Emails from the Edge (26 page)
Read Emails from the Edge Online
Authors: Ken Haley
Rather than engage in an unholy row, I refrain from entering the cave but take a photograph from the courtyard in front of it and head off down the hill. âHill' is something of a euphemism in this case. The 2-kilometre descent is so steep, and the asphalt so burning hot in mid-afternoon, that if I go too fast my palms get scorched but the momentum carries me unstoppably on. Poor preparation, be cursed: gloves and forethought would have spared me this hell.
DAY 358 (16 JUNE): MARMARIS TO RHODES
Friendly Turkey is at its shining summer best as the sleek and crowded hovercraft churns up the waters at Marmaris dock before high-tailing it across the seas to Rhodes. Yet again I am leaving Asia for Europe's shore, saying farewell to a friendly country which soccer success has united in feeling good about itself. The next fortnight will remind me how lucky Turkey is in that regard when division and ill feeling reign not so far over the horizon.
The golden rule of travelling overland or by sea, rather than by air, must be broken once moreâthough, in my defence, it is for the first time in months and the last time in the journey. The Palestinian uprising, now raging for nearly two years, has led to suspension of the passenger ferry service that used to link Athens to the Israeli port of Haifa via Cyprus. I may be knocking on Europe's door, but still cannot break out of the Middle East's orbit.
CYPRUS: 18 JUNEâ2 JULY
When I sub-edited on a Greek newspaper in the mid-1980s, Cyprus was never mentioned apart from the description âdivided island'. When all is said and done, that remains the essential and inescapable truth about the place today. It is hard to see the day when a country that suffered wholesale âethnic cleansing' in the 1970s, long before that term came into use, will be reunified: one is tempted to take odds on Korea getting there first. Without a doubt, Cyprus is one of the world's saddest lands, a blasted heath of downtrodden aspirations. Through all history, this has been a place where different people were forced to live together but no one felt securely at home.
DAY 361 (19 JUNE): LARNACA
Round the corner from the hotel where I've found a room stands the Church of Agios Lazaros. Here, the Greek Orthodox faithful believe the mortal remains of Lazarus lie, the man Jesus raised from the dead (the first time).
When it becomes apparent that the object of veneration is in a crypt, down a particularly awkward set of stairs, I decide to remain on the ground floor, observing the gruesome sight of what is said to have been Lazarus's heart. It now lies like a pensive pink jelly in a glass booth.
It's impossible to forget this island's division for long. A giant Turkish flag is etched into the hillsides of north Nicosia for Greeks in the south of the city to behold and tremble at. Barriers, flags and fortifications are everywhere on both sides, emblems of a morbid fascination with death. But not everyone's opinion runs true to ethnic stereotype.
Andreas M., a Greek Cypriot hotel manager in seafront Limassol, confides, âMany of the people our side says were killed by the Turks were actually killed by right-wing (pro-Greek) death squads. We Greeks made 99 per cent of the mistakes. Our children are taught in the schools that the Turks as Muslims want all the power in the world, therefore you must expect them to behave atrociously.'
Sheikh Mustafa is imam of Limassol's Grand Mosque. His discourse, rendered eerie by the fact that his Arabic is translated for my benefit by a Palestinian gravedigger, says, âOne country is better than two; I believe it still. They are negotiating so there is hope. When they understand Islam better, a solution can happen in this generation.'
Twenty-something Mustafa Erguven, a merchant marine captain, is canvassing for a municipal election in Kyrenia (which the Turks call Girne). âWe want Turkey to leave the island, for us Turkish Cypriots to govern ourselves.'
Melios, a Greek Cypriot Australian who has returned to his native island but cannot set foot in his hometown of Famagusta, now in the Turkish-run north, tells me, âI cannot help hating the Turks. They killed my father, not with their bare hands but ⦠he could never get over the shock. Too much blood has flowed: memory is too strong. Whenever there can be a solution, there will have to be two states in Cyprus.' Drained of words, Melios bids me goodbye and enters ⦠a Turkish bathhouse.
Mustafa D., aged 60, gives me a lift from Nicosia's Green Line north to Girne. A successful glassware exporter, he owns factories in the town, a mansion in Famagusta and a summerhouse on the north coastâand he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. In him, hope tempered by realism outweighs fear. âOne day there will be a union of our communities, I think as one state. But not while the current generation of politicians is in charge.'
Two young soldiers man a checkpoint on the Green Line. Christos, a 20-year-old raised in south London, says, âThe Turks? They're animals. If one of them comes over here, I'll fucking shoot him in the head. Every day they throw stones at us.'
His comrade, Pte Michael, blurts out, âIt's our side which is most to blame. People on our side were killing innocent Turks' (Christos nearly blows a fuse at such loose talk) âwhich gave Turkey the excuse to come in and protect their own.'
Susan, wife of a Greek Cypriot diplomat in Ottawa, is visiting her aged father who lives above the
taverna
20 metres from the UN buffer zone. âMuslims are fanatics the world over,' she declaims. âI see no solution. Ever. It will be better as two states, not one.'
In north Nicosia is a remarkable fingerboard. It reads âTo Martyrdom' and one wonders, âWhy would I want to go there?' Go down the street indicated and you come to a neatly tended Turkish Cypriot cemetery. Outside the entrance is this noticeboard: âThe Greeks have destroyed children, young ones, olds, and so many who had no protection'.
In south Nicosia, this sign overhangs a Greek-side checkpoint: âTHERE IS NO GAIN WITHOUT SACRIFICES AND FREEDOM WITHOUT BLOOD'.
Taken all in all, it's enough to make a humanitourist weep. And what do I think of it all? What a false creature is the nation. How can it own an individual soul when it is such a multifarious, five-winged, four-headed, triple-hearted, double-faced thing?
DAY 365 (23 JUNE): NICOSIA
Here's an irony for you. The visitor to Cyprus can move freely from south to north, but with very few exceptions Cypriots themselves are confined to the north or south of their âcommon home'. Today is my second crossing this week of the demarcation line that bisects the world's last divided capital, and when I return south of it Greeks are amazed that I haven't been interrogated about why I was so keen to consort with the enemy.
