• Dedication to     Ancel Keys  • Introduction  • Overview  • Yugoslavia  • Italy  • Greece     - Corfu     - Thermidion  • Finland  • Netherlands  • U.S.A.  • Japan  • Addendum

September 2 : Thermidion

Mohacek and I took off by car at 3:30 p.m., driving north to the sea through Avdou, a valley lush with vines, olives, and gardens, and spring-filled streams. We then climbed to the plateau of Thermidion. The plateau is now accessible by a good road, but we took the old road up the western flank where the final pass is dominated by ruins of huge windmills once used for milling grain. At the crest, however, the entire plateau opened before us, and, like an immense field of daisies in bloom, 20,000 windmills irrigating orange groves turned lazily in the slanting yellow light of late afternoon!

Villages around the periphery of the plateau are connected by crisscrossing trails. Seemingly prosperous, happy peasants dwell in this world apart. It is too bad we are not studying heart disease in this stable community, with its rich heritage, good crops, and long isolation. There should be enough hillside villages around the world to compare fitness in places where people must daily climb hundreds of stairs, compared to plains dwellers. On foot, we scrambled up a hill and explored deep into the "Grotto of Zeus" by candlelight, a cold, damp, unremarkable cave except for the pleasant view of light reflecting on wet green moss.

Crete is a grand island, from the yellow dust of the southern coast, to the palm forest of the east, through the shaded oases in the northern valleys and the miles of mountain carriageways. Potentially, it is as prosperous as California, favored by sea, sun, and just enough water and soil. It cradled the elegant Minoan culture of old, the civilization that disappeared overnight, presumably due to the eruption of the volcanic Thera.

In this season, as the parching of summer stretches into fall and the grapes are harvested, the land has turned from a green carpet to a beige caldron. On the Libyan Coast the dust swirls around our feet in eddies like turbulence in a mud-bottomed lake. There has been no rain for months. A three-year old child drives a blindfold mule in a circular path, raising well water for irrigating vineyards. An adolescent girl rides a donkey side-saddle in a circle, knitting unconcernedly, lifting water from another well for vegetable gardens. There is a great peace, still, in this ancient land.

Despite my lack of knowledge of the language or culture, I feel a deep affection for Crete. Some day, I hope that my children will gambol about these hills. It is satisfying to have a firm friend on the island, in the noble figure of George Arniotakis Aracondis.

Samaria: Eighth Wonder of the World
September 7

My major responsibilities to the Crete third round survey completed, I invited Noboru Kimura to join me for adventures on the western end of Crete. I wanted to climb Mount Ihda, the mystical mountain that figures in Greek mythology. Was it another home of Zeus? Was it the launching point for Icarus on his fateful flight? I don't recall. I was determined, nevertheless, to climb that mountain. For some years, I had also wanted to see what the Cretans call the eighth wonder of the world - the fabulous Gorge of Samaria. Noboru was ready to commit the several days needed for this expedition. We took off toward the sunset in a rented VW Beetle.

I am forty five and Noboru close to sixty. We are both in reasonably good shape, but not what you would call "in training" for our hurried weekend expedition to the highest and lowest points of the island of Crete!

Despite multiple maps, we never found a trail up Mt. Ihda; we simply barged directly up its flanks. Even though we had high-top hiking boots, it would be hard to imagine a less pleasant hiking experience, stepping from one sharp crystalline limestone boulder to the next, brushing vicious brambles each step, mercilessly beaten by the Aegean sun. We had cleverly chosen high noon to start our scramble amongst the Cretan Alps!

Even the summit of Mt. Ihda was elusive. It was difficult to tell whether one ridge dominated another and whether we had actually reached the top. With walking sticks stuck into the rocks and decorated with our caps, we took multiple documentary pictures, as if we had reached an important summit.

The light clouds, afternoon shadows, and long swigs from our canteens gave us energy for the trip down. In the Beetle, we took a long, winding route into the mountains of western Crete as the shadows lengthened. The chalet at Omalos, near the head of the gorge, was a welcome sight. So were the beer and simple fare we downed before retiring.

September 8

Over breakfast this morning we were regaled with the lore of the Samaria Gorge by the chalet keeper who read to us epic Greek poems about the people of the gorge, the Sfakions. They dwelt in villages along the Libyan coast, and for centuries, their principal access to the northern coast was directly up the gorge. Historically, they were apparently a ferocious race of Cretans, keeping largely to their own affairs, fishing and farming along the coast, hunting in the gorge, living in isolation from the rest of the island's commerce and culture. Their epic poems had to do with hostile tribes to the north - how they would plan their attacks, estimating the weather and then slipping up the gorge by moonless night. It's an eighteen-kilometer hike from the Libyan shores to the head of the gorge. The Sfakions always struck unexpectedly, avenging the putative wrongs done them, then stealing back through the gorge. Their forays were timed to occur before a major storm, so that, when followed by vengeful warriors, their pursuers would be caught in flash floods at the point where the gorge narrows to two and three meters, the Iron Gates.

