The Greek guidebooks say that nothing can prepare you for your first glimpse of Olympos.
This is absolutely true.
Olympos rests under the clouds, 716m up Mt. Profitas Ilias in the far north of Karpathos. This isolation led to some interesting developments. In the past, Olympos was referred to as “Women’s Village” because most of the men left to seek their fortunes elsewhere or to fight in various wars. The women stayed behind and kept the economy going by tilling every scrap of land that didn’t have a house sitting on it, and working the 75 mills that still dot the village in various states of disrepair.
Today, women still keep the economy going. They make up 65% of the population — most are over the age of 60 — and seem to have a monopoly on village enterprises.
However, all has not been lost to the commercialism of the market. I ran across this woman working hard, under a hot sun, baking the loaves of bread that Olympos is famous for in an outdoor communal oven:
Olympos was so isolated, there are still traces of old Dorian Greek in the village dialect.
The preponderance of women led to a matrilineal society. A women’s land and wealth were passed down to her eldest daughter, rather than son, as well as her surname. Being a second-born daughter, this still would have left me in the dust, but it’s a cool development for such a remote corner of the Balkans.
I have a couple regrets related to Olympos:
First, I regret listening to the people in the travel agency in Pigadia when they told me not to rent a car and drive to the village. They seemed to think the road was a bit too dangerous for my smooth asphalt mindset. I know they had my best interests in mind, but this meant the only way to get to Olympos was by a bus crammed with package tour groups who were shuffled through the village like innocent Euro-carrying sheep. We were nothing but vessels for currency to the enterprising, mustachioed old ladies of Olympos, god love them.
To add insult to injury, I noticed that many people had made the treacherous drive in rental vehicles and lived to tell about it.
Second, I wish I had booked a room in Olympos. Like most secretive places, the village hides it’s true self when outsiders are around, it’s only after the consumer hordes have been shuffled back onto the tour bus that the village shows it’s heart.
The village streets are too narrow for vehicles, so everything has to be carried in by man or donkey. I saw men in their sixties in enviable physical shape, working on roofs and building additions to homes.
Don’t forget your role in keeping the economy of Olympos going. You will be expected to buy and eat and drink, and it won’t take much convincing to do so. You will be told that the linens, tablecloths, scarves, etc… are handmade. They might be…by a young woman in China or Bangledesh.
The women of Olympos pass their handmade goods down to their daughters, which is just as it should be. My mother left me a dowry of various embroideries and linens and I know the amount of work that’s involved. To recoup the actual costs of making the linens and laces by hand would mark up the cost by several hundred dollar, too prohibitive for most tourists.
At most, the women of Olympos add a crochet border to a tablecloth, or a pearl border to a scarf. No matter though, they try to keep the illusion going to please the tourists. I was impressed by their entrepreneurial spirit too much to let it bother me. Also, by this time, I’d given up the ghost on trying to find the true meaning of authentic.
The villagers are extremely friendly. In my conversations with them, I learned that Baltimore is the destination of choice for people seeking their fortune abroad. Baltimore! Can you image leaving this for Baltimore?
To each his own, however. One of the old woman of Olympos sighed as she told me of her husband’s decision to move the family back to Olympos after more than a decade in America. “I wish I could have stayed in Baltimore. I’m so tired of village mentality, ” she said wistfully, as she crocheted a pink pearl border to a bright blue head scarf.
© 2010 – 2011, Ithaka Bound. All rights reserved.
