Save Greece

Whenever you drive through the Greek landscape, you risk getting confused by road signs that point to the ‘Prophet Ilias’ (Pροφητησ Ηλιασ). Everywhere in Greece in the mountains you will see these signs. They simply mean: to the top of the mountain.

Literally they point the way to the ‘Prophet of Sun’. Sun is ilios in Greek. Scientists suppose that when the Greeks gods lost their influence, the God of Sun Helios was replaced by the prophet Ilias. Ilias however was not a man of who worshipped sunshine. In fact, he fought against the kings who let their people believe in pagan gods, and some religions say that he punished them with thunder and fire and that he himself rode to heaven in a chariot of fire. Very biblical. In very early times, when the sun was still believed to be a god, temples were built on the tops of mountains, so as to be as close as possible to honor Helios, the sun, and that is why so many mountains still carry the name of Prophet Ilias.

The two highest mountains on Lesvos are the Lepetimnos (969 m) in the north and the Olympos (968 m) near Agiosos. It is said that in order to build an observation post the military removed the original peak of Olympos, and so Lepetimnos became the highest mountain of the island. Instead of ancient temples, all you will find on Olympos is a crumbling military outpost, tall TRV masts and a little church build for ‘Prophet Ilias’.

When you climb the last steep road up to the top of Olympos (you can ride by FWD or SUV), you will also find a wood of masts, which are played by the wind as a harp. There is never total silence on Olympos, because there’s always a breeze or wind, so as well as the beautiful sight of the entire island, you can have music from an Aeolian harp, named for the god of the wind Aeolis. It may be coincidence but the ancient folk music of Greece is also known as Aeolian.

You can also get up to the top of Lepetimnos by 4WD, but it has more than one peak, although the Prophet Ilias occupies the the highest, while TRV masts, another military observation building and a little church are shared around the others. From this mountain you have an astounding, really overwhelming view over the north of the island, and in the other direction northwards deep into Turkey. When the weather is clear you can even see the neighbouring Aegean islands of Limnos and Agios Efstratios.

However, the most beautiful Prophet Ilias-top on Lesvos is between Parakila and Pterounda. In this magical fir-wood, where the wind always whispers mysterious songs, there are many roads winding around the mountains, so many that it is hard to keep your sense of direction. Between the road signs pointing to Agra, Anemotia and Pterounda there also names of different churches, and at each crossroad you have to puzzle over which way to go. Amongst these many signs there is also one pointing to the Prophet Ilias.

Follow the road going up the mountain through the fir-trees in the direction of Prophet Ilias, and suddenly the trees make way for lush green mountain meadows full of orchids and other wild flowers. On this Prophet Ilias there is another dilapidated military observation post and a little church. Again, the view is breathtaking, the green meadows scattered between large stones and the sea of flowers, are like paradise. Scarlet peonies shine under bushes and the green giggling hanging flowers of the fritillaria hide themselves between the other wild flowers.

The top of this mountain looks to be the source of the yellow ‘rivers’ that run down along narrow waterways straight through the fir forest, across the slopes all the way to Pterounda and just above Parakila. These are the island’s famous yellow rhododendrons, and at this time of year the woods are perfumed with their sweet fragrance as the flowers brighten up the dark beneath and between the trees. Not only are they rare (in Europe you can only find them in this part of Lesvos), the way they grow is spectacular: like illuminated guirlandes, the bushes snake down from the Prophet Ilias, a sight you cannot stop looking at.

These days, above the island, clouds are continuously fighting for space in the sky with the sun, and the weather forecast is always predicting rain. The flowers are delighted with all this water and even the relative cold, but our tourists are less happy. And they are in for even worse.

Not from heaven this time, but from the Greek government: the minister of Tourism, Kostas Markopoulos, has decided that Greece should concentrate more on tourism. His colleague and minister of Public Building and of Environment agrees and has taken immediately action so that last week the government agreed to a law that will permit real estate companies to build down to the water on the coasts of Greece. As Markopoulos put it: we have to do more for mass tourism and especially the promotion of all inclusive hotel and travel package deals.

The Greeks do not have a lot of imagination and their government doesn’t listen to people who know more than it does. Anyone pointing out the experience of Spain, where the entire Mediterranean coastline has been destroyed by big real estate (so that tourists are staying away in droves) is ignored. Our politicians love ‘big money’ and this time it’s the big money that comes from shameless real estate developers. All protests by the opposition, environmental groups and even the Greek Building Service, are ruled out of order: so the pristine Greek coastlines must be filled up with hotels and holiday houses. For tourists who may never come!

