2002: Robbing the Cradle of Civilization.

by Carl Russo


3.


Old Turkish fountains outnumber old German
dykes on the island of Lesvos.



Most Americans head straight from Athens to the party islands of Santorini or Mykonos. The last thing we wanted was to mix with loud, drunken Yanks. Loud, drunken Greeks, okay. We found neither on Lesvos, the mythical and factual island in the North Aegean Sea, an hour's flight from the capital. Nor did we find lesbians (lesvians?), though they can be spotted channeling the passionate poetess Sappho on the western coast.

The exotic harbor town of Mytilini, with its Ottoman dome and lively fish market, was where I first tried out my Greek. I'd learned about thirty survival phrases by rote, like, "Do you have a room with a double bed and a shower and a balcony and a view of the sea for cheap?" I failed straight off as we took a table on a restaurant patio. Asking the proprietor if we could drag our luggage inside, he shouted, "Neh! Neh! " We did a quick about-face until I remembered that neh means yes. (Confusing the issue, okeh means no.)

But my hours of memorization finally paid off; I called ahead to a hotel in our next destination, securing a room with a double bed and a shower and a balcony overlooking the sea for 25 euros. The old night bus chugged up and down the mountains of the interior, leaving us in front of a taverna on the beach of Vatera. Across the street was a large house with sparkling new rooms in the back yard. The operation was a family affair, from meals to beach chairs, which were the extent of our needs. In the morning we saw the owner hack the head off a chicken. In the evening he served us the chicken.

Vatera is little more than a road that runs along a stretch of beach, backed by smooth hills that give off a sweet scent of wild herbs. A fat guy on a moped glided by with his mutt trotting happily alongside on a leash. An old woman stopped by the taverna at noon to take her ouzo. Gotta try that soon, I thought.



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