OK, so it's like this: I'm in Never-never Land, Nick is Peter Pan and I'm just a Lost Boy. I had a chance to get out of here but I just couldn't. There continues to be too many pictures to take here.
Last night we had dinner in a small Taberna by the sea. The only other party in the joint was a group of 7 men, including the owner. His wife and daughter sat off to the side by the fireplace. Each man had a string of "worry beads" in front of him, on the table, which each occasionally grasped and flipped in their hand and seemed to pass the beads through their fingers as if counting. Their meal being finished, they sat drinking Chicouria (gasoline). One had a guitar and they were actually sitting there singing, all together, Greek folk songs. This is something you just don't see at Burger King. They sat swapping songs and stories and at one point the owner pulled out a 9mm black pistol and pantomimed shooting each one of them! I almost dived for the floor but it was all in good fun...it was explained to me that the gun was merely to scare the cats away and I really do think that it would.
There's something here, a part of these people, a sense that it's better to be Greek than anything else. It's not quite what we would call patriotism but it's a sort of revel in Greek-ness. The region we are in is called Mani. It's the second finger from the left of the four southern fingers of the Peloponese, on the Messinian gulf. Apparently, it's one of the few places that the Turks couldn't conquer and if these guys are any indication of the resistance they found, I wouldn't doubt it. Of course, it might have been that the Turks just couldn't hack the mountain roads. One of the folk songs, it was explained to me, was about this Cretan saying that he was going to "get his gun and go make some widows", meaning, amongst the Turks. Nick taught me to request a song called Vouskapoula, or Filimma, which never fails to impress and soon we were singing and drinking along and it seems, that if you drink enough Chicouria (lighter fluid), you actually become fluent in the Greek language. That's a little known fact.
So there we sat, singing and drinking Chicouria (paint remover) until the wee hours of the morning when we all kissed and hugged and made our way home.
Footnote: Nick just read the above and has taken issue with my interpretation. Seems these "Pirates" are actually more civilized than I thought.
Elias, the guitar player, is actually an Engineer and owns a hotel. Gregoris owns a bookstore, Nikos owns olive groves...and like that. Socrates asked Nick where he was from and when Nick replied Sfakia, in Crete, Socrates, whom I thought the biggest pirate, kind of backed off. Apparently, the only one more dangerous than a Maniot is a Cretan.
Nick also takes issue with my description of Chicouria (benzine). He maintains that it is a rare and civilized beverage. And I'm Joan of Arc.
Now here's some pictures. You might have already seen the goats but this is a reshoot which the good people of Petrovuni (Stone Mountain) helped me stage.
Dave
PS. Perhaps I would be more inclined to send these reports if I got more feedback people! Keep those email replies coming.
Last night we had dinner in a small Taberna by the sea. The only other party in the joint was a group of 7 men, including the owner. His wife and daughter sat off to the side by the fireplace. Each man had a string of "worry beads" in front of him, on the table, which each occasionally grasped and flipped in their hand and seemed to pass the beads through their fingers as if counting. Their meal being finished, they sat drinking Chicouria (gasoline). One had a guitar and they were actually sitting there singing, all together, Greek folk songs. This is something you just don't see at Burger King. They sat swapping songs and stories and at one point the owner pulled out a 9mm black pistol and pantomimed shooting each one of them! I almost dived for the floor but it was all in good fun...it was explained to me that the gun was merely to scare the cats away and I really do think that it would.
There's something here, a part of these people, a sense that it's better to be Greek than anything else. It's not quite what we would call patriotism but it's a sort of revel in Greek-ness. The region we are in is called Mani. It's the second finger from the left of the four southern fingers of the Peloponese, on the Messinian gulf. Apparently, it's one of the few places that the Turks couldn't conquer and if these guys are any indication of the resistance they found, I wouldn't doubt it. Of course, it might have been that the Turks just couldn't hack the mountain roads. One of the folk songs, it was explained to me, was about this Cretan saying that he was going to "get his gun and go make some widows", meaning, amongst the Turks. Nick taught me to request a song called Vouskapoula, or Filimma, which never fails to impress and soon we were singing and drinking along and it seems, that if you drink enough Chicouria (lighter fluid), you actually become fluent in the Greek language. That's a little known fact.
So there we sat, singing and drinking Chicouria (paint remover) until the wee hours of the morning when we all kissed and hugged and made our way home.
Footnote: Nick just read the above and has taken issue with my interpretation. Seems these "Pirates" are actually more civilized than I thought.
Elias, the guitar player, is actually an Engineer and owns a hotel. Gregoris owns a bookstore, Nikos owns olive groves...and like that. Socrates asked Nick where he was from and when Nick replied Sfakia, in Crete, Socrates, whom I thought the biggest pirate, kind of backed off. Apparently, the only one more dangerous than a Maniot is a Cretan.
Nick also takes issue with my description of Chicouria (benzine). He maintains that it is a rare and civilized beverage. And I'm Joan of Arc.
Now here's some pictures. You might have already seen the goats but this is a reshoot which the good people of Petrovuni (Stone Mountain) helped me stage.
Dave
PS. Perhaps I would be more inclined to send these reports if I got more feedback people! Keep those email replies coming.
It is a good thing these people you call Pirates are not from Sfakia. You would be laying somewhere with a knife in your belly
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