A few mornings later, Alekos was passing by in his clapped-out car and told me he was delivering some building materials to Amolohos. Later in the week he would be doing some work there. Would I like to come with him and check out farmhouses with long roofs? A friend of his lived in one.

So, I got into the only available space available - the front passenger seat - and off we clanked.
Amolohos lies in the deep North of the island, high up in the interior. Even when the rest of Andros is sunny, it is often misty. Amolohos was known on Andros for its spring, which was said by some to have healing powers. I wasn't in search of a cure, except perhaps for my wanderlust, but I was curious to see a part of the island which I had never been to.
We drove up the road and along past the top of Fellos. The last house in the village here had a long roof and was probably once used for sericulture. We stopped the car briefly to have a look at it, but I was more impressed by the view, looking out over the valley of Fellos all the way down to the distant sea. It made you giddy at this height.
Then we drove on, over the moors. Unknown terriotry lay between Fellos and Amolohos. Water between Andros and Evvia churned ahead in the distance. Evvia's 'blue' mountains rose from the straits, adding to the views craggy beauty. On Andros itself, moors were spattered with heather and breathed the savage air of remoteness. Taking a cue from Euripides' play The Bacchae , you could imagine the Maenads rushing across this area chasing after a lynx, and, in their Dionysus-inspired ecstasy, catching the lynx and tearing it to bits with their bare hands.
Andros was one the islands of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, madness, and drama in Classical Greece. Naxos, the other big Cycladic island, also had a claim to that, and is far better-known. Naxos has a better myth. The Athenian hero- and later King - Theseus, after killing the Minotaur escaped the Cretan labyrinth with the help of Ariadne, the Princess of Crete. They set sail and stopped at Naxos. The heartless Athenian deserted Ariadne on the island. The Cretan princess was left to deal with her heartbreak as best as she could; but then Dionysus, looking out over his island, 'took pity' on her and whisked her off to godlike connubial bliss.
Andros does not have such a good legend; the best it can come up with, though, is impressive for wine-lovers. One of the rivers on Andros turned into wine once a year. What a day (and night?) that must have been! This spring is not likely to be at Amolohos; it's probably in the Southern part of the island at Menites.
It is perhaps ironical that one of the Dionysian islands should today produce very little wine, but perhaps the spirit of Dionysus lurks on the moors or in valleys in the Centre and South of the island, where local superstition says that falling asleep under a tree at mid-day is dangerous, because you leave yourself open to the spirits and their dance of madness.
We drove across these Dionysian moors and climbed higher and higher, until we left the wildness behind and came into a dip in the mountains. Here, true to form shrouded in mist, was Amolohos.
Amolohos was in a striking setting, with tumbling terraces, mulberry trees, and groves. However, it was just another scattered village with farmhouses, many of which were empty or even derelict because of emigration. But the spring there had some of the clearest, sweetest water on the island.
Then Alekos dropped off his building materials, and took me to meet his friend. He sat us down at the table while his wife put glika - traditional Greek sweets - in front of us and made us all a strong cup of coffee. He told us that this house had once been owned by a family with a strong tradition in sericulture, but silk had declined. Products like lemons and oranges, the famous mineral water Sariza, not to mention shipowning, working on ships and emigratio had all ensured that the silkworm had long since vanished from these valleys.
I wanted to know if there was any harlotry and skullduggery in the story of Andros silk, and the man laughed. "Even if silk is romantic, sericulture - and even the weaving of silk - is very mundane. You have to leave skullduggery to the novellists and film makers. But you never know. There might be."
And so we drove back, through the moors, looking angry now as the once clear day was now brooding between sun and rain, and Alekos dropped me off.