A Walkers' Paradise... OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 5

You need to be in the right mood to walk. Sometimes it takes time, and your initial steps can feel like nothing so much as an incovenience, something to be tolerated along the same lines as going to the gym. At times like these, the destination dominates as the only end: the cessation of all unwanted exhertion.

In contrast, when you do find yourself in the right state of mind - and let's face it, it is not a mood that is easily cultivated - the end is at all times immanent; present and perpetually fulfilled with every step. Possessed of this awareness, one needs no encouragement to keep going for to do so is constantly to reach one's goal.

Something similar can be said of the difference between a good and a bad book: the feeling: 'I've started it so I must try to finish it even though it feels like I'm dragging my eyes through treacle" or :"I'm so caught up in this book I wouldn't notice even if my pyjamas went on fire." So it was with my walks on Alonissos. From that first night when I arrived back late to my tent, a little tipsy, but a lot satisfied, right up until I when left the island ten days later, I hardly stopped walking. However, this was not only on account of my mood.

Alonissos is a walker's paradise.

This term is often overused, especially in relation to the islands; but let me tell you why I believe it to be particulary apt in this case.

Alonissos is covered in pines. This, as I have explained in earlier posts, I found a little discomforting at first as such verdure didn't seem to lend itself to the wilderness landscapes of the cyclades. However, very shortly after beginning walking that first evening, I understood that the pines dramatically enhanced one's experience of the landscape by appealing to the full range of one's senses. Not only could you appreciate their colour, or the texture they lent to the more distant slopes, but at all times you were surrounded by their heady resinous sent and the crackling cacophonous din of a million hot cicadas. For me, the impression resulting from all this stimulation was of being constantly aware of the environment. I no longer had the opportunity to get distracted by the vestiges of my work-a-day preoccupations; nothing could compete with the imminence of such a landscape.

The geography of the island too makes it an alluring walkers location. Lying just off the mainland coast, the last in a chain of three major islands and surrounded my smaller satellite isles, the coastal views, depending on where you are positioned on the island, can consist of either the distant peaks of Evia, the low lying forested flanks of Skopelos or Peristera, or various scattered isles whose darker forms against the light blue sea seem often to describe a 'hat' or 'a wedge of cheese'. Indeed, keeping track of these little isles as I moved between kopses of pines, or in and out of olive groves, was to prove an entertaining means of estimating my progress.

On dry land too the geography proved most interesting, particularly with reference to the numerous narrow inlets and bays, most notably at Steni Vala, that form a feature of the coastline and provided the happy walker with frequent opportunities to cool their feet in a clear calm sea. Further inland, Alonissos cannot rank among the most mountainous of islands: the highest peak rises to just under 500 metres and, with the exception of some coastal cliffs on the western side, there are few rugged slopes to attract those who like to mix their walking with a little clambering. However, like the rest of Greece, Alonissos is definitely hilly and presents in its more extreme contours 'a damn good challenge'.

Typical narrow inlet found on Alonissos' coastline (taken from Hora)


As for flora and fauna, I saw precious little of the former - it being the middle of one of the hottest and driest summers of recent times - but I am told that as with most of Greece, Spring, and to a lesser extent the first rains of Autumn, see the island awash with wild flowers. What I did see in the way of flora however was a wide variety of wild herbs and particularly, lush sprigs of wild sage.

Wild sage growing next to the road side (I used to chew this on my walks for a bit of extra zing!)

As for the wildlife, the island is famous for its marine park and certainly it is not altogether uncommon to see dolphins and monk seals in the quieter waters of the north coast. On the mountains, on the other hand, the big attraction here as with other locations on the Aegean, is the rare Eleonora's falcon. For my part, I didn't encounter any of these exotic species but did have the good fortune to be tracked by two circling birds of prey for almost an hour whilst descending through thick pines en route to Tsoukalia. It seems from their intermittent shrieks and dogged pursuit of their quarry that I had unwittingly intruded onto their patch.

Walking-wise, Alonissos does have a lot going for it; but perhaps its greatest asset in this area is an extensive network of well marked and well maintained paths. Unlike other so called "walkers' paradises", there is no secret about how to gain access to and exploit the landscape of Alonissos ... far from it.

Before I left Germany, I had found, after the briefest of internet searches, this site on walking in the Aegean and the writers' Alonissos pages:

http://www.foxysislandwalks.com/AlonissosMain.htm

As you can see, the writers are themselves enthusiastic walkers, with a great eye for detail, and have created in these pages a superb guide to the best walks on the island (with one notable exception, of which more hereafter). And as if this wasn't enough, long term residents Bente Keller and her husband Elias Tsoukana have seen to it that the islands beauties are accessible to anyone possessed of 11 euros, a sense of adventure and the ability to read a simple map with their excellent guide book "Walking on Alonissos: A walking and swimming guide."

http://www.bentekeller.gr/en/gen.htm

All things told, with the time, the energy, the inclination and the resources, one could do far worse than to opt for a walking holiday on Alonissos. And this was just the fortunate situation I had found myself in as I left my tent early on that first morning with a bag packed for a days walking.

