The beach with Taverna in middle
The inhabitants of the caves, on right I think is the visiting english writer
I recently heard on the radio a reference to the Canadian folk singer Joni Mitchell’s experiences with the Matala hippies who I gathered had “immortalised” in her 1971 song Carey. having never heard of the song or knowing little of Ms. Mitchell I wondered if I was anything to do with the hippy connection. I was there in 1966 so thought I would put down my memories, which are far from complete, but this is what I have so far been able to piece together.
I had crossed the island from Heraklion. I had a copy of Arthur Miller’s ‘Colossus of Marousi’ with me, and so wanted to visit Agia Triada the Cretan archaeological site mentioned in that book. I didn’t get there to late in the afternoon so the custodian told me of nearby Matala where I would be able to stay for the night.
It was winter so perhaps in summer there would have been more visitors but when I arrived, there were about 14 people at the most: 2 right wing Germans, one more extreme that the other, who had come to re-live their Zorba the Greek moments (when on the north of the island I had met people who had got bit parts in the film); a couple of lads from the east end of London who were the only ones I remember smoking; and I seem to remember a couple of Danes; the rest were from America, and of those 4 or 5 were very middle class Jewish teenagers somehow on their way to Israel. I remember Matala consisting of maybe 8 small houses but the photos I took at the time tell of many more, maybe 30 house clustered along the beach and at the south end of the bay.
The Germans had rented a room up the hill to the South of the bay, separate from the caves. I do remember walking up to where they stayed but otherwise have no recollection of exploring the village. Our evening haunt was a rudimentary bar near the beach run by a wily old man, who I learnt last year had only died 3 years ago. This knowledge came from an accidental encounter with a greek selling olive oil in Leeds, who owns olive groves a few kilometres from Matala, and whose family’s oil I purchased when in Matala all those years ago.
In the summer the old man would put some tables outside. Inside, the hut had an earthen floor where we clustered around his stove whilst he would cook potato omelettes, pungent with the very coarse local oil, or occasionally fry some fish. We could drink Raki, coffee and wine when he had some.
The Americans were obsessed by hygiene. Eating an orange the juice squirted onto the rock and the girl scuttled into the cave in order to get some disinfectant. Travelling light with a rucksack and a bottle of disinfectant!
I arrived knowing of hippies, were these the hippies of Matala? or did that happen later on? for my part I had little empathy with most of them, and they little with me. One who was more interesting was somewhat older. He had set out around europe to spend his time writing his great american novel. His journey had not treated him well. He had started with cases of books and luggage but was now down to a typewriter. I read some sections of the manuscript describing his time as a clown on a side show at a fair ground, you threw wet bundles of cloth at him or maybe it was balls and he ended up in water.
I slept in one of the caves and had little connection with the americans but did get to know some Scandinavians, one of who I would eventually leave with and go round the coast to Agia Galini to stay with an english writer who had briefly passed through Matala. It must have been after this that I moved to the airfield at Timbaki.
Here is a link to a 1968 article in Life magazine that may have cemented the Matala myth
http://www.elzosmid.nl/matala/1.html