Most of the day is spent on the north coast, in the picturesque once-Greek, now-Turkish port of Girne, where all the goods in the shops have either come from the Turkish mainland or been smuggled here in defiance of UN sanctions. Girne must have the world's only Irish pub that doesn't stock any Guinness: the brewery wasn't willing to run the gauntlet.
Back in north Nicosia at 4 pm, I am confronted with a dilemma. Whether they want to be self-governing or a Turkish colony, the whole half city is agog with anticipation as Turkeyâone of the sensations of this World Cup tournamentâcontinue to mow down all opposition in their path (Brazil the only exception). If Turkey win today, the red-and-white boys have made it to the semi-final.
But travellers who go to the north must be back in Greek Nicosia by 5 pm or else they will not be allowed across the line. Do I miss the football and join in the excitement? At 4.40 pm, with a goal in the dying minutes of the match, Turkey win through again, and the celebrations explode. I make it back with minutes to spare.
DAY 367 (25 JUNE): NICOSIA
Only in a country with such a penchant for the tragic would you find a Museum of Barbarism. An ordinary-looking suburban house, its interior is a series of grisly photographs showing what happened to the family of its former occupantâa Turkish Cypriot generalâwhen Greek troops ran amok there on Christmas Eve 1963. One of the milder exhibits is a photo of the general's wife, hacked to death in the bath.
South of the line, a visit to the National Struggle Museum restores the balance of terror. I reach it by pushing down laneways flanked by abandoned houses, now bomb sites, which have been kept as they were, one suspects, purely as visual propaganda. The museum records the battle of pro-Greek forces to escape British rule and become part of Greece. Three hangman's nooses (the very ropes with which the British hanged three âmartyrs') honour the heroic dead.
DAY 368 (26 JUNE): NICOSIA
Turkey's dream run in the soccer World Cup has come to an end. Having witnessed the jubilation in north Nicosia after a win, I'm glad to be in the south tonight.
DAYS 369â373 (27 JUNEâ1 JULY): KYKKOS MONASTERY
The Nissan van climbs and curls, clambers and coils around the mountainside, on a corkscrew road with champagne views. We're a happy party of day trippers and pilgrims heading for the mountain peak.
There sits one of the sites most sacred to those of the Orthodox faith, not so much for its pure, calming air and sylvan setting as for its great treasure. The Virgin Mary icon hereâkept in a silver-embossed phylactery with a window through which it can be observedâwas brought from Constantinople in the 11th century. Miracles, of course, are claimed in its (her) name, mostly miracles of healing, but apart from that the icon is one of the three most venerated paintings Greek Orthodox followers ascribe to St Luke. The evangelist is believed to have received the panel direct from the Archangel Gabriel.
The community of monks here is as old as the icon, a thousand years. But as I am welcomed and shown into one of the empty cellsâa guest room which will be my home for four nightsâPadre Orthonikos tells me the brethren today number just eleven.
From previous overseas visits in Egypt, Nepal and South Korea, I know that those who are not of the faith (be it Coptic or Buddhist) are welcome to attend the services, observe the routine, of monks. This I promise myself to do by rising early on Sunday, having slept through the five o'clock bell for the first three mornings.
Friday-evening prayers are over. The pilgrims and sightseers have gone, the monastery is closing down. A flight of birds has left raucously for its night refuge. The summer air is almost vibrating, peace is at hand. Yet my thoughts, like fresh waters ever flowing in, are running to secular matters, and a small question of logistics.
Tomorrow Turkey play South Korea for third place in the World Cup, and the day after that is the final itself, in far-off Yokohama.
The monk in charge of guest hospitality has just asked me to stay an extra couple of days if I am enjoying the atmosphere here. I am, and would like to stay longer. My itinerary is not so fixed, but â¦
âPadre Orthonikos,' I begin, my voice faltering in hesitation about how to put this, âon Sunday, in the outside world, there is a certain football match.'
The unworldly-looking figure in the black cassock purses his lips, apparently straining to comprehend.
âThis is a big event,' I continue. âBrazil are playing Germany.'
He pauses. At length, a smile lights up his face. âNo problem,' Orthonikos assures me. âWe will give you a television!'
The good father keeps his word. Early Sunday afternoon, he leads me to the far end of the courtyard, fingering a set of long keys. Finding the one he wants, he turns the lock of a door previously unopened during my time here, and we enter the VIP guest room. Behind lace curtains, I ensconce myself in a large armchair as Padre Orthonikos turns on the large-screen TV and finds the right channel.
Then, before he leaves me to the kick-off at Kykkos, he switches on the airconditioning and wags an admonishing finger in my direction. âToday is Sunday. Many people come to see the Virgin Mary. I am going to close the door. Please do not open it to anyone.'
I see his point. The cult of the Virgin Mary must not be despoiled by St Ronaldo worshippers. If football fever there must be, it will be quarantined. I promise piously.
The crowd is huge, the audience global. This is not how I had envisaged watching the match (the original scenario had been at a pub on Cyprus' south coast tourist strip), but at least I am not altogether disconnected, being in one community of eleven and another of a billion and a half simultaneously.
Outside again, the late-afternoon sun licks me like a furnace flame. Pilgrims in long leggings walk along the colonnade on their way to see the Virgin Mary.
A husband detaches himself from his wifeâhe must have seen an earthbound rapture written all over my faceâand asks, in a thick German accent, âDo you know who won?'
Sunday morning, at ten past five, the morning has taken a peep at the night, and will be back a little later. The deep and sonorous chants of monks, intoned in liturgical Greek, soothe and lull me as I sit at the back of the chapel ⦠I relapse into sleep in my mobile pew at least half a dozen times in the ensuing 90 minutes. These sounds have filled this space, wafted over these mountains, every morning for a thousand years. At my core I am at peace; and I am at the core of a timeless collected serenity.
When the congregation disperses, a new day has dawned. We emerge into the paler light of day possessing a sense of rightness with the world that does not leave me.