These spine-chilling stories from an ancient past were reenacted during World War II, in a daring raid similarly planned and executed against an entire company of German parachute troops in their barracks near Omalos. The Germans were slaughtered to the man by the Sfakions, who then escaped down the gorge. The raiders were well-hidden and dispersed before other German troops could take the long detour around to the southern coast and search for them with boats and patrols.

Nobu and I got an early start today down the gorge, first in Alpine country along pleasant trails and wooden steps (Xyloskalon). Down we hiked, each step against the hard limestone trail resounding in our ankles, knees, and hip sockets. We used muscles that are almost never conditioned - the going-down muscles of mountaineering.

The gorge narrowed progressively and the craggy cliffs obstructed more and more light as we descended the canyon. At the halfway point, the gorge abruptly widens to a pleasant meadow at the abandoned village of Samaria and its Venetian church of Santa Maria dating from 1379. There, we encountered the only two living beings of the entire trek. We had been warned not to fraternize with any locals we met, but a gregarious Japanese and American could not avoid waving at the bee-keepers.

They gave not the slightest response to our gesture. Clearly, we were unwelcome invaders.

For the rest of the course, we were in and out of the stream, in and out of delicious pools of clear, cool water, drinking and bathing and soothing tremulous muscles and burning feet.

Then again, down and down, crossing the stream on boulders to find paths always on the opposite side. The boulders became ever larger and smoother from centuries of rushing torrents. The canyon became ever narrower, its walls menacing on each side.

Down the way we could see it narrow to the eye of a needle at the "Iron Gate" (Sideroportes). Passing through the gate, the canyon walls again opened up and we scrambled over tumultuous boulder fields the last few kilometers to Ayla Roumeli, a deserted village on the site of an ancient Temple of Apollo.

We fairly skipped with joy at the end of this long, hot, and pounding march. There on the beach was the little white hut we had heard about, with its lovely vine-covered lattice. We found relief in tall mugs of beer, hot soup, bread, and olive and feta salad. We were the only hikers of the day and the innkeeper had no idea if or when a boat would come along the coast to take us to Khora Sfakion where we might expect to find a bus back to Xania and civilization. Somehow, we didn't worry, and lay on the shore in the late afternoon sun. Our bellies stuffed, the fatigue seeping from our limbs, we dozed, like proud lions after the kill.

Just at sunset, we heard the distant putt-putt of a fishing boat rounding the point. Its captain responded to our vigorous hailings from the beach. The drachma note we waved as he pulled ashore seemed to bear the appropriate denomination and, with no other formality, we waved adieu to the innkeeper up the beach and were off around the coast to Khora Sfakion.

September 9

Today we traveled by bus through Xania, back to the chalet at Omalos and our VW Beetle. By this time, Kimura and I were firm friends, having had adventures, and suffered, and celebrated together.

Corfu, Third Round, September, 1971

During this fall's survey, our team enjoyed observing the Corfu olive harvest. Nets were spread around the bases of the trees and a young lad climbed to their tops to shake down the fruit. The crop was loaded into wagons and taken directly to the oil dealer. There, the olives were washed with well water, cold-pressed and filtered through cotton batting to remove twigs and foreign bodies. With no chemical treatment, the oil was then funneled directly into cans; the golden olive oil of Crete. I sprained my back taking a large container of it from an olive press all the way home to Minnesota.

Later, we stuffed ourselves on freshly harvested almonds, almost to the point of cyanide poisoning.

In this survey I encountered the local pride of a Corfu taxi driver who claimed that Spiro Agnew was a Corfuote (the driver's name, too, was Spiro). He avowed that America must be the most wonderful land in the world to have a Corfuote as its Vice President! This occurred some time before the ignominious fall of Mr. Agnew, and then, of his President, Nixon.

Glyfada in those days was a largely "undiscovered" beach on the west central coast of Corfu, reached by a steep rocky road. During breaks in the survey, I kept my journal there, played saxophone, and grew a new beard while staying at a primitive beachside inn.

The Corfu survey operation went so smoothly that my journal became largely travelogue.

Conclusions
	The Seven Countries Study findings in the Greek islands have had a profound influence on research and thinking in cardiovascular disease epidemiology and on eating pattern and lifestyle approaches to prevention and health promotion. They not only confirmed the salubrious nature of the "Mediterranean Diet," but they provided a major lesson - not yet "a shot heard round the world" - that an habitual eating pattern relatively high in fats is compatible with good health, low cardiovascular and cancer risk, and substantial longevity, under the particular conditions of the Greek diet. That is: high in fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, complex carbohydrates and fibers, low in saturated fatty acid intake, and high in olive oil. Moreover, the study's findings in Greece have profoundly influenced our understanding of the physiologic and health effects of monounsaturated fatty acids and olive oil. They have significantly altered the course of nutrition research in the United States and internationally. Many details remain to be worked out, including the overall risk of high total fat and high energy intake versus output in relation to cancer risk. The Greek studies have also made special contributions to understanding the effects of mass change in population risk characteristics and their predictive importance. The data on trends may contribute to explanations of the rapid acceleration in cardiovascular disease deaths reported recently in WHO statistics for Greece.