The yellow rhododendrons may not be bothered, but the views over our magical coastlines from the different peaks honouring Prophet Ilias will change dramatically in the future. Can you imagine high-rise hotels on our boulevard? Read HERE more about it and sign the petition:

http://www.petitiononline.com/greece/petition.html

(With thanks to Tony Barrell)

Baptism

If you walk past a Greek church and hear wailing and screaming, don’t worry, it’s probably only a baptism. Or it might be a priest crying over spilt investments. All will be explained.

About 97 - 98% of Greeks are Orthodox and everywhere you will find monasteries, churches and little chapels. Besides well known monasteries (amongst others Limonos in Kaloni, Taxiarchis in Mandamados, Agios Raphael in Thermi, Ypsolo in Eresos) and churches in town and villages (Panagia in Agiasos and Panagia Glikofiloessa in Petra) the Lesvorian landscape is scattered with hundreds of small churches, each dedicated to a single saint, and they aren’t all old, because new ones are always being built, often by private citizens wishing to express their devotion.

There are two reasons for building a church: because you want to make real a vow to a particular saint, or you just have to show off how rich you are. Having a Mercedes in front of your house goes only so far, so why not build a church in the back yard? Of course, some people are more modest and build their churches on the tops of a remote rocky mountain or a lonely beach difficult to reach.

Even monasteries are still being built. Take the monastery of Limonos close to Kaloni. There they are not satisfied with just one church. With donated money they intend to build a church for every saint, and believe me there are many. Already the monastery is surrounded by clusters of jolly little churches and chapels, some of them waiting to be completed.

I will not call the Greek pious, but the church and its representatives make a big part of Greek life. It starts with the birth. Within a year of being born a child is baptized and named (before its baptism it is called just ‘baby’). Only if it’s baptized can a child be registered by the municipality as an official citizen of Greece. A baby who has not been christened will have to travel on a passport only with the names of his parents.

So, nearly all Greeks are baptized and you could say it’s a real life ‘baptism of fire’. It’s a major festivity for family friends and neighbours, which means hell for the mother and an unpleasant hour or so for the infant.

The baptism process begins with the choice of a godparent. He or she has to watch over the godchild and spoil it on its birthdays. At Easter he/she has to give their godchild a candle and according to old tradition a pair of shoes.

Rules are strict. Godchildren of the same godparent aren’t allowed to marry each other and the actual children of a godparent can’t marry their parent’s godchildren either. So, a godchild is real family.

After the choice of a godparent the next challenge is choosing the church where the baptism ceremony takes place. Here on Lesvos there are hundreds of churches which offer the ceremony, but the local population generally prefers a baptism to take place in a big, high profile church. All members of the entire extended family are invited and sometimes the entire village. One of the key ideas is to show off how much money you can spend. As with weddings, the Taxiarchis Monastery in Mandamados is most people’s favourite choice.

The ceremony itself is full of rituals. The child is handed out to the godparent, who announces its name. Then in a series of prayers and blessings, one of the priests banishes the devil. Next, everyone proceeds to the font where one of the child’s grandmothers removes all its clothes. Oil provided by the godparent, is mixed with water and with it the priest anoints the baby. If the baby is not already terrified and yelling, it very soon will be, because the priest then seizes the naked cherub, lifts it high in the air for all to see, and then dunks it quickly, but three times, into the cool water of the font. Mostly it’s a drama, especially as mother isn’t allowed to do anything through the entire ceremony.

There’s more to come, and more reasons to be upset, as baby is then anointed for a second time, after which it has to suffer having three stands of its hair cut off, a chain with a little silver or golden cross placed around its neck, and being paraded around the font. Then grandmother dresses the child in its beautiful baptismal robes and, is at last returned to the anxious arms of waiting mother – but only after she has asked the priest to allow it, by kissing his hand.

There’s even more: for three days after the event the baby can’t be bathed and the first soiled diaper must be burned, and for the first three Sundays after the baptism, the child is expected to be taken to church, together with its baptism candle.

So whenever you pass a church where people linger in their Sunday best clothes and you hear a lot of screaming, do not warn the police because you think there is a killing: it’s a traditional baptismal ceremony, upsetting only mother and child.

