Decades ago, at university, I had to demonstrate linguistic fluency in a second language in order to receive my degree. I had, at that point in my life, had instruction in Spanish, Swedish, German, French, and Arabic. We moved around a lot, living in several countries. Swedish was my strongest but was not accepted as it was a dead language, not spoken outside Sweden.
I decided on German. Not being particularly strong on languages, I had a concern about my fluency by the end of my third year of instruction. I had to pass the fluency test in senior year. I had to.
I decided, with the support of my parents, to spend summer of Junior year backpacking through Germany and Austria to immerse myself and bring myself up to an acceptable level of fluency. A both wonderful and challenging summer. And worthwhile. I passed.
But at the very tail end, I spent the last week or two on a side trip down to Greece, eventually making my way down to the island of Rhodes. Spent several days exploring that glorious island. One destination was Monolithos.
Nearby the village was the castle of Monolithos, built by the Knights of St. John in the fifteenth century. Now ruined, but never taken or sacked. Appropriate to its name (single stone), the castle is perched upon a rearing extrusion of rock standing separate from the hilly ridge line and connected solely by a narrow, narrow path a hundred feet in length, plunging on either side. From the castle ruins, you can see out into the Aegean with perhaps a 280 degree view of blue water scenes. Magical. And on every side, the sheer rock rises from a valley floor hundreds of feet below.
In addition to some ruined walls, there remains a couple of chapels, one apparently in still occasional use.
On the most outward facing side of the sheer escarpment, facing into the valley, there was a small cave in the rock face. Purportedly the prayerful refuge of a contemplative hermit some centuries ago. I managed to climb down the some fifty feet to reach the ledge of the cave and sat there an hour or so existing in the panorama, a pine-scented breeze wafting occasionally over me from the valley below.
Eventually I climbed back up to the castle and finished my explorations. I had had the entire place to myself from my arrival in the early dawn hours.
As I wound my way back to the narrow causeway to the main ridge, I was stopped by a wonderful sight. The sun had risen. Temperatures were changing. Across the chasm bridged by the path was the natural ridge line, running perpendicular to the path and rising another hundred feet. Because of a play differential temperature and pressure between the mesa at the top of the ridge and the valley far below, there was the most beautiful phenomenon occurring.
For four or five hundred feet in length, a waterfall of cloud was streaming over the ridge and falling down the slopes into the valley below. Not rain, not water, cloud. Undulating and twisting, it continued to flow for as long as I was watching, tens of thousands of cubic feet flowing vestigially in the valley.
Beautiful, miraculous, arresting. The image has stuck with me over the many years since then. I have seen something minor versions of this in the intervening years. But never so widespread, so continuing and not alone on an isolated extrusion in a distant valley all alone.
I discover this morning that the phenomenon has a name. They are Katabatic winds (κατάβασις). An example:
A rather cool demonstration of a katabatic flow creating an impressive fog waterfall (cliffs of Látrabjarg in Iceland, 2015) https://t.co/oZnUKg5Ked [more about katabatic winds: https://t.co/vJH12zlLeS] pic.twitter.com/imc13Ostjn
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 21, 2020
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