Not just an island, but a state of mind... OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 4

I have, through experience, come round to the opinion that the best time to arrive at one's destination is in the early evening: such are the demands of travelling that one is more often than not in need of 'a nice lie down' at the end of it all; on the other hand, such is the excitement of having a new environment to explore that it is equally nice to do some low key wandering when one arrives, if only to nose about and get one's bearings. An early evening arrival time accommodates both of these needs, whilst, one might feel, simultaneously revealing one's new home in the kind, calm colours of an early dusk.

For my part, I arrived at the campsite on Alonissos in the early afternoon, and so, it seemed, was stuck with more time than energy until the close of this long, long day. But, as fortune would have it, I was about to waste some time... spectacularly.

When I eventually got my tent up, and had secured it fastly at each of the four corners by stringing up the frame to heavy rocks, and when I had at last located and unpacked such necessities as toiletries, inflatable mattresses, torches, candles, sleeping bag, psatha, wine, etc. and made myself thoroughly comfortable by dragging substantial logs and boulders over to my little patch to serve as ersatz tables, chairs and shelves, only when I had organised my pitch entirely to my satisfaction did I decide that I didn't like this spot after all and that I should move lock, stock and barrel to a quieter spot some fifty metres or so away in the corner of the campsite next to the perimeter fence.

Such comic indecision, I'm sure you'll agree, is a prime symptom of the stress of modern life. Yes, I was finally out underneath vast scented pines, within a 2 minute amble of the sea, with the sun and the breeze on my skin, and with no one to answer to but myself for the next five weeks... but, there is a certain knack to relaxing, and I was still too used to running about with a 'to do list' in my head that I just hadn't got it yet; in short, I needed a little more time to adjust.

All this I recognised in myself only too well, and so, facing the unenviable chore of relocating with knowing self-mockery, I made a little drama out of a crisis and diverted myself for another hour... or so.

The tent finally up, the mattress inflated, stones and logs arranged into ersatz furniture, and a string strung twixt adjacent pines to serve as a clothes line (the ultimate 'territorial pissing'), my final resting place looked like this:


Or this, taken from some ways behind:


As you can see, the campsite near Patitiri has in abundance that most precious of resources: shade. Indeed, I could, reasonably comfortably, snooze away until ten o'clockish without being boiled alive... as is usually the case. However, what really made it for me was that it was quiet.

In the second photo you might just be able to make out the nearest tent to mine away in the distance (they, incidentally, were really lucky, as not only did they find the most private of pitches, they could also see the sea). It was high season on the islands and this site was easily big enough to accommodate those curious and clued up campers who, like me, had made the crossing. Not only this, but attracting the curious and the clued up, it was also possessed of a wonderfully laid back atmosphere, the kind of place where you could pass your whole visit either in monastic silence or in mingling with fellow campers in the open-air communal kitchen area.

The facilities, admittedly, were basic, but no more so than is standard where it really mattered: the showers, were clean, with a decent water pressure, and had hot running water at the peak post beach period of around 5pm; the toilet block, though mostly equipped with "Turkish toilets", as the Greeks call these holes in the ground, were new; likewise the outdoor cooking area where there were plenty of fridges, sinks, bins and electrical sockets to cater for all. A nice little touch here, I thought, was a communal cool water tap in which spring water was chilled to an impressive extent - ideal for quenching your thirst on arriving home after a baking days walking.

If the Patitiri campsite can be faulted, however, it would be by more discerning residents who would notice and mind the fact that it is located about fifteen minutes walk from Patitiri proper up a fairly steep but asphalted road (a short cut exists through the pines which is really beautiful); or that it has no shop, nor sandy beach. But if you want to experience the peace and quiet of the outdoors, and prefer to string together your swimming opportunities in a days walking, then this might well be for you.

So, there I was, all organised and this time with about three hours till sundown... so what shall I do now?

Like I said, I wasn't used to being on holiday yet and still felt that I needed to be worthily engaged in pursuing some end. Now that I was finally settled with no boats to catch, nor tents to put up, now that I could simply sit outside my tent in the early evening sunlight, I felt kind of... aimless. I fiddled with the array of distractions I had brought with me for just such moments: my ipod, the binoculars, newspapers, my fishing rod, books, diaries, radios... nothing seemed to do the trick and give me that precious sensation of involvement that I desperately needed...

There were three hours till sunset when I left my tent, a little bottle of retsina tucked under my arm, bound to eat up as much time as I could on the beach. Instead, I arrived back at my tent with the last rays of daylight fading from the sky, an empty bottle dangling from my fingers, and a look of quiet satisfaction of my lips having walked a good ten kilometres or so round the South coast of the island.

For the next ten days, I forgot my array of distractions, I didn't need them. All I needed was to walk.