Meanwhile in Athens, the national government is trying to cover up a scandal involving a famous religious institution the Mount Athos Vatopedi monastery’s swap of land, whereby it obtained prime real estate in exchange for plots of lower value, with, it’s alleged, ministerial connivance. The opposition PASOK party wants a full investigation, but the Speaker of the house of parliament says he has no power to demand it. So, it looks very much like the powers that be are trying to make sure no more politicians fall from grace, and the church just continues with business as usual which means real estate deals as well as baptisms, weddings and funerals, all of which seem equally lucrative – weddings and funerals costs several hundred euros, paid directly to the priest. So, believe me, if I were the Greek state I would never divorce the church. Such a rich and powerful business partner you will never find again.

(with thanks to Tony Barrell)

Sheep terror

Yesterday it was orthodox Easter. Everywhere you went in Greece you saw lambs turning on a spit, one of the Greek traditional Easter dishes (souvla). Another Greek traditional dish is stuffed lamb from the oven and even though you could not see them cooking, the smell of sweet baked lamb was everywhere in the air.

I love lamb meat so I always look forward to eating Easter dishes. This year however, I was less enthusiastic about eating sheep meat.

I do not know why, maybe the farmers got an additional subsidy or thanks to the crisis, less sheep are being eaten in general, but the fact is for months now we have been terrorized by sheep. Everywhere around the house they appear. Even in my dreams I keep on hearing their bleating and the tinkling of their bells.

You probably ask yourself how it is possible that you can be “terrorized” by sheep? They are quiet animals that hurt nobody! But they are also stupid animals that are very easily frightened. Maybe you remember that last year I took in two stray dogs: the big black Labrador Black Jack and the nearly starved hunting dog Bambi. I tried to find homes for them but without success. Black Jack is a dream of a good dog, but however much I tried, I could not get Bambi to take any notice of me. The only time she listened to what I said was when I told her ‘Dinner is ready’. Food, it seems, being her only daily concern.

Trouble started when the sheep appeared out of nowhere. Black Jack used to visit a girlfriend a little further along the boulevard and like when the sheep were around he liked to “play” with them too. As I said, sheep are easily scared, even if a dog doesn’t attack them. So, the farmer got Black Jack banned from the area and now he has to be chained, otherwise he will keep going out to see his girlfriend and “play” with the sheep.

As Bambi got stronger and healthier, her hunting instincts came back. She raced through the local landscape — like a hurricane chasing the sheep, leaving a lethal path of destruction behind her. She kept getting away from the chain and after a few more dead sheep we had no choice but to send her to the hunting fields in heaven.

But when the farmers started to accuse our winter dog Albino of chasing sheep, I got angry. First of all Albino cannot be chained up because he gets hysterical and I think he just runs after sheep when he just happens to come across them, by accident. He’s not out there looking for them and I’m sure he would never hurt one on purpose. So we had to come to a deal: when Albino gets caught terrorizing the sheep, there will be a price on his head, but for the moment he still is a free dog.

However, as a result of this is that we cannot take walks close to our home any more because there are sheep everywhere and we are really afraid of when Albino runs into one ...

In other parts of Molyvos there are other dog owners whose trusty hounds are accused by farmers of killing their sheep and it is plain that there is a sharp clash of cultures between dog owners who allow their dogs to run free and farmers who are not always around to watch over their sheep. So now I think I understand why there are so many dogs on chains here on the island...

I find it hard to say who is right. On one side some sheep farmers do not protect their sheep enough (especially from the numerous foxes here, who can’t be chained). On the other side dog owners should bear the responsibility for their dog’s behaviour. So I’ve learned something: I’ll never take in another stray dog! The truth is I am not used to them and don’t really know how to train them. So it’s been a very hard lesson.

But I have a solution, although I’m afraid that the Greeks may not accept it too quickly, because as long as there have been Greeks, sheep and goats have been part of their landscape. However, sheep are not only no good when it comes to getting along with dogs, they are also one of the world’s worst agents of environmental pollution.

