16 Apr 2015

Stranded, part II - The Easter Bunny is an arsonist!

These orthodox Greeks have their own Easter which apparently takes place a week after, well, normal Easter. Since I was going to be stuck on the island until Sunday night, I tried to see as much of the celebrations as possible. In practice, that meant three parts, starting with lots of fire on Good Friday!

After my donkey-themed excursion, the afternoon found me reading - being useless - in the hostel. The charming Finnish gentleman I had met there pointed out that the locals were famous for their Good Friday celebration in the village of Pyrgos. From Google Image Search I knew that this festivity consisted of them decorating all the roofs with candles right after dark. A procession would then head down from the church on the peak of the hill down into town.

Pyrgos was around 6km from our hostel. Of course we would have loved to walk, but with sundown approaching quickly, we’d have to take a cab. Bad luck. The Norwegian we had befriended at the hostel agreed to join us, leaving one seat in the taxi free. In the interest of saving money, we also shanghai’ed two Canadian backpackers (“Oy, there’s going to be fire on a hill. You should come!”).

Approaching Pyrgos, we immediately saw the hilltop sticking out of the landscape. Since the sun was still up and there weren’t too many people around, we decided to walk up to the peak to take a look. As most organically grown Greek towns, the area consisted of houses built on top of and into each other with tiny, narrow walkways and stairs leading through this maze. The closer we got to the peak, the more urgently we were reminded of the storm which whistled around the walls and corners of the tiny houses. Eventually we ascended a stairway and found ourselves on the flat roof right next to the main church. Here, the gusts were so strong that we had trouble standing or walking.

Thinking that maybe, just maybe the wind wasn’t strong enough were we stood, we climbed up to the flat roof of the church on the top of the hill.

I took a few pictures of the sunset but they turned out blurry, since I simply could not stand still in that wind. My Finnish friend did a little better, so I’ll just post his pictures instead (thanks, Jarno!):

From up there, we also noticed the lights that had been placed on every wall, every roof and every pillar in town. Not candles, as we had imagined, but tin cans filled with wood shavings and candle wax. Keep this in mind, this will get important in a minute!

After sundown we headed back down into town to grab a cup of coffee and observe the procession from the comfort of a bar or restaurant. After finishing a jug of rakomelo (a hot drink made from raki and honey) we got a bit impatient and began to head back up the hill. Still, there weren’t many lights in sight, but a crowd was gathering around the church.

One by one, the lights were lit by local youngster armed with propane torches. The wind, however, had not lessened a bit. If anything, it was stronger than before. Remember those wood shavings in the cans? Soaked in candlewax? The ones set on fire by the local teenagers?

The gusts ripped the burning wood from the cans and sent them flying through the darkness, turning the night into a storm of sparks and light. Dozens, if not hundreds of those cans were lit and with each light, more sparks were sent flying.

The glowing wood was blown from the roofs down the narrow walkways and stairs. Since the wind sent them flying so fast, the sparks didn’t touch anything for long enough to pose an actual danger to anyone. They sure enough made for an amazing sight though!

After a few minutes, I braved the storm for long enough to climb back up on the roof of the main church. The experience up there was fantastic: The church bells rang out next to me, barely audible of the deafening roar of the wind. I looked down into the town with more and more spots of light appearing in the darkness below every minute. And over all of this, showers of sparks blew past me like massive waves, engulfing the church and the spot I was standing in. It was like standing in the middle of a firestorm. I remember grinning like a maniac.

Dutifully, I attempted to take a few pictures, but I don’t think they really reflect the sheer intensity of those moments up on that church roof:

Eventually, I decided to climb down from there. The wind threatened to throw me on my face, off the roof or both. Instead I joined the others in front of the church and we headed back down through the town. Not before taking a few more pictures near the top though:

Afterwards we navigated the labyrinth of passages and stairs. We also had the decidedly weird experience of walking right through a choir of priests and the congregration. As in: right between the priest and the singing congregation. “Excuse me - so sorry - my bad!”

Eventually we reached the foot of the hill. As we looked back, we saw the very image that countless photographers had captured before us: Pyrgos, on the hill, as a sea of shimmering lights in the dark.

It took us a while to pull ourselves away from this sight. We weaseled our way through what had become dense traffic at the foot of the hill and called a cab. After finding our cab and being stuck in traffic for the better part of 20 minutes, we finally managed to drive back to Fira, the brightly lit hill left behind us.

Until next time,
Arne