Hydra

I’m back on the idyllic, traffic-free Greek Isle of Hydra. Today is our first light day after a week of TV production. We’re meeting at 10 am. Wishing I could sleep longer, I’m wide awake at 6:45. I picked up some ugly oranges on the way to my hotel last night. The oranges were so unsightly I almost didn’t buy them. On my dresser, they look like Van Gogh’s last meal. Enjoying one, I’m reminded that in Europe, ugly means tasty.

Standing in front of my window, pushing open the shutters, I’m greeted by a cool, almost mountain breeze pouring through my window on this May Day. I stretch while enjoying the view. My legs are strong but my back is stiff.

A clutter of red-tiled roofs has the texture of Triscuits. In fact, they look like a sloppy pile of Triscuits tumbling up the hill away from the harbor. High above, at the horizon, a sun ray slashes from behind a hill, across a ravine, strangely obliterating a hill-capping monastery in a good morning glare.

Seven o’clock brings a chorus of tinny church bells. The clang of bells, which sound like dinner triangles on a cowboy ranch, seems to call the barnyard awake: dogs, roosters, a million baby birds cry for breakfast, and old burros snort…clearing their sinuses. Pigeons coo, sounding like owls or perhaps vice versa. A black cat prances nimbly across a roof.

I trace the route Anne and I took just seven months ago. Intending to take a lazy stroll around the block from this same hotel, we ventured up and up…succumbing to a strangely powerful pull of intrigue. We were drawn higher and higher, up to the top of Hydra town. Descending over a saddle, we followed the concrete flash flood bed through more Triscuit-roofed houses to a pocket-sized harbor of a tiny neighboring village. From there we watched the sun set through cloudy ouzo in tall glasses as a rock at sea, capped by a white church, became silhouetted and busy boats laced together the Aegean world.

It was there, on that same sunset perch the next night, that I decided to come back in Spring of ‘08 to make an Athens TV show. A show focusing only on Athens wouldn’t quite do it for me. But Hydra, just two hours away by jet boat, rounds out Athens as both a great destination and a great TV script.

I lean slowly to the right, hold it…creak slowly to the left, hold it. Then I let my vertebrae tumble like an ancient column in an earthquake, until my head passes my knees. Standing tall as I can, I inhale that waking village ambience knowing that, in a few hours, the sounds of children playing will be added to the audio mix. After this salutation to Hydra, I’m ready for a Greek island day.

The island of Hydra (two hours south of Athens by hydrofoil) has one town and no real roads. There are no cars and not even any bikes. Zippy taxi boats charge from the brisk little port to isolated beaches and tavernas.

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Beasts of burden climb stepped lanes sure-footedly — laden with everything from sandbags and bathtubs to bottled water. Behind each mule-train works a human pooper-scooper. I imagine picking up after your beast is required. Locals like to tell of movie stars who make regular visits. Understandably, each evening ritzy yachts stern tie to concrete piers, off-loading their smartly dressed fun-seekers. The island is so quiet that, by midnight, they seem to be back on board watching movies. Sitting on a ferry cleat the size of a stool, I scan the harbor — with big flat screens flickering from every other yacht. The island once had plenty of spring water. Then, about 200 years ago, an earthquake hit and the wells went dry…a bad day for Hydra. Today Hydra’s very hard water is shipped in from wetter islands. No wonder showering (lathering and rinsing) was such an odd frustration. The island is a land of tiny cats, tired burros and roosters with big egos. While it’s generally quiet, dawn teaches visitors exactly the meaning of “cockcrow.” Cockcrow marks the end of night with more than a distant cock-a-doodle-doo. It’s a dissonant chorus of cat fights, burro honks and what sounds like roll call at an asylum for crazed roosters. With that out of the animal population’s system, the island slumbers a little longer. While tourists wash ashore with the many boats — private and public — that come and go, few venture beyond the harborfront. Leaving our hotel, I was heading downhill. Anne diverted me uphill and our small detour became a delightful little odyssey.

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While I had no intention of anything more than a lazy stroll, one inviting lane after another drew us up, up and up to the top of the town. Here, poor shabby homes enjoyed grand views, tethering tired burros seemed unnecessary, and island life trudged on, oblivious to tourism. Over the crest, we followed a paved riverbed, primed for the flash floods that fill village cisterns each winter, down to the remote harbor hamlet of Kamini — where 20 tough little fishing boats jostled within a breakwater. Children jumped fearlessly from rock to rock to the end of the jetty, ignoring an old man rhythmically casting his line. Two rickety woven straw chairs and a tipsy little table were positioned just right, overlooking the harbor. The heavy reddening sun commanded “sit.” We did, sipping an ouzo and observing a sea busy with taxi boats, charging “flying dolphin” hydrofoils connecting this oasis with Athens, freighters — castles of rust lumbering slowly along the horizon — and a cruise ship anchored like it hasn’t moved in weeks. Ouzo, my anise-flavored drink of choice on this trip, and my ziplock baggie of pistachios purchased back in town was a perfect compliment to the setting sun. Blue and white fishing boats jived with the chop. I’d swear the cats — small, numerous as the human residents of this island, and oh-so-feminine — were watching the setting sun with us. My second glass of ouzo comes with someone’s big fat Greek lipstick. Wiping it off before sipping seems to connect me with the scene even more. There’s a fun little tension between being “in the moment” and playing with my camera as the constantly changing scene calls for shot after shot. An old man flips his worry beads, backlit by golden glitter on the harbor. Three men walk by – each remind me of Spiro Agnew. As darkness settles, our waiter — who returned here to his family’s homeland after spending 20 years in New Jersey, where he “never took a nap” — brings us a candle. The soft Greek lounge music tumbling out of the kitchen mixes everything like an audio swizzle stick. I glance over my shoulder to the coastal lane home…thankfully, it’s lamp lit. Walking home under a ridge lined with derelict windmills, I try to envision Hydra before electricity, when springwater flowed and the community was powered by both wind and burros. At the edge of Hydra town, we pass the “Sunset Bar,” filled with noisy cruise-ship tourists and were thankful we took the uphill lane way back when. The next night, a brisk 15-minute walk rewarded us with the same Kamini harbor magic from the same woven straw seats — worry beads, romantic cats, Greeks good at naps and the busy sea…golden at sunset. Hydra — so close to Athens yet a world away — is a new favorite for me.