Australian scientists say that their burps and farts contain methane gas and so they are responsible for a fair part of the accumulation of greenhouse gas in our atmosphere. There are 88 million sheep in Australia and they produce about 11% of the total emissions of methane gas there. Not to mention the 28 million cows. If you want to check it out have a look at this link: climate change methane gas cows & sheep

Just like the Greeks, Australians eat huge amounts of beef and sheep — which they always call lamb — but scientists are now suggesting they should eat kangaroo meat instead, because it will be better for the environment. This seems to me to be a perfect solution for Greece too. Because kangaroos don’t produce methane, and they eat and drink much less than sheep and cattle, they have much less impact on the environment.

Here in Greece sheep (and goats) have, over the centuries eaten and destroyed huge swathes of the landscape and since Greece (like Australia) has regular severe droughts, and as a result of intensive agriculture the ground water level is getting lower and lower and sheep are only making things worse. What’s more, it seems to me that kangaroos are not afraid of dogs — they can certainly use their prowess in leaping to escape any dog that dares chase them. So to me changing sheep for kangaroo seems to be an ideal plan that could suit everybody.

The question is how could kangaroo meat replace the traditional lamb souvla? In Australia consumers are now being advised to switch to kangaroo because it has less dangerous fat content but here in Greece it probably won’t catch on. Greeks love their traditional lamb dishes too much to change. But if every farmer got a special subsidy for every kangaroo that replaced a sheep I am sure that in a few years we would see and smell the delicious scent of baking kangaroo emerging from the ovens here at Easter time.

(with thanks to Tony Barrell)

Hidden treasures

One of the less known municipalities of the island is Evergetoula, named after the river that flows down from the Olympos and ends in the Gulf of Gera. Everybody going north passes this municipality, because the small village of Lambou Mili that is divided into two parts by the national ‘highway’ Mytilini – Kaloni, is part of this municipality. The other villages are: Asomatos, Ippeios, Kato Tritos, Michoe en Sikoundas.

You can find Asomatos, the smallest village of the municipality, besides the most beautiful mountain village of Lesvos, Agiasos. In the summer Agiasos is filled with lots of tourists, however Asomatos does not look as if modern times reached it: there are no souvenir shops and the village is always quiet, many people still travel by donkey and the cafenions can all be put on the list of monuments. It is the most beautiful village of Evergetoula.

It is difficult to say exactly which spot of Evergetoula is the most beautiful. The walks that are described in this area (like by the famous Andersons in their walking book ‘Lesvos, car drives and walks’) bring you over centuries old monopatia (small donkey roads) and are of an astonishing beauty. Everywhere water finds its way down from the mountains, the forest parts sometimes are like a real jungle and the olive groves with their small round little walls against erosion of the soil seem to have kept their century old peace.

Except for some walking guides no tourist guide mentions the area. Even the thick guide about Lesvos ‘Anexerefniti Lesvos’ (‘the unknown Lesvos’ sadly enough is only available in Greek), with the amazing pictures of Tzeli Chatzidimitriou only brings you by car to Asomatos, the watermill of Milellia and to the aquaduct of Lambou Mili.

The old watermill of Milellia was restored in 1994 and now produces flour in a way they did in the old times. With the flour tasteful pasta’s and bread are made and are for sale in the arty shop that belongs to the mill. On the same property you will find as well an olive press, one which used to be driven by donkeys in the earlier times.

But Evergetoula has some other very nice spots that are worth visiting. First of all there is the lovely park of Anargiri. With its high trees, the small chapel that was built in 1881 and the water that always flows this is a real cool oasis full of shadows in the heart of the island. From this paradise it is a must to take the little path that follows the river in order to taste all the greenery, and to listen to the bees that give a loud concert, and to sniff the smell that emanates from the plants and the soil and are like a jungle perfume with the running water and frogs plunging in when you come along.

Between Anargiri and the Gulf of Gera there is a mountain ridge with the tableland of ‘Pláti’. The soil rich of lime is shattered with stones and in the spring as well it is shattered with orchids. When we went there last week on a flower hunt we could not choose between looking down at the colorful orchids or looking over the grey-green olive groves where in between the trees it was full of little towers made of stones. We thought we were at a sacred spot where the towers filled up with stones had a mysterious meaning. Of course no sign with information was to be found. Are these towers just the result of farmers picking up the stones from their land so that they can more easily plough it or do the towers of Pláti have a story?

There are very few people who can tell you about your findings like the old graves in Palios, the old churches or these towers. On the internet where you will find just a little information when you look hard and long. In whatever way I typed the name of Michou in the search machine, no towers of Pláti came up, they only were signed on one tourist map of Lesvos.

