The owner sold us half a loaf of dark bread and told us that the Samaria Gorge were closed too, due to river growth.

The only thing left to do was, once a week, walk all the way up to Paleohora to collect provisions, see faces belonging to other human beings, exchange old books and buy the odd, few days old Herald Tribune. The time needed to travel the very same path ostensibly decreased from the five hours that took us the first time down to just over three. Months of cold and sedentary life had weakened me, life in Lyssos instead, carefree and with a diet rich in fibres and low in fat (not being able to store meat, we eat it only once a week, the day we trekked to Paleohora), brought back full physical vigour.

Juan stayed for ten days, then flew back to Spain to his fiancée and daughter. I accompanied him to Paleohora, by then it had became for us a sort of pathway home, but then I decided to go back to Lyssos. I had been in relative solitude, now I wanted to taste the absolute one. Alone, days passed even more slowly. The climate continued to be gentle; it didn’t look like January at all. By day I was wearing shorts, at night a blanket was enough. Nobody ever passed by Lyssos. At night I could see fishermen’s lights offshore in the distance and the silence was so still that I could hear their voices.

Goats grazed in the valley in apparent freedom while sheep followed a rather unique behaviour: they would come down from the west side of the valley and up to graze on the opposite side in the early morning, then at three o'clock in the afternoon, as guided by higher orders, they would just rewind to end up in their night shelters. All executed in Prussian rigour and completely unshepherded. It wasn’t unusual to bump into a dead goat either. The shepherd -evident but invisible presence- descended down into the valley once a week and carried away the carrions. I saw him once, when Juan was still in Lyssos, he was a corpulent chap with a heavy red beard and was carrying binoculars around his neck. He ignored our greeting and kept going his own way after giving us a malevolent glance. We weren’t impressed, I must confess.

Then one day I found a dying goat. She was grounded nearby the sink, trying to pull herself up but it was as if the foot of a giant retained half her body glued to the ground. She was big and of a reddish brown colour and her kid didn’t move away from her. It was a pitiable scene. I thought to feed her so to keep her alive at least until the shepherd’s weekly visit. At the beginning, she kicked and did everything she could to stand up as soon as I approached with a bowl of water and some leaves. The baby goat moved a few metres away, then returned to her side as soon as I left. On the fourth day she didn’t kick anymore, didn’t drink nor eat and her kid had deserted her. It was the day of my Paleohora “shopping” and I left assuming that I would have found her dead the following day. But next day the goat was no longer there. Instead, next to my belongings, I found a form of cheese. As they say, never judge a book by its cover.

Before leaving Crete I went to visit the Nikos Kazantzakis tomb in Heraklion. The day I climbed the hill overlooking the city it was raining buckets of water. On the top there was the writer’s tombstone and his epitaph: "I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”



ITALIANO
La versione italiana di questo blog la trovi sul sito Vagabondo.net
Link: Inverno Solitario su un'Isola Greca

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