Cafes I Have Known: Greece Editon

I made lovely new friends in Greece between fits of ruin and museum hopping.

Boo’s Café – Athens, Mainland Greece

When I was a child, my parents nicknamed me, “Boo,” for my numerous, good-natured attempts to startle and scare them.

So when I came to Athens and saw the sign for “Boo’s Café” on the street behind my hotel, I felt it was a good omen.

Sipping a Greek coffee at Boo's

The atmosphere for this stony lair is surprisingly out in the open. Each of the windows pivots to become a door on to the street. The dark antique rosewood chairs for patrons to sit in are playfully mismatched.  

High color oil paintings, beaded mannequins, leaded glass, and other over-the-top props cover every wall.

A short walk from the hotels on Omonoia Square, (Sarri Street between Epikourou and Kreizi) Boo’s is primarily an after-dark place. Weekend nights are just right!

Their daytime patrons are theater district managers, art and furniture sales people who come in for a hit of Greek coffee and a wrap and then dash. Tourists linger over postcards and biscuits.

Boo’s doesn’t have a website and they don’t have Wi-Fi. They aren’t even listed on Google Maps. 

There are plenty of places in Athens that do have those features. My experience has shown that such serviceable locations often have less character.

So make a friend and hunt out for Boo's without your devices for a change!

Yankos Café – Adamas, Milos

On the touristy island of Milos, Yankos is easy to spot. It's on the East end of the pier. 

Two huge illuminated spheres with dancing shadows spotted from a distance turn out to be pedastaled fishbowls flanking their entrance.

While that gimmick makes them hard to mistake, the basics of Yankos are top notch.

It’s a place to center oneself and get work done. There are a half-dozen laptops open at any time many of which belong to locals.

I am in love with the feeling of being constantly adrift at Yankos. Gauze curtains blow like sails, dial lamps loll like suns. White sofas crest against blue canvas chairs connecting you to the surf and surrounding sea.

Fried cheese. Some poor little cow had to push all that out!

I returned for meals at Yankos based on the food and exceptional (multi-lingual!) service.

Breakfast is the big meal on Milos and there are many local specialities worth trying.  I recommend 

a the watermelon pie, a strudel-like pastry topped with candied watermelon rind.

Though I am eating vegan now, I ate copious amounts of fried cheese while I was in Greece. The wedge of locally sourced cow proteins at Yankos was the size of my head with whole tomatoes and lemon for garnish. These are generous folks.

The Edible Egilsay Farm Adventure in Orkney, Scotland

A view from the bunkhouse of the Edible Egilsay farm.

This far north, the sun doesn’t set in summer, it moves elliptically out to sea and hums under the horizon. The night I arrive,  an enormous full moon is setting off the inky blue.

Tingwall is where I’m to meet the Egilsay (pronounced Eagle-see), ferry at 8 am.

I elect to walk, but fail to account for the maps distortion. The distances north and south on the map are actually two times the East/West distances!

Your's Truly on mainland Orkney, the gateway to Egilsay.

Running up empty roads at 7:45 am,  I’m at least two miles from the pier. Luckily for me, a local handyman named Roger, the first car I’ve seen since 3 am, picks me up as I hitchhike. I arrive before the ferry docks.

At the other side, Alice is present to greet me.

She’s already been in the bunkhouse for a month. Already, the peas are coming up!

Alice stands guard on the road to the Maeness farm.

For the next few days, I too will be growing food as part of the Edible Egilsay project, a permaculture farm.  The farm provides food for attendees of the like-located Orkney Solstice celebration.

Alice says they are hoping to make 200 meals for festival goers from the farm's produce. We plant beet root and dig up rocks. We water everything carefully.

Harvey, the island’s pet llama, lopes around the premises, inspecting our work.

Harvey wandering the grounds.

The Orkney Solstice Festival began when Bazil Sansom decided the disused part of his family's farm would make an idea locale for a small summer event.

Mainland Orkney already had history minded endeavors scheduled at Maeshowe and other Neolithic sites. The Orkney Folk Festival, while a change from typical summer festival genres, had a staid, predictable feel.

