Dances With Horses

Monday, is the name day of St George (yes that George, the dragon slayer) in Greece. The saints name days are celebrated more than a person's birthday here, and today was St George's day, although the date is not the real date but celebrated on this Monday after Easter instead of the normal day in mid-April. This has something to do with the date of Easter falling later in the month, but don't ask me to explain why.

We learned of a big celebration at St George's church not far from Vatera, so off we went in a caravan into the hills, up steep rutted, winding, twisted roads to this church in the middle of a million olive trees. The road got so bad that we abandoned the vehicles and walked off through the olive orchards to the church which was still one half mile away. I had wondered how bad the roads must get before the locals could not go any further without a tank type vehicle that is able to go anywhere. We found out after scraping the bottom of the Panda and what sounded like the oil pan being ripped asunder leaving precious engine fluids in the ruts. The ruts were so deep in places the Panda almost disappeared so we backed down the hill a short distance where we could park the car off the road, also being careful not to run over any barbed wire in the process.

We had taken along two small children and their grandmother who are also staying at the hotel so we had plenty of screams as the car tried to overturn in the ditch, but thanks to my skillful driving we parked safely and started the hike through olive groves, fresh horse manure and lots of beautiful wild flowers. I am not sure why there is a church in this remote place, there is literally nothing for miles except olive trees. Olives were still on the trees or liberally scattered all over the ground since the prices were so low for olive oil last year the olives were not picked.

So after a 15 minute walk uphill through dangerous olive groves surrounded by hungry woodland creatures, we arrived at the church where at least 300 people were already gathered eating some kind of bean stew with meat. Did I mention the bull that gets sacrificed for the good of the neighborhood as part of this celebration? It is possible the meat in the stew was from this bull, but we were not sure. At noon a band started to play with sound equipment powered by a gas generator, and it was time for the horse and rider dancing. There were at least 10 horses, two with foals about one or two years old, all were decorated with fancy saddles and tack, and very high spirited. When the music started, the riders started to dance with the horses and attempted to dance standing on the saddle which was only semi-successful since the aforementioned high spirited horses were not that cooperative.

This dancing went on for some time with different riders and horses taking turns in the small road in front of the even smaller church. Yiannis tells me in the past, these festivals, which are very common in May and June, would last for days, traveling from one village to another, I believe large quantities of Ouzo were also involved. But here everyone was having a good time listening to the music, watching the horses and enjoying the food. Basically, your typical community gathering. Yiannis and his family are great musicians who sometimes provide the entertainment at the hotel, his father and brother are very versatile, playing numerous instruments and singing. I think they are all slowing down as they get older.

We watched for a while then hiked back to the car, checked the oil pan for leaks and returned to the hotel along the twisting, rutted dirt and gravel road.