Singing Cicada and Watermelons with Seeds

After the highly socialized environment of Hydra where cafes and shops stay open from early morning to midnight every day, we came to the very rural town of Stavromenos near Rethimnon on the island of Crete. Crete is the largest of the Greek Islands and its size makes it hard to understand the core for me. Heraklion is a large city and Stavremos is a rural village. One thing is for sure there are many creatures that live here.

During the day and night the Cicada cricket makes its shrill song so loud that it’s hard to hear anything else but not impossible. The occasion of a bird twitter or an owl hoot will rise above the Cicada song. The heat here is strong and the ocean deep blue from our little country bungalow. We are surrounded by olive orchard and an array of desert plants and flowers. The house is made with stone and mortar vintage 1800’s similar to the construction in Hydra. It has a timber roof structure and knotty pine ceiling. With electrical outlets and switches buried in the walls I suspect that it might have been built much more recent than the vintage look.

Our host is Lefteris Plutinakis who is probably in his mid thirties of slight build and light complexion. His family owns the farm where we are staying. Advertised as Agra Tourism if you come at the right time they put you to work picking olives or making cheese. “We have no milk to make cheese” said Lefteris. “You can try olive oil…here, and let’s drink to your arrival with this liqueur we make…here” and pours three shot glasses. “If you need anything I go away for two days. My mother she will care but she no speak English very good.”

A watermelon overwhelms a straw basket on the kitchen table. Lefteris runs out to get a business card which depicts the location of the villas to the local taverna and “supermarket”. We arrived via taxi ride prearranged by Lefteris with a local taxi driver. Elias and his brother Michalidas are blue eyed and also light complexioned. They grew in Stavromenos. They each work 12 hour shifts, Elias from 4 PM to 4 AM and Michalidas from 4 AM to 4 PM. It’s a good thing because driving in Creta is even crazier than Israel. A two lane highway is used like a four lane highway with the shoulder for slow traffic and the center divider for passing. We arrived at the villas at midnight having a little trouble hooking up with Elias at the port. Our boat, a kind of floating shopping mall called Superfast arrived in Heraklion at 10 PM.

The villa comes equipped with a swimming pool, more like a large hot tub. I jumped in to the warm water and noticed a couple of bugs floating on top and a frog leaped out. Nick found a lot more including a suicidal Cicada and I got out and came inside where I cut open the watermelon and found that it had seeds like the watermelons of old. It was very sweet but you had to take your time at eating it.