DAY 358 (16 JUNE): MARMARIS TO RHODES
Friendly Turkey is at its shining summer best as the sleek and crowded hovercraft churns up the waters at Marmaris dock before high-tailing it across the seas to Rhodes. Yet again I am leaving Asia for Europe's shore, saying farewell to a friendly country which soccer success has united in feeling good about itself. The next fortnight will remind me how lucky Turkey is in that regard when division and ill feeling reign not so far over the horizon.
The golden rule of travelling overland or by sea, rather than by air, must be broken once moreâthough, in my defence, it is for the first time in months and the last time in the journey. The Palestinian uprising, now raging for nearly two years, has led to suspension of the passenger ferry service that used to link Athens to the Israeli port of Haifa via Cyprus. I may be knocking on Europe's door, but still cannot break out of the Middle East's orbit.
CYPRUS: 18 JUNEâ2 JULY
When I sub-edited on a Greek newspaper in the mid-1980s, Cyprus was never mentioned apart from the description âdivided island'. When all is said and done, that remains the essential and inescapable truth about the place today. It is hard to see the day when a country that suffered wholesale âethnic cleansing' in the 1970s, long before that term came into use, will be reunified: one is tempted to take odds on Korea getting there first. Without a doubt, Cyprus is one of the world's saddest lands, a blasted heath of downtrodden aspirations. Through all history, this has been a place where different people were forced to live together but no one felt securely at home.
DAY 361 (19 JUNE): LARNACA
Round the corner from the hotel where I've found a room stands the Church of Agios Lazaros. Here, the Greek Orthodox faithful believe the mortal remains of Lazarus lie, the man Jesus raised from the dead (the first time).
When it becomes apparent that the object of veneration is in a crypt, down a particularly awkward set of stairs, I decide to remain on the ground floor, observing the gruesome sight of what is said to have been Lazarus's heart. It now lies like a pensive pink jelly in a glass booth.
It's impossible to forget this island's division for long. A giant Turkish flag is etched into the hillsides of north Nicosia for Greeks in the south of the city to behold and tremble at. Barriers, flags and fortifications are everywhere on both sides, emblems of a morbid fascination with death. But not everyone's opinion runs true to ethnic stereotype.
Andreas M., a Greek Cypriot hotel manager in seafront Limassol, confides, âMany of the people our side says were killed by the Turks were actually killed by right-wing (pro-Greek) death squads. We Greeks made 99 per cent of the mistakes. Our children are taught in the schools that the Turks as Muslims want all the power in the world, therefore you must expect them to behave atrociously.'
Sheikh Mustafa is imam of Limassol's Grand Mosque. His discourse, rendered eerie by the fact that his Arabic is translated for my benefit by a Palestinian gravedigger, says, âOne country is better than two; I believe it still. They are negotiating so there is hope. When they understand Islam better, a solution can happen in this generation.'
Twenty-something Mustafa Erguven, a merchant marine captain, is canvassing for a municipal election in Kyrenia (which the Turks call Girne). âWe want Turkey to leave the island, for us Turkish Cypriots to govern ourselves.'
Melios, a Greek Cypriot Australian who has returned to his native island but cannot set foot in his hometown of Famagusta, now in the Turkish-run north, tells me, âI cannot help hating the Turks. They killed my father, not with their bare hands but ⦠he could never get over the shock. Too much blood has flowed: memory is too strong. Whenever there can be a solution, there will have to be two states in Cyprus.' Drained of words, Melios bids me goodbye and enters ⦠a Turkish bathhouse.
Mustafa D., aged 60, gives me a lift from Nicosia's Green Line north to Girne. A successful glassware exporter, he owns factories in the town, a mansion in Famagusta and a summerhouse on the north coastâand he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. In him, hope tempered by realism outweighs fear. âOne day there will be a union of our communities, I think as one state. But not while the current generation of politicians is in charge.'
Two young soldiers man a checkpoint on the Green Line. Christos, a 20-year-old raised in south London, says, âThe Turks? They're animals. If one of them comes over here, I'll fucking shoot him in the head. Every day they throw stones at us.'
His comrade, Pte Michael, blurts out, âIt's our side which is most to blame. People on our side were killing innocent Turks' (Christos nearly blows a fuse at such loose talk) âwhich gave Turkey the excuse to come in and protect their own.'
Susan, wife of a Greek Cypriot diplomat in Ottawa, is visiting her aged father who lives above the
taverna
20 metres from the UN buffer zone. âMuslims are fanatics the world over,' she declaims. âI see no solution. Ever. It will be better as two states, not one.'
In north Nicosia is a remarkable fingerboard. It reads âTo Martyrdom' and one wonders, âWhy would I want to go there?' Go down the street indicated and you come to a neatly tended Turkish Cypriot cemetery. Outside the entrance is this noticeboard: âThe Greeks have destroyed children, young ones, olds, and so many who had no protection'.
In south Nicosia, this sign overhangs a Greek-side checkpoint: âTHERE IS NO GAIN WITHOUT SACRIFICES AND FREEDOM WITHOUT BLOOD'.
Taken all in all, it's enough to make a humanitourist weep. And what do I think of it all? What a false creature is the nation. How can it own an individual soul when it is such a multifarious, five-winged, four-headed, triple-hearted, double-faced thing?
DAY 365 (23 JUNE): NICOSIA
Here's an irony for you. The visitor to Cyprus can move freely from south to north, but with very few exceptions Cypriots themselves are confined to the north or south of their âcommon home'. Today is my second crossing this week of the demarcation line that bisects the world's last divided capital, and when I return south of it Greeks are amazed that I haven't been interrogated about why I was so keen to consort with the enemy.
Most of the day is spent on the north coast, in the picturesque once-Greek, now-Turkish port of Girne, where all the goods in the shops have either come from the Turkish mainland or been smuggled here in defiance of UN sanctions. Girne must have the world's only Irish pub that doesn't stock any Guinness: the brewery wasn't willing to run the gauntlet.
Back in north Nicosia at 4 pm, I am confronted with a dilemma. Whether they want to be self-governing or a Turkish colony, the whole half city is agog with anticipation as Turkeyâone of the sensations of this World Cup tournamentâcontinue to mow down all opposition in their path (Brazil the only exception). If Turkey win today, the red-and-white boys have made it to the semi-final.
