new photos

I love to write but not tonight.
Linked below are a few new photos. My friends took me on one of the trails outside of town, unmaintained but surprisingly well-marked. We were looking for a monastery which we didn’t find. We did see some caves in the cliffs, where monks used to go to pray. Now, it’s one of the two nesting grounds in the country for vultures. We asked a shepherd for directions and we wound up in a neighboring village, where my friend Dimi’s godparents live. They had just slaughtered a cow and a handful of people were making a jolly Saturday’s work out of hacking it up.
I didn’t photograph the butchering, since it felt more like just meeting some new folks than having a ‘cultural experience’ to share with an American audience. Later, I wished I’d thought to take a picture of the curlicued wad of entrails hanging from the clothesline, dripping blood into a pot of purple chrysanthemums below.