A DRIVE INTO THE MOUNTAINS OF CRETE BRINGS NEW CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
Crete, 17th July:
My husband, Rod, and I decided to rent a small car very cheaply one day, so we could get out into the countryside where buses don’t usually go. We left Hania in our little car and drove up into the mountains to Anogeia. It’s a pretty village with narrow, steep streets, newly whitewashed walls, houses along the main street festooned with colorful woven goods for sale, and flowers blooming in tin cans and pots. The village was rebuilt completely after WW2, when it was razed by the Germans. It was a centre of the Greek Resistance and we wanted to come and see the setting and try to picture some of the events, as we’d read many of the personal accounts by both Cretans and Allied helpers. We were also on a mission to find Zeus’s cave.
We drove straight through Anogeia and onto the road into the Psiloritis Mountains and the Ida Cave, where Zeus was supposedly born. About twenty kilometers is tar, through wild spectacular barren mountains with rocks and shrubs, then a few kilometers of very poor, stony track. Our little car inched along. We parked at what will be a tourist lodge one day and walked up to the cave. It’s enormous and set down into the mountain, making it ideal for habitation. There have been some recent excavations but we could walk down some wooden steps and onto a wooden platform at the bottom. It’s easy to see why myth and legend grew up that this was a special, magical place, as it’s so high and inaccessible. There was water available but what did they eat?
On the way back down to the car we greeted an old shepherd (this high little valley is used only for summer grazing) and he immediately came down to chat to us. He spoke no English, so my limited Greek came into play, allowing us to have some kind of communication. He was a lovely, charming old man, named Vassileos, who obviously also enjoyed meeting us. We chatted about family, where we came from, and showed him our family photos. Then Rod took some photos of him and me, sparking one of life’s unplanned, spontaneous, wonderful events. He had old, battered binoculars made in the USSR, which he used for keeping track of his sheep. We showed him ours and he showed such a child-like wonder and excitement at the newer model that Rod decided to give them to him and he was totally delighted.
He invited us to his shepherd’s hut, on the other side of the valley, so we drove in our little car, with him directing “left on this track,” or “right around these stones,” chuckling all the while. He has two stone huts, so well camouflaged you don’t realize they’re there, just grey stone slabs piled into a cone. It was absolutely fascinating to be able to go in and see what they look like and get an idea of what kind of simple life he lives up there. We made coffee, drank red wine, and talked. He talked a lot about the war and the Partisans, and what he remembers: he was fifteen or sixteen at the time, and is a sprightly sixty-six now.
He was very warm and friendly, especially when we turned out to be of English origin as he remembered the British helping the Cretans.
Eventually we left with a promise to visit his home in Anogeia the next day. In the morning one of his kids was going to pick him up and take him back to town.
Vassileos had given us a rather vague address but his family were obviously looking out for us, because when we stopped “at the end of the town” as he’d told us, his wife, dressed in black, came walking down to meet us. We then had a pleasant few hours in their home, chatting, convivial, very hospitable. Her name is Despina and she cooked us a wonderful meal, with a mutton dish, olives, feta cheese and yoghurt, which she’d made herself. Also educational and interesting was to compare and contrast his life here in Anogeia, to his sparse life as a shepherd, which he obviously loves. They own this house, which is simple downstairs, with three rooms and no real bathroom, but upstairs one daughter has a nice apartment. Next door the son and daughter-in -law live and it’s quite modern and beautifully furnished. All five kids and their families live in Anogeia and most of them are somehow involved in the family farm business.
