The Pearl Factory

Four things I have learned

2011-05-28T01:44:00.000-07:00

Be positive and outgoing, other people are what is important in life so listen more than you speak and always be curious.

Don't try to control things too much, especially if they are running against you. Do what you can then change your focus and work on something that gives you pleasure.

Always have something you can look forward to, but remember too that the secret of a more lasting happiness is to get lost in the rhythms of a life lived rather than expected.

And when it comes to truth, what is true is only what is useful to you. So embrace difference and never let your philosophy harden into dogma.

The 3.64 kilo backpack?

2010-08-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

So my summer adventures have impressed upon me the fact that I could go lighter and, in fact, significant lighter. Here is what is on my mind.

My bag is too big. I have never really come close to filling it completely. The SMD Starlite backpack has a capacity of 67 litres and I have a feeling I only need about half of this.

I also feel it may be time to experiment with a closed cell foam sleeping pad. At the moment, my small Thermarest Prolite Plus is comfy, but I seem to sleep so soundly whilst on the trail that I'm would like to try a non-inflatable alternative.

I really like my SMD lunar solo, but technology seems to have moved on. Sil-nylon is no longer the first choice for ultralight tarps as other materials such as Cuban Fiber and Spinnaker now provide a lighter alternative.

So, what are the alternatives to these big three?

Well, the American company Gossamer Gear has really caught my eye. Not only do they make seriously innovative gear based upon the multi-use principle of ultralight backpacking, but their customers also seem to emphasise the high quality and workmanship that goes into their products. And, most importantly, they make really light-weight kit.

At the moment, I am considering replacing my current bag, sleeping mat and shelter with the following.

Bag: Gossamer Gear 'Miniposa Backpack': 410 g

Mat: Gossamer Gear 'Night Light Torso': 100 g

Shelter: Gossamer Gear 'The One': 550 g

This would make for a total weight saving over my current set up of 1 kilo and 60 grams bringing my total base weight down to 3 kilos 640 grams...

This seems incredible I know, but I am so very curious to find out what a 3.64 kilo pack feels like, and more importantly how it performs, that I am seriously considering shedding out for these three items. The cost?.. Well, you can see on the Gossamer Gear website. But let's just say here that you would have to have a real passion for the fast and light philosophy to ahead with the purchase. At the moment, I can't seem to think about anything else but lightening up, but how will I feel in a couple of weeks?

The Storm Runner, or How I Ended up Spending the Night in a Swiss Mountain Tee-Pee

2010-08-27T11:22:00.000-07:00

OK, so it's 7 pm and the end of another long day's walking and we're in Switzerland. I have just walked across a lonely and level plain studded with silver lakes and snow fields and am approaching a 2,900 m ridge between two mountains... We are about to slide into the best time of day when the quality of the sunlight, so glorious today, softens and takes on the gentler hues of rosy golds and pinks.

But I am a little apprehensive and walking fast, much faster than I would normally for such a long day. The ridge is still quite far away and I need to get over and down onto the other side before dusk sets in. I am tired, but bouyed up by the beauty of the landscape and the thought of spending the coming night in the cool silence of high altitude.

I hit the ridge after a long switchback hike up the slope and a new vista suddenly opens up. New mountains to find on the map, different contours and glaciers and onward valleys; and a chance to survey the land immediately below: another lonely level plain but this time peppered with sheep. It is still up here, the wind lazily footers about among the few blades of grass poking through the rocks before petering out in the triumph of silence.

I descend to the plain and scout out a place to pitch my tent, some place level, somewhat raised and sheltered. Before long I find a spot next to a small lake which, though a little exposed, is so picturesque that I cannot resist it. I pitch, eat a ravenous meal of bread, cheese and sausage washed down with some schnapps, and lie back on my mat to savour the exquisite views of the nearby snow capped mountains and the sweet aching pain of my feet.

The first thing I noticed was the wind... it must have been slowly gaining in strength all the time I was eating but only now did I realise it was no longer the still, warm evening it had been on the summit of the ridge. A pang of anxiety as I recall the warning of storms down in the valley that afternoon... I try to put it out of my head and enjoy the sound of the wind playing merry havoc with the fabric of my tent, try to recall similar evenings on Greek islands when the furious meltemi wind was at full pelt, whipping up waves and driving shards of sand hard against my tent. Just make sure all lines are tight and all pegs are secure and you will be fine. I try to relax, but it is getting stronger now, intermittently mastering the fabric of the tent so totally in the duration of a short, sharp gust.

