On Saturday night, June 11, Yvonne and I bought a couple of Mythos and awaited the Small Cyclades Boat on the Aigiali pier hoping Patty and Katie would arrive. Patty had emailed saying it would either be Saturday or Monday, but happily there they where. Yuli had prepared the downstairs beds and we were ready for visitors! Conveniently, we spotted Yorgos' truck in town so we put all the bags and some groceries in the back for him to take home and went right to Limani for dinner.
Patty had covered a lot of ground since we had last seen her, we heard about travels with their intrepid family; some hilarious stores about not shopping for carpets, not paying for the napkins and meeting a goat herder who had learned many languages by simply sitting in the shade.
It was straight to the beach in the morning, (though Patty had taken a midnight dip). Patty's beach towel, (a souvenir from her para sailing in Fethiye, Turkey) should have been our first clue that it was going to be a week of extreme sports. She actually had jumped off a cliff in Turkey to sail down to a beach.
Katie took the week's fashion award for her black bikini, pink cover up with matching nails, headscarf and black flip flops. (Katie even hiked up to Tholaria in those flip flops). She completed her ensemble with the purchase of BIG Pink an inflatable raft, that served as a bed on land and a raft on the sea. An amazing deal at 3 euros.
I have been jealous of the blow up whales, sea turtles and dragons I have seen in the sea of late; so finally I got my turn on BIG Pink, unfortunately, during a hand off at sea, the wind took BIG Pink and she danced away out into the big blue. Patty immediately set out after her and we watched in awe as she gained on BIG Pink and was an arm's length away when the wind once again took BIG Pink out to sea. Patty continued pursuit until BIG Pink was blown onto naked beach, way over the next point from us, and retrieved by someone there. But the wind taketh away and the wind giveth, the next day while on our morning swim Yvonne and I spotted something caught in the rocks and rescued Penta, a fine replacement for BIG Pink, that thankfully also accessorized well with Katie's outfit. Ulie told us that once on a walk she'd forgotten her hat, "I wish I had brought a hat" she said and moments later the wind carried one right to her.
A schedule was made so we would be sure to fit in all the fun things we wanted to do. Katie thought the schedule should be posted to avoid the constant re-working, forgetting and talking about it and going off on ones own, BUT even without posting, we picked up our rental car one evening and headed up to Langada for a meal at Nikos Taverna. Amongst other things, we ate a most delicious savory pie made from the greek version of a pumpkin. The pumpkins were stored in nets hanging from the trees. I would really like to duplicate that recipe.
The next morning we were off on our road trip with the monastery being our first stop. The extraordinary Monastery of Hozoviotissa (pride of Amorgos) is built on a steep cliff, visible only from the sea. Legend tells that during the Iconoclastic period, a woman from Chotziva, Palestine placed an icon of the Virgin Mary in a boat that arrived in Amorgos. The inhabitants decided to build the Monastery high on the rock where the iron "chisel" of the master builder was found, a sign from the Virgin Mary. We climbed the many steps and Yvonne and I even dawned our Turkish scarves, made to look like skirts, in order to be allowed to enter. The architecture is amazing, the monastery only has one wall and the cliff rock forms the back wall, 40 metres wide, only fives metres deep and has eight floors. Construction began in 1008 and over the centuries it has housed large, self-sufficient communities of monks who in hard times supported some of the islands people.
After the monastery, we had a much deserved swim at Ayia Anna and later went back to Mourou Beach (Patty's favorite) where we all had a very long swim and, unlike or last visit, Yvonne and I entered the caves and felt the sea's heartbeat and saw the otherworldly cave light. We also swam around the point through what had been described to us as tunnel but was really a striking keyhole rock. As we swam back to shore, fancy divers were doing impressive triple axles off the high cliffs. Our road trip concluded with a stop at the grocery store to stock up on supplies.
In the days that followed; we moved base camp to some shadier locations, (since the wind made erecting umbrellas impossible), found the excellent store that Patty had visited before in Tholaria where we all bought more than one necklace, pondered the cloud that stayed right over Langada through wind from all directions, discussed the village ducks, played many games of scrabble and ate quite a few chocolate croissants and spinach pies from the bakery.
Patty had always wanted to walk from Aigiali to the monastery along the mountain trail and I had been eyeing that footpath from below myself, so we woke up very early Saturday morning and set out. Our first stop was the bakery where we mixed with the customers grabbing their snack after being up all night and then headed up the mountain. The view from up there is spectacular, we travelled along the sometimes crumbling ancient footpath hearing the sound of goat bells, walking past some ye olde villages and the rock drawings of Asfodilitis, following the periodic signs, the cairns and the helpful, strategically placed red dots. We had heard from various sources that the walk would take from 1.5 to 5 hours, so we were uncertain what to expect. After about four hours we ran into some French hikers coming in the other direction. They estimated that we were about 2 hours from the monastery, after another 40 minutes we came upon a British couple estimating the monastery at 3 hours away. An Australian couple, a half hour later, confirmed just 3 hours more and mostly down hill. By this point it was getting hot, nearing noon, and we had little faith in hikers who began their walks so late in the day. So Patty spotted a dirt road that took us way down to the highway, where a couple, from Athens, picked us up and delivered us to Chora for our rendezvous with Katie and Yvonne, who practically trumped our six hour walk with their morning trauma of having to stand on the bus all the way to Chora. We recuperated with many beverages.
And so the morning came when Patty and Katie were to leave, once again Yorgos serendipitously appeared and offered a ride to the bus. They were leaving from Katapola on their way to Santorini, so we said our goodbyes. Yvonne and I commiserated how nice it had been to share the place that we love so much with friends and wished that other friends were coming. It was late afternoon and we were just about to begin our scrabble game when lo and behold Patty and Katie appeared again bearing all their luggage, having waited all day for a ferry that was cancelled because of the wind. The wind brought our friends back.
They enjoyed another final swim and then Patty delighted in beating us at a last game of scrabble. Off they went on the BIG Blue Star from Aigiali pier the next morning.
Thanks for the great visit Katie and Patty, we love our mugs and our Cosmo beauty tips and maybe I will join facebook.
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