OCTOBER 11, MONDAY

THE BACKROADS OF ANTIPOROS

Our second day in Paros was a marvelous day. We drove in our little Chevy to the island of Antiparos connected to Paros by a 7 minute ferry ride and drove around the small island taking one side road after another to see what we would find. The high up famous Cave of Anteporos was closed for the season but gave us a marvelous view of the island.

We then walked on the beach at Soros overlooked by large white vacation houses of the rich and famous, then ate cod in garlic sauce which tasty zucchini fries

at Captain Pipino’s fish restaurant, and then in the late afternoon exploring a side road came down the other side of the island to a rocky cliff sided crescent beach where the water was crystal clear and some black floating lines of what I imagine kelp to look like ribboned the water.

Here we swam. Susie first, but I joined her, emptying the pockets of my shorts, and waded in to almost waist deep. Urged by Susie to take the plunge into the cool water I finally almost did when I remembered that I had my passport, Covid card, Greek Covid papers still strapped to my under my shorts waist belt and saved them from becoming soggy.. We floated for awhile and then went on our way. Driving down another back road at about 7 we drove past what appeared to be a shabby restaurant, a few tables outside, in a gas station.

Susie was intrigued and said, want to try it? We stopped and drove back. It wasn‘t a restaurant and the outside tables were for a party for neighbors the man in front, Nicholas, was hosting that night with dancing and music over a sound system and drinking. We were invited.

It was to take place late in the evening in the yard of a building with a wood fire oven burning a huge pile of trash wood piled in the yard as he distilled some grape mixture into something sweet tasting with an alcoholic punch, not ouzo, that made both of us dizzy.

He offered us a plate of grilled pork. Susie is a vegetarian but I‘m not and I devoured the whole plate, hungry after our swim.

We took photographs of his quaintly decorated party room, back lit colored bottles in an old ice box refrigerator, playing cards displayed in a frame, and left him and his morose helper.

We thought we might have missed the last ferry to Paros, but we hadn‘t and so we are back to our room where the landlady, Efi, left us a plate of angel food cake.

It was a marvelous day.