Pilgrimage to Holy Mountain 14

14.

Daphne again: Kyries and Holy Mountain:

I check with the Thessaloniki Office of Holy Mountain Autonomous Monastic Republic several times a week and after a month and a half wait, using Kalogiros’ little apartment as a base camp, I am issued a visa for the foreigner’s maximum four-day visit. The officers suggest that if I want to stay longer I should apply directly to the authorities at Kyries, the capital of Holy Mountain, when I arrive.

I have enough money for a bus ticket to Daphne, the entry seaport, so I leave my bike with Kalogiros and make the three-hour trip by bus.

My Greek friend loans me a Russian camera and gives me some film since he says no one should go to such a picturesque place without a camera. He also loans me a couple of nice long-sleeved shirts since he says I should not tempt the monks with bare arms. He carries me to the bus station on his motorcycle and waves goodbye saying I will be welcome to stay with him again after my pilgrimage.

The bus goes right to the dock where pilgrims to Holy Mountain catch their boat.

The captain of one of the small motorboats which carry pilgrims and supplies to the various monasteries on the coast of Holy Mountain checks my visa and allows me to come aboard with no problem. After a smooth thirty minute voyage I debark with one or two other passengers at the Kyries dock and hike alone the half mile or so up the hot, dusty road to the capital city, Kyries itself.

When I walk into town I seem to be the only person alive. There are buildings , seemingly built in different periods and for different purposes, but all seem abandoned and empty. There is none of the usual bustle and noise of other Greek towns or cities. There are one or two shops with dusty windows displaying merchandise which I suppose would interest a monk: black socks, black shoes, black leather belts, black cloth, black caps, a few books, candy and soft drinks, but the hustle of business does not exist even a little. I see no advertising and, though I knew it would be the case, not a trace of women or children.

This lack is the strangest thing of all.

I suddenly realize with a shock that I have never been in any town anywhere where women simply did not exist . This feels extremely strange to me.

I have lived in monasteries where women were not allowed and I have been in Moslem villages and towns where women were not much in evidence., but even in the strictest Moslem villages there will always be some children about, but here there are no children at all–and there never have been any. This is the first entire town I have ever experienced where there are no women and where no women have ever been!

This is very different and very odd!

I find the pilgrim’s office in one of the faded old buildings and ask the clerical monks for an extension to my four day visa. I am asked to return in the morning.

I have no idea where a pilgrim can stay in this town but discover a very small and very run-down “hotel” where I can rent a tiny rickety room with a bed and where I can also buy a simple, cheap meal.

I stroll out in the evening and follow a narrow dirt road. There is no vehicular traffic of any kind. One or two pedestrian monks come or go but they pay not the slightest attention to me. Still, as I become more adjusted to the strangely different pace of Kyries, being thus ignored seems not too bad after all.

I walk to a low rise in the land and see through a break in the sheltering trees, a distant sight of supernatural beauty: the perfectly shaped peak of Holy Mountain. I can almost hear the expected movie-track sound of a gong! If the word had not been destroyed by skateboarding juveniles I would certainly say, and reverently: awesome!

As night falls I return to the hotel. The other residents of the hotel have gathered in the dining room: three or four black-robed Greek monks, elderly, bearded, and, to me, very bizarre!

One fat gray-whiskered monk seems to be seized by a paroxysm of crossing himself whenever he catches my eye, making the crossing gesture dozens of times with lightning-like speed and staring at me with wild round eyes all during the exercise. I don’t know why he does this and it certainly seems like crazy behavior to me. But then the entire scene seems sort of crazy to me!

At any rate, since I still speak little Greek, there need be no conversation.

I am exhausted from the day’s trip and from the strangeness of Kyries, and so retire early and sleep well in the absolute silence of this most unusual capitol city.

After a breakfast of good coffee and bread at the hotel, I return to the Pilgrim’s Office where I am told I can go down to the dock and proceed directly by motorboat to Hagia Anna (Saint Anne’s) monastery and stay there for a few days. My four day’s visa time will be extended as necessary with the permission of the abbot of Saint Anne’s.

I hurry back down the dusty road to the dock and clamber aboard a little wooden boat with a half a dozen apparently working-class Greek pilgrims and we soon depart for the monasteries which can be most easily accessed from the shore.

We pass several monasteries on the way to Saint Anne’s.

I had seen National Geographic's photographs of the outlandish monasteries perched on the cliffs of Holy Mountain, but it is most thrilling to see with my own eyes these unique and seemingly enchanted structures perched on cliffs high above us or graciously set back in green, spacious valleys.

Tomasito, 2009


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