The village of Michou is reasonable well described on the website of the municipality of Evergetoula. I was surprised to find as well the description of a cave that you should pass walking walk number 14 of the Andersons: Michou and Pláti: it is there I remember to have seen a sign saying ‘Cave’. However I never found the cave, nor have I been inside. It is the cavern of Foussa and when we have to believe the website of the municipality of Evergetoula, it is the most beautiful one of Lesvos. The cave was discovered in 1981 and following some low corridors you get access to chambers of 20 meters high...

There are many books about the plants on the Aegean islands. There are some walking guides for Lesvos, there is a famous book about the birds on Lesvos (Richard Brooks - Birding on Lesvos) and I even found a (Greek) cooking book with recipes from Lesvos. But why is there no good guide (in English) where all archeological treasures are mentioned, like old Andissa, or all byzantine churches like that in Ypsilometopo (the palioxristian church is from 323 AD in valley) or the graves at Palios? Why nobody ever traced all the old watermills, why can’t I find anything about the towers of Michou, why is the old Roman aquaduct of Lambou Mili no tourist attraction? It really is time that archeologists and historians get together and do something about this forgotten island…

Messy Petra

Petra is a small village in the north of the island close to Molyvos. It is situated in a plain area and built around a big monolith. On this big rock you will find the most famous building of the village: the Panagia Glikofilousa Church, which attracts thousands of pilgrims around the 15th of August, who haul themselves up the 114 steps of the stairway leading to the church in order to honor Maria.

The history of Petra is kind of dull. It is said that Homer before going to Troy anchored there to take provisions and than nothing but tragic events took place: in 1462 Petra was taken by the Turkish, in 1878 it was ransacked by the pirate Hugo de Crevelier who took as well 500 young villagers with him, in 1865 it was looted by Turkish troops and just before the village got freed from the Turkish in 1912, they set the houses on fire.

Petra did restore itself and from a little fishing town it became a nice and popular little tourist village. However, the year 2009 can be added to the years of disaster in the history of Petra. Although the worldwide crisis will help this disaster, the tourism in Petra will go down mainly due to incapable municipality people that have no vision and a lack of organization that has turned Petra into an ugly mess

I always say that Argenos (municipality of Molyvos) gets the first prize for the ugliest village of the island, mainly due to the building material business, that seems to be the visiting card of the village, having its mess right in front of the village when you pass it (these building material businesses that everywhere grow like mushrooms are a serious plague in the landscape pollution). But now it is Petra that passed Argenos on the list because Petra now looks like Hugo de Crevelier did pass again and took all the beauty with him.

Already for two winters the villagers of Petra (and everybody that visits the village to shop) are at the mercy of the street builders and other so-called specialists that have to put sewer pipes and other modern cables under the road. A winter ago they started with the main road (from Kaloni to Molyvos). Two years later and the road never recovered from this operation. Holes and puts form dangerous obstacles in the road, especially for the fast drivers and the motor riders. Do not think that somebody has drunk too much ouzo when he slaloms his car or drives at the wrong side of the road. People do this just to keep from damaging their cars too much.

This winter the works included as well the little village streets and the main road along the beach. So you could not get anywhere and even as a pedestrian you risked your life. Now the main street at the beach has been finished with a paving of nice cobblestones and that is the only thing the municipality of Petra can be proud of.

Petra is situated low, so many lands and gardens get flooded during wet seasons like this past winter. That is why many a villager thought: let’s get the debris that came free with opening the streets in order to make our land a little higher. The result is that when you pass Petra all fields that normally are full of colorful wild flowers are now filled with heaps of rubble. Welcome to Petra! Do these people really think that the tourists come to see there rubbish that not only pollutes nature but has now entered the village as well?!

Travel agents in Molyvos will not allow that their walks to pass the refuse dump above Eftalou, so the tourists cannot see it. But there is no way you can skip Petra coming to and from Molyvos and I feel a pity with the tourists that booked a room in the middle of this rubbish heap.

These rubbish heaps and very bad roads are not the only disasters that struck Petra. The tourist as well will arrive in quite an empty village. Many stores and cafes will not open again their doors because of different reasons. Two big cafes on the main square, one of the two is Cantina, has been closed down and the shop of Tsalikis has been moved to Agios Tsalikis (more about that further down), the two beach bars on the beach next to the harbor and according to the grapevine the café in the corner opposed the harbor will not open as well. Some owners thought they could get away with for years not paying the rent or their electricity bills, other ones did not have the right licenses or made too much noise.