I stick my head out and look around behind me. Over on the other side of the ridge, a pack of battered clouds are gathering, mingling with the dusk to darken the sky and rob the earth of the welome colours of the evening.

My dilemma: to stay put and sit it out here in with only 700 g of sil-nylon and a hiking pole separating me from the elements? or to up sticks and descend 700 metres to the tree line and the shelter of the forest? It has already been a long day and I really couldn't face the prospect of another hour's walk, very probably under heavy rain and with lighting bolts to dodge. I lie back again, trying to convince myself that this little tent can make it. But when another gust comes, shaking the tent poles so convincingly that they rattle and bend like garden canes, I know I have to get myself out of there... and quick.

It usually takes me around twenty minutes to break camp... I do it in eight. Soon, I am bounding across the plain through the thickening wind and now spats of rain, while all the while bemused looking sheep stare on placidly, chewing the cud like it is a summer's day. I feel like laughing out loud except that I don't. Harder and more persistent rain is falling, soaking my jacket from the outside even as sweat soaks it from the inside. The rocks are slippy and twice I stumble in a way which would normally cause me to yelp, stop and hop about... but I am as in a tunnel, so chock full of adrenaline that I can only focus on sprinting among the rocks and my final destination of the tree line. How far could it be now? Two hundred? Three hundred metres? At this pace another fifteen minutes? Half an hour?

It was at this point, soaked through and lung-burst, that something huge and white loomed up before me, rain pelting down off of its smooth sloping sides.

It was a tee-pee.

I had no time to think so hurdled the fence that surrounded it and threw myself in through the front flap, slithering the last few feet into the interior on my belly.

I lie there for a moment as rain batters off the canvas then slowly raise my head from the hot, steaming, soggy mess of my folded arms.

There in the centre of the tee-pee is an ornate and ceremonial candle holder, all baroque twists of iron topped off with a glass casing containing a candle surrounded by rock crystals. Around the perimeter are about ten beds, arranged in a circle with their foot ends pointing toward the candle. All are emaculately clothed and ready, it seems, to receive their guests.

'Is this a cult dwelling?', I say out loud, unable quite to take it all in.

It truly was a surreal experience what with the thunder and lightning, the vacant looks on the faces of the sheep up on the mountain, the thought of me sprinting down and now this... Suddenly released from the grip of adrenaline I couldn't help laughing out loud.

I never did find out what that place was. I spread out my things on the floor as the rain pelted down harder onto the reassuringly thick canvas walls of the tee-pee and fell asleep. In the morning, I packed up at first light and got the hell out of there, down to the valley floor where I wandered into a hotel breakfast room, replete with gentile guests, nursing a bruised ankle, but also an insane pride hidden in the folds of my cheshire cat grin. My adventure, so new and strange, was too impossible to tell. It would need reflection, distance and a cool head to wrap the right words around it. So instead I just strutted to and from the buffet and grinned into my coffee, allowing the images to tumble past my mind's eye like rain.

My current gear list and my hikes of summer 2010

2010-08-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

I have decided to make a kind of central database of the serious hikes that I have been doing for about a year now, ever since I discovered ultralight backpacking. Most recently, I spent over five weeks in the Alps this summer doing the classic alpine walks with a base weight of under 5 kilos. Below you can find photostories and video diaries for each hike, along with the trail I took as a link to google maps. I also include my latest gear list as the equipment that accompanied me throughout the summer of 2010.

Gear List

My complete gear for summer 2010, including what I wore

Big 4 - Shelter, Sleeping Bag, Sleeping Mat and Backpack

tarptent - Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo - 770
backpack - Six Moon Designs Starlite Pack with Aluminium Stays - 870
sleeping bag - Cumulus Ultralight 200 - 640
cord - 80
8 stakes, 4 titanium, 4 aluminium - 110
Sleeping mat - thermarest prolite plus, small - 480

Total 2950 g

Clothes carried

light weight trekking socks - 45
insulating jacket / sleeping bag booster - Montbell Thermawrap Parker - 370
poncho tarp - Integral Designs Sil Poncho - 260

Total 675 g

Toiletries/Health

towel - Sea to Summit Pocket Towel Large - 140
liquid deodorant - 25
liguid soap - 50
moisturiser - 25
suncream - 80
toothbrush - 5
toothpaste - 25
earplugs - 5
paracetemol - 5
blister tape - 20