But travellers who go to the north must be back in Greek Nicosia by 5 pm or else they will not be allowed across the line. Do I miss the football and join in the excitement? At 4.40 pm, with a goal in the dying minutes of the match, Turkey win through again, and the celebrations explode. I make it back with minutes to spare.
DAY 367 (25 JUNE): NICOSIA
Only in a country with such a penchant for the tragic would you find a Museum of Barbarism. An ordinary-looking suburban house, its interior is a series of grisly photographs showing what happened to the family of its former occupantâa Turkish Cypriot generalâwhen Greek troops ran amok there on Christmas Eve 1963. One of the milder exhibits is a photo of the general's wife, hacked to death in the bath.
South of the line, a visit to the National Struggle Museum restores the balance of terror. I reach it by pushing down laneways flanked by abandoned houses, now bomb sites, which have been kept as they were, one suspects, purely as visual propaganda. The museum records the battle of pro-Greek forces to escape British rule and become part of Greece. Three hangman's nooses (the very ropes with which the British hanged three âmartyrs') honour the heroic dead.
DAY 368 (26 JUNE): NICOSIA
Turkey's dream run in the soccer World Cup has come to an end. Having witnessed the jubilation in north Nicosia after a win, I'm glad to be in the south tonight.
DAYS 369â373 (27 JUNEâ1 JULY): KYKKOS MONASTERY
The Nissan van climbs and curls, clambers and coils around the mountainside, on a corkscrew road with champagne views. We're a happy party of day trippers and pilgrims heading for the mountain peak.
There sits one of the sites most sacred to those of the Orthodox faith, not so much for its pure, calming air and sylvan setting as for its great treasure. The Virgin Mary icon hereâkept in a silver-embossed phylactery with a window through which it can be observedâwas brought from Constantinople in the 11th century. Miracles, of course, are claimed in its (her) name, mostly miracles of healing, but apart from that the icon is one of the three most venerated paintings Greek Orthodox followers ascribe to St Luke. The evangelist is believed to have received the panel direct from the Archangel Gabriel.
The community of monks here is as old as the icon, a thousand years. But as I am welcomed and shown into one of the empty cellsâa guest room which will be my home for four nightsâPadre Orthonikos tells me the brethren today number just eleven.
From previous overseas visits in Egypt, Nepal and South Korea, I know that those who are not of the faith (be it Coptic or Buddhist) are welcome to attend the services, observe the routine, of monks. This I promise myself to do by rising early on Sunday, having slept through the five o'clock bell for the first three mornings.
Friday-evening prayers are over. The pilgrims and sightseers have gone, the monastery is closing down. A flight of birds has left raucously for its night refuge. The summer air is almost vibrating, peace is at hand. Yet my thoughts, like fresh waters ever flowing in, are running to secular matters, and a small question of logistics.
Tomorrow Turkey play South Korea for third place in the World Cup, and the day after that is the final itself, in far-off Yokohama.
The monk in charge of guest hospitality has just asked me to stay an extra couple of days if I am enjoying the atmosphere here. I am, and would like to stay longer. My itinerary is not so fixed, but â¦
âPadre Orthonikos,' I begin, my voice faltering in hesitation about how to put this, âon Sunday, in the outside world, there is a certain football match.'
The unworldly-looking figure in the black cassock purses his lips, apparently straining to comprehend.
âThis is a big event,' I continue. âBrazil are playing Germany.'
He pauses. At length, a smile lights up his face. âNo problem,' Orthonikos assures me. âWe will give you a television!'
The good father keeps his word. Early Sunday afternoon, he leads me to the far end of the courtyard, fingering a set of long keys. Finding the one he wants, he turns the lock of a door previously unopened during my time here, and we enter the VIP guest room. Behind lace curtains, I ensconce myself in a large armchair as Padre Orthonikos turns on the large-screen TV and finds the right channel.
Then, before he leaves me to the kick-off at Kykkos, he switches on the airconditioning and wags an admonishing finger in my direction. âToday is Sunday. Many people come to see the Virgin Mary. I am going to close the door. Please do not open it to anyone.'
I see his point. The cult of the Virgin Mary must not be despoiled by St Ronaldo worshippers. If football fever there must be, it will be quarantined. I promise piously.
The crowd is huge, the audience global. This is not how I had envisaged watching the match (the original scenario had been at a pub on Cyprus' south coast tourist strip), but at least I am not altogether disconnected, being in one community of eleven and another of a billion and a half simultaneously.
Outside again, the late-afternoon sun licks me like a furnace flame. Pilgrims in long leggings walk along the colonnade on their way to see the Virgin Mary.
A husband detaches himself from his wifeâhe must have seen an earthbound rapture written all over my faceâand asks, in a thick German accent, âDo you know who won?'
Sunday morning, at ten past five, the morning has taken a peep at the night, and will be back a little later. The deep and sonorous chants of monks, intoned in liturgical Greek, soothe and lull me as I sit at the back of the chapel ⦠I relapse into sleep in my mobile pew at least half a dozen times in the ensuing 90 minutes. These sounds have filled this space, wafted over these mountains, every morning for a thousand years. At my core I am at peace; and I am at the core of a timeless collected serenity.
When the congregation disperses, a new day has dawned. We emerge into the paler light of day possessing a sense of rightness with the world that does not leave me.
Chapter 18
THE GLORY THAT IS GREECE
H
ISTORY OF THE
F
ELOPONNESIAN
W
AR
JULYâAUGUST 2002
GREECE: 2 JULYâ12 AUGUST
This was my first lengthy visit to Greece since the mid-1980s, when I worked on an English-language paper in Athens for a year, and my first real opportunity to see the country. Even in those days I was struck by how popular politics (
politiki
in Greek) is. Of a Saturday night in a downtown Athens taverna, even football (a sport Greeks are also mad about) has to compete for attention with screenings of parliamentary debates.
But, more than its great contributions to Western civilisation, what charms the visitor today is the Greeks' love of ease and social occasions. The syncopated rhythms of the
bouzouki;
the sinuous
syrtaki
dance; the convivial laughter and inclusive conversation: all are washed down with
retsina
, the gods' own nectar. Greece is essentially a thing of the spirit, the spirit has a name and it is zest. That hasn't changed in the past 3000 years, and I doubt it will in the next.