Also, with Brits saving up hundreds of pounds each year to be deafened for days on end at music industry engines like Glastonbury and Rockness, there was demand for non-corporate options.

Orkney Solstice channels the spirit of Burning Man – filled with D.I.Y. entertainment and a homey feel. "No one pays and no one gets paid but everybody shares something."

History marks Egilsay as the location for the legend of St. Magnus. This church commemorates the spot where he was martyred.

His partners in the continuing effort to provide this space are the indefatigable Roz Corbett and Alice Warren. Throughout the year, the raise awareness for the festival and their permaculture project with a series of fundraisers. 

The duo also keeps the world abreast of their movements with a zine and a Wordpress blog. 

Most of the contributors/attendees/interested parties are young people from Glasgow and Edinburg. Though "nearby" they are still a distance from Egilsay as far as the distance between Chicago to Washington D.C. It can take a full day to reach this outpost via public transit. 

(clockwise from above left:) A polytunnel habitat. Reclaimed windows make a shelter for beans. The backseat of an abandoned vehicle becomes a bed for lettuce.

The bookshelf at the Edible Eglisay reflects the tenants interests. I read a pamphlet on why restaurants should be abolished and browse several books on growing one’s own produce.

When the sun is rising, rain begins to fall.  Rain and wind are near constants on these islands.

It is a myth that there are no trees in the Orkneys, but there are mostly grasses and brush. 

Where there are trees, they are low to the ground, swept back dramatically by the fierce winds. Only the cliffs and hills blunt the elements.

But the views are lovely. There is nothing quite like wandering the seaweed strewn shoreline with sandfleas nipping at your feet collecting shells in the full daylight of 4 am. 

Even in May, it is very cold, so we have a coal fire in the bunkhouse.

Alice fixes the coal fire!

The food is delicious. We take turns making meals. On the morning I'm preparing to leave, Alice makes up a huge steaming plate of wildcrafted mushrooms, potatoes and red cabbage as I write her a testimonial.

Your's Truly enjoying breakfast at Edible Egilsay.

Gardening starts every year around April 1, continues steadily until July, and then occurs periodically through the end of November. 

If you are looking for a place to hide out for a while and work hard, this is an unbelievable location with a supportive, "pitch-in" crew.

A 5 pound per night donation is advised. You can write the gang at edibleegilsay@hotmail.co.uk. 

Mindo, Ecuador Bird Watching Adventure

A kingfisher in Mindo, Ecuador

The ground is colder than the air. There are long pauses between cricket hisses and frog groans. The cloud forest is waking up.

The van is late leaving and our group will have to hike fast if we are going to catch a glimpse of the elusive Andean cock-of-the-rock.

We find the way to the lookout shelter in the dark using phone lights and the red-eye polarizers on our cameras.

The pre-dawn path to the birding shelter has us knee deep in mud!

Julia Patino, our guide, teases us, “Didn’t anyone tell you to bring your torches?”

For a half-hour we trudge through mud and then we wait.

The Andean cock-of-the-rock is shy, rarely perched “in the open.” If we are lucky we will see a hint of bright red plumage.

Patino initiates some bird calls, then names the birds that respond. This technique is called pishing.  Her calls are remarkably effective.

She sets up a sight for us, predicting where the birds will land and how they will move or react next.

Over the course of three hours, we see parrots, toucans, and a broad variety of taningers. We see velvet coronets, and rufous motmots, and a golden headed quetzal.

And we see our Andean cock-of-the-rock. Three of them, in fact!

Birding is big business in Ecuador. In the tourist town of Mindo alone there are three full time birding operations featuring multiple guides with gaggles of letters behind their names.

Julia is independent and has been working in the region for over a decade. She knows all the sweet spots:  not just in the sanctuaries, but on random hillsides and highways.

Our group sitting down after birding to relax and share impressions.

When we break for an early lunch, I’ve improved my life list by nearly 30 species. 

Now that’s what I call a Big Day!