Island Life — Andros, Greece
April 25th - May 12th, 2017
For our second house sitting experiment, we headed to Andros Island, a short 2 hour ferry ride from Athens. Andros is a less touristic island for internationals, but many Athenians have summer homes here and there is a substantial population of expats, specifically British, who call Andros home.
Our hosts were heading back to England for a couple of weeks and we were tasked with the care of a small herd of cats and dogs, some chickens, and watering flowers, fruit trees, and a well-plotted garden. There was even a pig, but neighbor Yanni took care of him (and our few interactions of Greeklish were amusing). In exchange, we landed free lodging in a beautiful Greek-style homestead overlooking a tropical valley and a short drive from numerous beaches, hikes, and scenic oceanside villages. Score.
We had one full day to learn our duties, eat Yorkshire pudding (not really pudding), and then dropped off Sara and John at the ferry to head on their way. From there, it’s all kind of a blur as island life lulled us into a blissful reality and then abruptly jolted us awake when it was time to leave. We spent the last bit attempting to will time itself to stop, but to no avail.
Most days consisted of a slow morning, caring for the animals, eating poached eggs (new favorite), and then settling into big leather lazy boys to read scripture together and spend time with the Lord. After that we might spend a couple of hours writing, job hunting, and general aimless internet exploration.
Then we’d set off on our daily adventure either to hike, find a beach, or explore a town. We ended up hiking less than we thought because the threat of the horned-tooth viper dissuaded some enthusiasm for tromping around the trails. However, nothing dissuaded us from exploring new beaches and we visited 6 or 7 different stretches of sand and on some days, even braving the water to do a bit of swimming and snorkeling. Our best find was a solea solea, or common sole — such a cute little bugger.
Andros is heavily dotted with monasteries, ranging from the small to the gargantuan. We stopped at a few of them but the biggest we went to was Zoodochos Pigi, the life giving spring. It’s now a convent and a small little nun took us inside, gave us long pants to cover our legs, and led us to the central church to admire and worship. Apparently only 3 nuns live there now (or so we surmise based on zero understanding of greek). On the way out she gave us traditional greek sweets — they know how to host you.
We also did a bit of driving exploration to the capital city, referred to as chora by the locals, meaning the town. It’s used to refer to the capital on most islands from our experience, kinda like the city means NYC if you’re near NY. This was one time where I’m ashamed to admit, google maps failed me. The horse might have been an indicator…
Blindly we followed the driving directions as they took us off the main road onto dirt. We’d driven on lots of dirt roads on Andros, no biggie! Like cattle to the slaughter we didn’t even flinch when the road turned into some sort of cobblestone that had an ancient romanesque feel. Doubt only started creeping into our minds as those cobble stones became more jagged and the ‘road’ narrowed to just barely accommodate our vehicle’s width. But at the stairs we knew. Yup, we just knew. Not a road.
Even then we wondered if we could make it down the stairs and onto a real road — we’d already gone so far. Further exploration on foot evidence that would have been a fatal decision as the ‘road’ narrowed even further. Then there was the stern warning from the toothless greek elder about not driving forward (and a bump, bump, bump motion indicating the stairs). In all, it was time to reverse a few hundred meters and find a place to turn around.
The city itself was beautiful. :)
Another night we celebrated May Day in our neighboring village of Katakilos. It’s an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival that is a big deal. I mean a big deal. We drove by a taverna mid-afternoon and it was packed — singing, dancing, the whole shebang. After dinner we decided to head back and it was still happening, so we joined in for a couple hours.
Even with the economic difficulties facing Greece, those folks know how to celebrate and don’t hold back. I’ve never seen so many old men dancing with such pizzaz. Even the guy I had to keep picking up off the ground showed decent dexterity for the amount of alcohol he’d consumed.
Out of everyone there (it was a small village), we were the only ones who didn’t speak Greek. Nonetheless, we were warmly welcomed to the dance floor and even poured some drinks from our table mates.
Opa!
Feta. I never knew how good this cheese could be until Greece. When you buy it at the supermarket, they have these great big buckets with huge blocks. I’m sure something like that exists in the US, but I’ve always eaten it out of a little plastic package. Man! It’s so much better in Greece!
Along with feta we were regularly downing tzatziki and tomatoes on bread, carrot and beet salad, strawberry smoothies (from the garden), poached eggs, pork (from the last pig), greek yogurt and honey, and greek salad. It was wonderful eating.
Kate also got to celebrate her birthday on the island! There was breakfast in bed, dessert, back rubs, laying out with aegean views, and more greek food.
I’m so blessed to be sharing life, love, and laughter with this woman. ❤
And boom! It was already the end of the house sit. We picked up John and Sara from the ferry and told them about our adventures on the island. They were glad we were staying an extra day, because honestly, they were a bit shocked to find out how little we did. What can I say, beach life lolled us into a dreamy state of relaxation.
They took us on a long drive to see Korthio, Dipotamata Gorge, beautiful natural springs, ancient laundry facilities, a windy mountain church, and a cemetery. I was a bit nervous they weren’t happy about the house and were sending a message. (kidding)
The cemetery was actually really interesting — because the island is so rocky and not much flat ground, you only get to claim a grave for 3–5 years. After that, they dig you up and put your remains in a box house near the graves.
Later, they let us take their ATV for a ride down to a nearby beach, giving Kate and I the desire for more. Mykonos, here we come.