DAY 375 (3 JULY): RHODES
Seen at its best from the sea, the Old Town of Rhodes possesses a stunning symmetry of fortified walls, broken by crenellations and gaps where motor traffic mocks their medieval impregnability. Once inside, the impression of being in another age is also mocked, this time by the tourist hordesâand on Rhodes in high summer that cliché comes to lifeâyet so rich is the town's history that even they cannot entirely spoil the experience.
From the 14th to the 16th centuries, this largest island in the Dodecanese group was a sort of Christian flagship in Muslim waters, run by the Knights of St John. Ippoton, known in English as the Avenue of the Knights, is formidably steep, frighteningly narrow and bone-crushingly cobbled, each stone so resistant that it can take ten minutes to achieve 400 metres of progress. But those 400 metres are worth taking slowly, and not only because you have to.
First, if you don't, you risk up-ending the wheelchair in what would make my little Syrian mishap pale into significance. Second, as you look up, on your left and right are the predominantly Gothic residences of knights from the various countries of Christian Europe, each imposing façade with its own medieval device.
DAY 377â381 (5â9 JULY): KARPATHOS
These are lazy, throwaway days, the first on which I can relax and go at the local pace.
On my leisurely route towards Athens, I was looking for an island that was not so remote it might lack that modern convenience without which I am in real difficultiesâthe flush toiletâyet not so popular that tourists at this season would swarm there like bees.
Karpathos fits the bill beautifully. As the ferry approaches this long, straggling island, pinpricks of light from villages that lie deep in mountain valleys give me a warm feeling about this retreat even before we reach port.
The port's name, Pigadia, strikes me as rather ugly. But the town itself is not, although there is no opportunity for sightseeing until the morrow. By the time I find a place to stay, the church bell across the square has tolled midnight. Then I discover the lift isn't working in the only easily accessible inn around, so the manager, after some hesitation, allows me to kip until dawn on the sofa in the TV lounge.
Next morning, after breakfasting at one of the many seaside tavernas while gazing out at fishing boats rocking in the harbour, I collect my bags and hire a taxi to deliver me 10 kilometres around the coast at an even more remote and laid-back destination, Ammoopi.
Oddly, it is easier to find a hotel at this tiny resort than it was in Pigadia. For all its remoteness, the Argo has satellite TV in the barâI spend quite a bit of time watching Wimbledonâand an unbeatable balcony view that makes the prospect of a few days' relaxation particularly inviting. Disbelieve anyone who has been to Ammoopi and says there is nothing to do there: you can sleep, read and eat, or, to vary the routine, eat, read and sleep. But then I haven't seen fit to mention these activities before on this journey, so it might give a more realistic picture of my Karpathos experience if I were simply to summarise the events of a typical day in this backwater. Here goes:
DAY 380 (8 JULY): AMMOOPI
Nothing doing.
DAYS 382â383 (10â11 JULY): KARPATHOS TO
CRETE TO SANTORINI
The Caspian crossing may have been a nautical mile or two further but, at nearly 24 hours, this has claims to being the longest sea voyage of my entire trip, and I am impressed by the crew's willingness to go out of their way to make it enjoyable. Hours are spent sunning myself on the viewing deck.
Santorini and I are no strangers. I saw in the New Year of 1986 here, before flying back to Athens in a light plane whose pilot was already tipsy on retsina. Ease is what this place is all about, which makes me feel all the more conspicuous when, among the smart set, I am let down by my usually reliable wheels. For some time now, the tyre on my right wheel has been developing an almost rakish buckleâif the chair could walk, I'd call it Chaplinesqueâand it chooses today to come off the wheel rim altogether. Luckily, a young couple from Australia whom I've just met restore the rubber to the wheel, but the chair has signalled clearly enough that I've been pushing it too hard.
Here's a paradox for you. The main town, Fira, is high up on the lip of a giddy drop into a submarine volcanoâone of the least hospitable places imaginable for a wheelchair user. Yet it is here that the owner of a pension, by the grandiose name of the Hotel Palladion, insists I stay free of charge, the only occasion in my travelling life where this has happened.
DAY 386 (14 JULY): MYKONOS
We are transported to fabled Mykonos by a touch of luxury in the form of a fast-tracking catamaran, the inter-island transportation favoured by the jet-ski set. âDiscovered' in the 1960s by Jackie Kennedy-becoming-Onassis, this is one of the Mediterranean's gaudiest jewels. It is still a party-goer's dream, but the prices more than live up to the billing. You pay A$8 for a small plastic cup of beer or, like me, you don't.
DAY 388 (16 JULY): ATHENS
Even for someone who knows Athens like the back of his hand, and who lived and worked there for a year, this is a city whose attractions never pall.
As the ferry ramp lowers to reveal a pomegranate moon rising behind the port skyline, a âtourist police' officer whistles up a taxi and
commands
the driver to take me wherever I want, by the shortest possible route.
We drive up over the rise and down to Zea Marina, a cove lined with thousands of yachts, and around the coastal road towards Paleo Faliron, site of the 2004 Olympics water venues. Unable to remember the name of the hotel where I put up last time, I eventually spot a miniature medieval Greek Orthodox Church I recall having viewed from the hotel balcony. The hotel's name, in lights, reminds me why I couldn't think of it. Cavo d'Oro is Spanish or Portuguese, anything but Greek.
DAY 389 (17 JULY): ATHENS
Nobody wants the old Athens to change, except perhaps a few million of the people who live here, and a perambulation around the Acropolisâno easy thing, now that excavations have begun for a branch line of the underground railwayâassures me that in many ways it really hasn't done. The Parthenon, that glorious ruinâor, as I once heard a Liverpool soccer fan describe it to his mates, âa pile of old rocks'âstill occupies the same majestic lookout it has done for the past 2500 years.
One new feature is the underground rail network I just mentioned. In 1985, when I didn't need it, one of the few things Athenians envied their northern European cousins was a Metro. Now that I'm in a wheelchair, the Attiko Metro network is hugely welcome.