Some Petra lovers will be very glad to hear this news. Many people who came for a quiet area were not at all amused by the loud music they had in Bay Watch. But I must admit that these trendy businesses made Petra into an attractive modern little seaside town for the young people. Now the beach is set up with the mess what was once a lively business. That now perfectly links well with the rest of Petra.

To have a good view over this messy village you can go up now to the new place of Tsalikis, built just next to the open air disco that closed it doors years ago on the road between Petra and Molyvos (and links now as well perfectly well with the rest of Petra). At night Tsalikis has that many lights that you think they built a new village. That is the reason why I call it Agios Tsalikis.

Tsalikis is known for the best cakes and pies of the island. You can see that with their prices. You pay a fortune, not only for the cakes and pies, but as well for a coffee and other consumptions. For this amount of money you can enjoy a marvelous view over the Bay of Petra and the mountainous coastline that goes west. When you bring your binoculars you can even map all the messy heaps of Petra.

Ducks and orchids

30 March – Ducks and orchids

Even if the winter takes long (although temperatures went up a little and we even have some rainless days), for sure the flowers keep on bursting out of the ground and the fields form a spectacular colorful scene.

Amongst the group of the first spring flowers are the orchids that start blossoming as well. When I heard that there were so many orchids here on the island, as a person totally estranged from nature I immediately thought about the orchids that you buy at the flower shops. So I was greatly disappointed when someone pointed me out a wild orchid here on the island: it was so many times smaller than the ones in the shop.

If you want to see the beauty of a wild orchid, you have about to lie on the ground. But I have to admit, when you really do take a good look at them, you risk getting addicted to their absolute beauty.

In a way orchids are a strange bunch of flowers. Their ‘under lips’ can look like naked little men (Orchis italica), like merry apes (Orchis simia) or like tender butterfly wings (Orchis papilionaceae) and some flowers are like thick fat bumblebees (Ophrys bombiliflora). They sometimes have great drawings on their ‘lips’ that resemble the pointillism or crafty abstract paintings. Some flowers consist of a complicated construction and their colors can be a soft white, pink, blue or green but as well dark brown or bright purple.

You better do not mention the Latin name of an orchid when Greeks are around. ‘Orchis’ means ‘testicle’ in Greek (in Greek an orchid is an ‘orchidéa’). I mean when you tell a nice story about orchids, a Greek hears you telling a story about testicles.

Orchis was the name of the son of a satyr and a nymph. Once on a party of Dionyssos he became so hot that he assaulted a high priestess of the temple. As punishment he was torn in pieces by wild animals and then he was transformed into a plant: an orchid.

Theophrastus (371 – 287 BC) was a nature scientist from Lesvos, as well as the first botanist in the world, and he named the orchid. He probably referred to the story of Orchis. The tube roots of the orchids look like the testicles of a man and earlier in Greece they thought that these tube roots could help to determinate in having a daughter or a son. If the men ate big tube roots they got a son, if the mother ate small tube roots, they ware having a daughter.

There are about 68 species of orchids here on Lesvos, many more off course in Greece and most orchids you will find on Crete. It is a Hercules job to find them all, because they grow in so many different areas and you have to be there in the right time. And then orchids are that small that you do not see them immediately. When you look for them, you really have to look out because before you know you passed them without seeing them.

Yesterday we went on an orchid hunt to Palios (Sarakina), a wild area between Mandamados and Mytilini, where the lime forms ideal earth for orchids. Between the just blooming lavender, pricking bushes, old graves and colorful life-jackets of refugees there were plenty of orchids: the Harlequin orchid (Orchis morio), the Butterfly orchid (Orchis papilionaceae), the Provence orchid (Orchis provincialis) and at least three kinds of Tongue-serapias.

In the Netherlands all orchids are protected. In Greece I sometimes think that nothing at all is protected, and I really had to keep myself from picking one of the many orchids. It is good that nowadays the Greek do go to the supermarket in order to buy food, instead of getting it out of the nature. From the roots of a Man Orchid (Orchid mascula) you can make a nice and medical drink that is popular in the Middle East and in Turkey. But as well in Greece it is said that they make a drink with this orchid, to drink when you have gastric complaints.

