I was chatting about travelling the other day and said there were some places I would not visit again because I feared they would be too changed by tourism and development. I prefer to remember them as I saw them when backpacking in my 20s.
One such place is the Greek island of Paros. Paros is not conventionally beautiful. It is dry and barren, as if you had picked up a chunk of Karoo and dropped it into the Mediterranean. And very windy. But I liked it because it was so different from anywhere I had been before, and in some ways, it was like stepping back in time. I was travelling with a university friend and after staying in town for a few days we set off by bus to explore. We got off at a place the photocopied map said “Golden Beach”. It was beautiful, the sea turquoise and warm. Today Internet pics show it packed with umbrellas and loungers; then we were the only people there. Not a building or a soul in sight. At the end of a glorious day we decided to sleep on the beach. That is a bad idea on a windswept island. Sandblasted. I pulled the sleeping bag over my head and slept fitfully. I remember waking to a dreadful mechanical clunk and screech. We went to investigate and found the cause on a nearby smallholding. A donkey was harnessed to a long pole attached to a grindstone, and its job was to walk around in circles so the grindstone crushed the wheat. Every few steps the apparatus clunked and screeched. We laughed. It was like something out of Biblical times. We chatted to the people who sold us breakfast of small fish fried whole, derms and all. Another day a local man and his donkey decided to join us on a walk and we chatted in some English and lots of sign language. After a while we came to a small farm and saw people standing in what looked like a low farm dam. We asked him what they were doing. He knew the people and beckoned us to follow him. When we got there we saw they were stamping grapes for wine. I was delighted. They called us in to join them. What an experience, feeling the grapes squish under the soles of our feet, laughing and holding on to those friendly people so we did not fall. There was a wonderful sense of connection with the ancient past, of taking part in something these people’s ancestors had been doing for thousands of years. I love travelling, and am glad I did so much of it before the advent of social media. I love the freedom of doing things for the experience, rather than having to look good for the next Instagram pic. Believe it or not, there is now tourist grape stamping in many places. Tourists jump in, take their social media shot, and jump out. And the grape juice is just funneled off to the compost. How make-believe our world has become.