DAY 391 (19 JULY): ATHENS
Once in Santorini, and once in Athens, the buckled tyre has come off the wheel, slewing me to an embarrassed and unscheduled stop. In this car-, van- and truck-congested metropolis, the bicycle is a rare bird. But, following a series of comical charades that elicit some bizarre reactions, I eventually find myself in a street containing a bicycle shop.
Extraordinary luck has come my way. Not only is this cycle-shop owner able to see at once that a wheelchair wheel is essentially the same as a bicycle wheel, he actually has a small but thriving sideline in wheelchair repairs. It had been my hope to get a solid, tubeless tyre to match its partner but, this not proving possible, I'm grateful that he at least has one in stock that is the right size for the rim in question.
DAY 392 (20 JULY): ATHENS
The tiny Athens flat I lived in back in the 1980s was about 200 metres from a first-century AD Roman theatre, the Herod Atticus Odeon. In this scene of rapid urban redevelopment, I'm relieved to see it still is. In some trepidation that my old landlady, Helen, might get an unavoidable shock seeing me in a wheelchair, I knock at the old address.
A relative answers the buzzer and, on being persuaded I know Helen, breaks the news that she died in 2000. Her sister, whom I also know, is on holiday in the Peloponnesus. Give her my regards, I say, but don't mention the wheelchair. It's not that I retain any uneasiness about it, just that it seems wrong to pass on news of her long-ago lodger as a paraplegic, wrapped up in a garbled and necessarily alarming secondhand report on the causes of my new status.
This hot summer evening, in the steep bowl of the Odeon, 5000 music lovers have gathered to honour Mikis Theodorakis, at 75 the Grand Old Man of Greek music.
On occasions such as this, being in a wheelchair is a decided advantage: I am given the equivalent of a box seat, just to the right of the stage, and the avuncular, slightly stooped maestro himself is easily persuaded to sign my programme.
DAY 393 (21 JULY): ATHENS
It is disappointing on a visit to the National Archaeological Museum to discover that although the museum boasts a brand new hydraulic liftâespecially designed to enable wheelchair users to avoid the forbidding entrance staircaseâfinding someone who actually knows how it works provokes a near-panic among the curators. Presumably, by the time the Olympics have come and gone, they will have got their act together.
DAY 398 (26 JULY): EPIDAURUS
This World Heritage-listed site, 30 kilometres east of Nafplion, has two claims to fame. The first is that it is where the Temple of Asclepius, an early Greek healer, existed (and the purity of the air at this elevation is explanation enough why the ancient health fiend located his practice here).
Moving from the temple grounds up a spiralling road that leaves me a bit short of puff, I reach Epidaurus' second attraction, the auditorium. Another Hellenic Festival performance, this time of Aristophanes'
The Birds
, often regarded as the first comedy ever performed, is under way and I ponder the probability that audiences around 500 BC would have watched this same play from these same marble seats.
DAY 400 (28 JULY): OLYMPIA
This rural setting is where the Olympics were held for much of their first thousand years.
Bingo! Let's have them here permanently
, I think after hitching my chariot to a small group of fellow travellers staying at my hotel. Of course you would have to limit each country to providing no more than half a dozen competitors, just to keep the village village-sized. There would be no television rights because you wouldn't televise it (that only encourages sponsors and the ugly trappings of greed and other selfish ambitions). The winners would be garlanded with laurel wreaths rather than medals of any colour. And, of course, the merest hint of beach volleyball or synchronised swimming would be punishable by hemlock. The aim would be nothing less than a revival of the amateur spirit.
The saddest ruin of all, given that not a column of it remains standing today, has to be the Temple of Zeus. Here stood another of the Seven Wonders, a statue of the great god himself fashioned by the most eminent sculptor of the ancient world, Phidias.
DAY 402 (30 JULY): KALAVRYTA, PELOPONNESUS
This townâbarely more than a village, reallyâis close by the monastery of Agias Lavras. The old monastery was burnt down by the Nazis, but the monks today welcome visitors to a sturdy-looking replica.
Back in Kalavryta, Dimitri and Nikos, the GreekâAustralian brothers who run the best hotel in town, make me feel at home. In their thirties now, the Brisbanites decided a decade ago that, while their family were in Australia, their hearts were in the mountains of southern Greece, so they acted on that sentiment and have never looked back. Downstairs they run the town's premier eateryâsentimentally named Taverna o Australosâand, while I wouldn't have said no to a meat pie and sauce at this point, I must admit even that wouldn't have held a candle to the brothers'
pi
è
ce de non-r
é
sistance
, goat in lemon sauce.
DAY 404 (1 AUGUST): DELPHI
I have come to consult the Oracle.
But the slopes of Mount Parnassus, home to the gods of yore, are really unsuited to wheelchairs, which is a shame considering the detours I took to get here. Fortunately, the ticket-sellerâsparing me the necessity of payingâco-opts a family of Athenian day trippers to consult the Oracle for me.
Half an hour later, having paid their respects at the Sanctuary of Apollo, they return with broad smiles. In faultless English, the husband says, âWe told the Oracle you were an Australian. And she said you will travel far.' Ye gods!
DAY 405 (2 AUGUST): PATRAS
On awakening this morning to the sounds of a busy port, my minds beats back on a sea of remembrance to another 2 August, in Muscat, another coastal city far to the east of here. The brute fact headlining the radio news that morning invaded my life as well as Kuwait. Yet this time also connects to an earlier one: the spring of 1985, when I lived and worked on a boat in the Greek port of Piraeus. The life of this city swept by waves reminds me that this may be 2 August but there was a before as well as an after â and, while some things are lost over time, others are as recurrent as the tides.
THE GLORY THAT IS GREECE
As for the gods, it seemed to be the same thing whether one worshipped them or not, when one saw the good and the bad dying indiscriminately
.
THUCYDIDES.
H
ISTORY OF THE
F
ELOPONNESIAN
W
AR
JULYâAUGUST 2002
GREECE: 2 JULYâ12 AUGUST
This was my first lengthy visit to Greece since the mid-1980s, when I worked on an English-language paper in Athens for a year, and my first real opportunity to see the country. Even in those days I was struck by how popular politics (
politiki
in Greek) is. Of a Saturday night in a downtown Athens taverna, even football (a sport Greeks are also mad about) has to compete for attention with screenings of parliamentary debates.