In Turkey they dig up the roots after the blooming, they dry them and ground them into a thick flour that they stir through a glass of milk until it gets thicker. This sahlep, like this soft drink is called, made that many orchids disappeared in Turkey. A nearly identical beverage, saloop, was a popular drink during the Victorian times in England.

On the way to Palios you not only find plants that are protected in the Netherlands, but as well birds that are considered as holy in Tibet and Mongolia: the red shellduck (Tadorna Ferruginea). This colorful duck, as big as a goose, lives since years at the sign on the road to Palios, an information board that gives all the information about this duck. I am amazed about his staying at the same place. Each time when I drive there and I see the sign, the shellduck is around. Like he gets paid by the government to stay there. But off course when you open the car to get out, he flies away.

Orchids do not fly away but have the nasty habit to hide. When you are hunting orchids, it is just like with looking for mushrooms: at one moment you know how and where to look and then an amazing world of beauty opens before your eyes…

Prasino

This winter you would think that it pays if all watermills get restored. People get sad about all the rain that keeps on falling and filling all rivers. Last week showers even colored the mountains snowy white and the only way to go to Anemotia and Vatoussa was when you used winter tires.

When you dared to venture out in thunder and hail, a walk became a survival trip: regularly you had to take off shoes and socks in order to cross a river that blocked a path. All that water however keeps the waterfalls running.

The most known waterfall of Lesvos is the Pesos waterfall. This one is indicated on the road from Achladeri to Agiasos (katarraktis Pesos). Last year we visited the watermill at the bottom of the waterfall close to Eresos (see: Following Sappho), in the autumn we discovered the waterfall of Klapados (see: There at the mill), where as well once stood a watermill. Last week somebody brought us to the Waterfall of Pedi, close to Mandamados, where a wide river falls from a cliff of some ten meters high.

Seeing all that wet violence it is easy to imagine that you can harness energy out of these big amounts of water. However not every winter is so rich with rain and in the summer in most rivers there is no drop of water to be found anymore. I wonder how in the early times during droughts they kept on running the many mills that existed here on the island. Nowadays they use a more secure energy: besides the normal energy on the road from Antissa to Sigri there is a windmill park that keeps on increasing.

In spite of the fact that so much rain has fallen and that there were mostly clouds, and sunshine was sparse, like every spring flowers and plants hurry out of the earth. This year, the colorful flowers are always cheer you up even when the winter seems endless this year.

I always thought that Lesvos was a green island. Even in very dry summers the extended pine tree forests in the center of the island and the millions of olive trees towards the many coastlines color the island green (green is ‘prasino’ in Greek). In the winter this prasino even hurts your eyes because of all the young new plants that grow everywhere.

However in the world there are only three green islands: King Island in Australia, Samsoe in Denmark and Utsira in Norway. Those islands are not green, meaning the color green but because they only use green energy.

We cannot always point a finger to the Greeks sinning against the environment, but the important thing is that they progress in their awakening for the environment. In the Greek capital they already started with collecting separate rubbish and they now even start to experiment with collecting the glass separated in colors. As well in the capital of Lesvos collecting separate rubbish has started and in Molyvos you can bring used batteries to the local supermarket of Timolis (as well as OTE in Petra).

Last week another big step was made by the Greek Minister of development. He gave ten million of euros to transform the small island of Aghios Efstratios, named by the Greeks as well Ai Stratos (see: Sea and Fry Travels into a green island).

Together with the neighboring island of Limnos it belongs to the prefecture of Lesvos and for sure it can use a bit more green, because it is rather a bare island. However they are not going to plant all trees there, like they regularly do on Lesvos to enrich the environment. The island will be made ready to only use green energy.

The electricity will not run anymore on petrol but will come from sun energy, wind energy and biomass. Even the cars will be running on electricity. In about a year Aghios Efstratios hopes to be one of the exclusive green islands. And if this experiment succeeds, two other small islands already asked to become green: Nisyros and Tilos.

Lesvos is still too big for this experiment. But I am sure that when the Lesvorians hear that their neighbors do not have to pay anymore for petrol, they will be first in the row for the waiting islands to become green. And they are right because in a matter of speaking the energy here you can pick up from the street: wind, sun, sea and hot springs. And not to forget for this winter: water!