Louis the Local

One of the best parts of travelling is meeting new people.  There are always those who stand out more than the others.  There was one local who lived in Valira who especially stood out, Louis.  He started chatting with us in the town square our first couple of days in Valira while we were having coffee at the Agora cafe.  Turns out he has spent a lot of time in Canada, himself, having lived there to go to university and work back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  His brother still lives in Toronto to this day.

Louis took us under his wing instantly.  After our first conversation, he asked us to wait, he’d be back.  He ran home and came back with a bag full of gifts to welcome us to Valira.  He had his own homegrown kalamata olives, olive oil from his trees, dried oregano, dried grapes (basically like raisins, but so much sweeter and more full of flavour than any I’ve ever had before!), a cute copper pot, fresh feta cheese, and an information book.  It was all so amazing!  The girls and I particularly loved pulling the dried oregano off the stems and crushing it up together.  It was a surprisingly calming and relaxing activity.

Being a small town, he knew exactly where the only Airbnb accommodations in Valira were located.  One evening a few days later, he showed up at our house with a hat for Jon full of more gifts of fresh fruits and an invitation to come join him to learn how to milk sheep.  We didn’t have much going on that evening, though I did have to cut a work call with Jason short so we could head out on a random adventure.

Off we went, following him first to his house where he handed me half a watermelon and a knife, the purposes of which I was unclear.  I put them in our car and we followed him to a small family farm, but alas the sheep were not there.  They were out with his cousin, roaming somewhere. 

We left with him and went on a small road trip for an hour, exploring a few things along the way.  He took us to a monastery in the mountains, to an outlet in the mountains where we could try drinking the fresh flowing spring water, to a small town overlooking Ancient Messini, to some Roman ruins, and to an orange grove to pick our own oranges. 

We made our way back to the farm 1.5 hours later, but the sheep hadn’t returned yet.  No worries, I had the watermelon, which Louis had me pull out so we could slice it up and eat it while we waited.  He also taught Jon how to prune olive trees and showed us around the grove where some of the trees are 400 years old!  He confirmed my suspicions that these trees were the ones that our olives and olive oil came from.

After a half hour or so, we decided to abandon the hope of learning to milk a sheep and headed back home to get some dinner.  We had been on an almost 2.5-hour adventure and it was 8:30 pm.  The kids were getting hungry and were ready to turn hangry if we didn’t get them fed soon.  We thanked Louis profusely and made our way home with plans to return another time.

We did run into Louis in the town a few times to chat and managed to show our appreciation for him with a few baked treats we made and homemade craft gifts from the girls, which we dropped off at his house for him a couple of times.

There was one other extremely memorable event with Louis for us.  We had been out exploring and were returning home.  We stopped at the grocers to grab a couple of last-minute items and Jon ran into Louis.  He insisted that we come over straight away for a BBQ at his house.  It was early afternoon and we were headed home to make some lunch anyway, so we thought why not?  We headed home to drop off our items, grab a few food items and some drinks to contribute to lunch, and headed straight over.

We spent all day there, chatting, enjoying food and way too much alcohol, and enjoying some serious entertainment with the BBQing.  Their version of a traditional Greek BBQ is a little different from our BBQs back home!  He had an open trough that he filled with wood from across the street, which we all worked together to carry over to his yard. 

We filled the trough and he hung a mesh net above from the deck, trees, and fence posts before lighting the BBQ.  I told Jon I didn’t see this going well, and it wasn’t long until the mesh net began to melt and catch fire.  The men moved the BBQ to the side, and again I told Jon I didn’t see this going well.  It wasn’t long before the tree began to overheat and catch fire.  Louis stood at the ready with a hose, spraying the tree, the deck around him, himself, and the fire to keep things under control.  It was quite the process!  Louis told us that, “BBQing is dangerous work, especially at night when you’re drinking”.  It wasn’t night, and we weren’t yet drinking, but I couldn’t agree more!

We ended up staying there all day, chatting and enjoying ourselves before we decided it was time to head home sometime mid-evening.  Periodically through the day, Louis would dash off into town, leaving us to relax in his home like old friends.  We love how high trust this area is.  It’s nice to know there are areas full of kindness and goodness still, where crime is non-existent.

Louis is such an amazing and welcoming man and was the best part of our time down in the Valira area by far!  We will never forget him and hope to see him again in our future travels!  Our only regret is that by leaving Valira a week early, we missed out on the next BBQ event we were supposed to go to at his home the day after we left.  We never did make it back to the sheep farm, either.  Maybe one day!  And Louis, if by chance you ever find this blog, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for everything!