But, more than its great contributions to Western civilisation, what charms the visitor today is the Greeks' love of ease and social occasions. The syncopated rhythms of the
bouzouki;
the sinuous
syrtaki
dance; the convivial laughter and inclusive conversation: all are washed down with
retsina
, the gods' own nectar. Greece is essentially a thing of the spirit, the spirit has a name and it is zest. That hasn't changed in the past 3000 years, and I doubt it will in the next.
DAY 375 (3 JULY): RHODES
Seen at its best from the sea, the Old Town of Rhodes possesses a stunning symmetry of fortified walls, broken by crenellations and gaps where motor traffic mocks their medieval impregnability. Once inside, the impression of being in another age is also mocked, this time by the tourist hordesâand on Rhodes in high summer that cliché comes to lifeâyet so rich is the town's history that even they cannot entirely spoil the experience.
From the 14th to the 16th centuries, this largest island in the Dodecanese group was a sort of Christian flagship in Muslim waters, run by the Knights of St John. Ippoton, known in English as the Avenue of the Knights, is formidably steep, frighteningly narrow and bone-crushingly cobbled, each stone so resistant that it can take ten minutes to achieve 400 metres of progress. But those 400 metres are worth taking slowly, and not only because you have to.
First, if you don't, you risk up-ending the wheelchair in what would make my little Syrian mishap pale into significance. Second, as you look up, on your left and right are the predominantly Gothic residences of knights from the various countries of Christian Europe, each imposing façade with its own medieval device.
DAY 377â381 (5â9 JULY): KARPATHOS
These are lazy, throwaway days, the first on which I can relax and go at the local pace.
On my leisurely route towards Athens, I was looking for an island that was not so remote it might lack that modern convenience without which I am in real difficultiesâthe flush toiletâyet not so popular that tourists at this season would swarm there like bees.
Karpathos fits the bill beautifully. As the ferry approaches this long, straggling island, pinpricks of light from villages that lie deep in mountain valleys give me a warm feeling about this retreat even before we reach port.
The port's name, Pigadia, strikes me as rather ugly. But the town itself is not, although there is no opportunity for sightseeing until the morrow. By the time I find a place to stay, the church bell across the square has tolled midnight. Then I discover the lift isn't working in the only easily accessible inn around, so the manager, after some hesitation, allows me to kip until dawn on the sofa in the TV lounge.
Next morning, after breakfasting at one of the many seaside tavernas while gazing out at fishing boats rocking in the harbour, I collect my bags and hire a taxi to deliver me 10 kilometres around the coast at an even more remote and laid-back destination, Ammoopi.
Oddly, it is easier to find a hotel at this tiny resort than it was in Pigadia. For all its remoteness, the Argo has satellite TV in the barâI spend quite a bit of time watching Wimbledonâand an unbeatable balcony view that makes the prospect of a few days' relaxation particularly inviting. Disbelieve anyone who has been to Ammoopi and says there is nothing to do there: you can sleep, read and eat, or, to vary the routine, eat, read and sleep. But then I haven't seen fit to mention these activities before on this journey, so it might give a more realistic picture of my Karpathos experience if I were simply to summarise the events of a typical day in this backwater. Here goes:
DAY 380 (8 JULY): AMMOOPI
Nothing doing.
DAYS 382â383 (10â11 JULY): KARPATHOS TO
CRETE TO SANTORINI
The Caspian crossing may have been a nautical mile or two further but, at nearly 24 hours, this has claims to being the longest sea voyage of my entire trip, and I am impressed by the crew's willingness to go out of their way to make it enjoyable. Hours are spent sunning myself on the viewing deck.
Santorini and I are no strangers. I saw in the New Year of 1986 here, before flying back to Athens in a light plane whose pilot was already tipsy on retsina. Ease is what this place is all about, which makes me feel all the more conspicuous when, among the smart set, I am let down by my usually reliable wheels. For some time now, the tyre on my right wheel has been developing an almost rakish buckleâif the chair could walk, I'd call it Chaplinesqueâand it chooses today to come off the wheel rim altogether. Luckily, a young couple from Australia whom I've just met restore the rubber to the wheel, but the chair has signalled clearly enough that I've been pushing it too hard.
Here's a paradox for you. The main town, Fira, is high up on the lip of a giddy drop into a submarine volcanoâone of the least hospitable places imaginable for a wheelchair user. Yet it is here that the owner of a pension, by the grandiose name of the Hotel Palladion, insists I stay free of charge, the only occasion in my travelling life where this has happened.
DAY 386 (14 JULY): MYKONOS
We are transported to fabled Mykonos by a touch of luxury in the form of a fast-tracking catamaran, the inter-island transportation favoured by the jet-ski set. âDiscovered' in the 1960s by Jackie Kennedy-becoming-Onassis, this is one of the Mediterranean's gaudiest jewels. It is still a party-goer's dream, but the prices more than live up to the billing. You pay A$8 for a small plastic cup of beer or, like me, you don't.
DAY 388 (16 JULY): ATHENS
Even for someone who knows Athens like the back of his hand, and who lived and worked there for a year, this is a city whose attractions never pall.
As the ferry ramp lowers to reveal a pomegranate moon rising behind the port skyline, a âtourist police' officer whistles up a taxi and
commands
the driver to take me wherever I want, by the shortest possible route.
We drive up over the rise and down to Zea Marina, a cove lined with thousands of yachts, and around the coastal road towards Paleo Faliron, site of the 2004 Olympics water venues. Unable to remember the name of the hotel where I put up last time, I eventually spot a miniature medieval Greek Orthodox Church I recall having viewed from the hotel balcony. The hotel's name, in lights, reminds me why I couldn't think of it. Cavo d'Oro is Spanish or Portuguese, anything but Greek.
DAY 389 (17 JULY): ATHENS
Nobody wants the old Athens to change, except perhaps a few million of the people who live here, and a perambulation around the Acropolisâno easy thing, now that excavations have begun for a branch line of the underground railwayâassures me that in many ways it really hasn't done. The Parthenon, that glorious ruinâor, as I once heard a Liverpool soccer fan describe it to his mates, âa pile of old rocks'âstill occupies the same majestic lookout it has done for the past 2500 years.
One new feature is the underground rail network I just mentioned. In 1985, when I didn't need it, one of the few things Athenians envied their northern European cousins was a Metro. Now that I'm in a wheelchair, the Attiko Metro network is hugely welcome.
DAY 391 (19 JULY): ATHENS
Once in Santorini, and once in Athens, the buckled tyre has come off the wheel, slewing me to an embarrassed and unscheduled stop. In this car-, van- and truck-congested metropolis, the bicycle is a rare bird. But, following a series of comical charades that elicit some bizarre reactions, I eventually find myself in a street containing a bicycle shop.
Extraordinary luck has come my way. Not only is this cycle-shop owner able to see at once that a wheelchair wheel is essentially the same as a bicycle wheel, he actually has a small but thriving sideline in wheelchair repairs. It had been my hope to get a solid, tubeless tyre to match its partner but, this not proving possible, I'm grateful that he at least has one in stock that is the right size for the rim in question.
DAY 392 (20 JULY): ATHENS
The tiny Athens flat I lived in back in the 1980s was about 200 metres from a first-century AD Roman theatre, the Herod Atticus Odeon. In this scene of rapid urban redevelopment, I'm relieved to see it still is. In some trepidation that my old landlady, Helen, might get an unavoidable shock seeing me in a wheelchair, I knock at the old address.
A relative answers the buzzer and, on being persuaded I know Helen, breaks the news that she died in 2000. Her sister, whom I also know, is on holiday in the Peloponnesus. Give her my regards, I say, but don't mention the wheelchair. It's not that I retain any uneasiness about it, just that it seems wrong to pass on news of her long-ago lodger as a paraplegic, wrapped up in a garbled and necessarily alarming secondhand report on the causes of my new status.
This hot summer evening, in the steep bowl of the Odeon, 5000 music lovers have gathered to honour Mikis Theodorakis, at 75 the Grand Old Man of Greek music.
On occasions such as this, being in a wheelchair is a decided advantage: I am given the equivalent of a box seat, just to the right of the stage, and the avuncular, slightly stooped maestro himself is easily persuaded to sign my programme.
DAY 393 (21 JULY): ATHENS
It is disappointing on a visit to the National Archaeological Museum to discover that although the museum boasts a brand new hydraulic liftâespecially designed to enable wheelchair users to avoid the forbidding entrance staircaseâfinding someone who actually knows how it works provokes a near-panic among the curators. Presumably, by the time the Olympics have come and gone, they will have got their act together.
DAY 398 (26 JULY): EPIDAURUS
This World Heritage-listed site, 30 kilometres east of Nafplion, has two claims to fame. The first is that it is where the Temple of Asclepius, an early Greek healer, existed (and the purity of the air at this elevation is explanation enough why the ancient health fiend located his practice here).
Moving from the temple grounds up a spiralling road that leaves me a bit short of puff, I reach Epidaurus' second attraction, the auditorium. Another Hellenic Festival performance, this time of Aristophanes'
The Birds
, often regarded as the first comedy ever performed, is under way and I ponder the probability that audiences around 500 BC would have watched this same play from these same marble seats.
DAY 400 (28 JULY): OLYMPIA
This rural setting is where the Olympics were held for much of their first thousand years.
Bingo! Let's have them here permanently
, I think after hitching my chariot to a small group of fellow travellers staying at my hotel. Of course you would have to limit each country to providing no more than half a dozen competitors, just to keep the village village-sized. There would be no television rights because you wouldn't televise it (that only encourages sponsors and the ugly trappings of greed and other selfish ambitions). The winners would be garlanded with laurel wreaths rather than medals of any colour. And, of course, the merest hint of beach volleyball or synchronised swimming would be punishable by hemlock. The aim would be nothing less than a revival of the amateur spirit.
The saddest ruin of all, given that not a column of it remains standing today, has to be the Temple of Zeus. Here stood another of the Seven Wonders, a statue of the great god himself fashioned by the most eminent sculptor of the ancient world, Phidias.
DAY 402 (30 JULY): KALAVRYTA, PELOPONNESUS
This townâbarely more than a village, reallyâis close by the monastery of Agias Lavras. The old monastery was burnt down by the Nazis, but the monks today welcome visitors to a sturdy-looking replica.
Back in Kalavryta, Dimitri and Nikos, the GreekâAustralian brothers who run the best hotel in town, make me feel at home. In their thirties now, the Brisbanites decided a decade ago that, while their family were in Australia, their hearts were in the mountains of southern Greece, so they acted on that sentiment and have never looked back. Downstairs they run the town's premier eateryâsentimentally named Taverna o Australosâand, while I wouldn't have said no to a meat pie and sauce at this point, I must admit even that wouldn't have held a candle to the brothers'
pi
è
ce de non-r
é
sistance
, goat in lemon sauce.
DAY 404 (1 AUGUST): DELPHI
I have come to consult the Oracle.
But the slopes of Mount Parnassus, home to the gods of yore, are really unsuited to wheelchairs, which is a shame considering the detours I took to get here. Fortunately, the ticket-sellerâsparing me the necessity of payingâco-opts a family of Athenian day trippers to consult the Oracle for me.
Half an hour later, having paid their respects at the Sanctuary of Apollo, they return with broad smiles. In faultless English, the husband says, âWe told the Oracle you were an Australian. And she said you will travel far.' Ye gods!
DAY 405 (2 AUGUST): PATRAS
On awakening this morning to the sounds of a busy port, my minds beats back on a sea of remembrance to another 2 August, in Muscat, another coastal city far to the east of here. The brute fact headlining the radio news that morning invaded my life as well as Kuwait. Yet this time also connects to an earlier one: the spring of 1985, when I lived and worked on a boat in the Greek port of Piraeus. The life of this city swept by waves reminds me that this may be 2 August but there was a before as well as an after â and, while some things are lost over time, others are as recurrent as the tides.
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