Total 380 g

Smaller Items

spork - 10
2 litre platypus - 40
silicon sealant - 40
spare memory card - 8
usb cable for camera - 15
lighter - 18
thread - 2 (needle taped to trekking pole)
pen - 5
led torch - Photon Freedom Microlight - 5
water purifiers negligible
spare bats for torch - 5
mesh carry bag - 10
Compass / Thermometer 20

Total 158 g

larger items

camera - Canon Powershot A490 185 (with batts)
2 spare camera bats 50
pocket knife 85
monocular Silva 7 x 18 45
maps 175

Total 540 g

Total Pack Weight excluding food and water

4 kilos 703 g... or 10 pounds 5.89 ounces

A typical load for food and water was:

1 kilo of water
500 g of bread
400 g cheese
500 g sausage

This would last me about a day. But everywhere you go in the Alps you can take advantage of the many mountain huts and refuges to enjoy some really nice food, mix with the locals, and keep the pack weight down.

Clothes worn (excluding Meindl Mountain Boots and Trekking Poles)

Jackwolfskin zip off light weight trekking trousers - 370
Berghaus long sleeved baselayer - 190
Lightweight trekking socks - 45
Money + Credit Cards + Passport + Keys in money belt - 120

725 g

2010 Summer Season

Aosta Valley Traverse - Five days beginning on 27th June

From Alagna Valsesia to Oyace
Photostory
Video diary
Route

Tour du Mont Blanc - Six days beginnning on 2nd of July

Anti-clockwise starting and finishing at Courmayeur
Photostory
Video diary
Route

Haute Route highlights - Four days beginning on the 9th of July

Starting at Verbier and finishing at Sankt Niklaus
Photostory
Video diary
Route

Dolomites, Rosengarten traverse - One and a half days beginning on the 14th of July

Starting at Tires and finishing at Campitello di Fassa
Photostory
Video diary
Route

Tour of Tyrol on the E5, the Tyrolean Höhenweg, the Berliner Höhenweg and the Stabeller Höhenweg - Two weeks, beginning on the 17th of July

Starting at Prutz in Austria, heading south on the E5 as far as Schneeberg, then east taking in Schlegeiss lake, Berliner Hut, Zillergrundl lake, Prettau, San Giovanni, Neves Lake and the Fundres range
Photostory
Video diary
Route

Oh Liver! - A very short story

2009-11-20T17:19:00.000-08:00

Oliver loved life.  Oliver lived life.  Oliver loved and lived according to no plan, bumbling through his days with a happy competence which all around him envied but never begrudged him.  He was endlessly open, up for anything, and rapturously affirmative of all that came his way --  good, bad or indifferent.  Oliver was young and had left school early.  He had no head for figures, letters, books himself, but was always willing to listen if not learn.  He earned his money by playing bass guitar in the popular city centre club ‘The big ‘O’’ with the up-and-coming rock band ‘One over Zero’.  The band was enjoying modest success with a sound critics had described as “an eclectic aural orgasm approaching Dionysian proportions”, and “evidence that the wah-wah pedal may be a new form of life”,.  But Oliver had no time to read the press.  After each gig Oliver’s natural good looks and easy manner would propel him effortlessly into the company of many beautiful people.  They loved him on every level, as Oliver did each and every one of them --  without exception.  As he climbed off-stage after their trade mark final song ‘If I Said This is Me, Where Would You Draw the Line?’, the body of his admirers crystallised around his presence precipitating, in that moment, the infinitude of finely honed lust which had escalated throughout the performance.  And there they were.  A thronging mass of worship with every body tightened in frantic attempts to touch the man.  As the circle tightened, jewellery clattered onto the floor; hairstyles lovingly prepared in front of bedroom mirrors for hours before the performance were flattened; painted faces were smudged and smeared as new shoes were stamped on.  Both man and woman clamoured for a part of Oliver, and he loved it.     

The ritual was the same every time. There would be drinks at the bar and a futile attempt at conversation as words shot at Oliver were lost among the sensations offered by less garrulous flunkies. Then, after pleasing each and every one of his admirers by gratefully receiving all that they could give, he beckoned them leave. Out in the city streets the entourage gambolled like lambs through the traffic. If one of the number fell - as was so often the case - Oliver was the first to stop and lend his hand. His unbridled hedonistic drive somehow fortuitously linked to humility, he led the party on.

It happened to be Zoe’s flat that night and the party was already in full swing. Someone had monopolised the stereo with one of the few bootleg copies of ‘One over Zero’s’ embryonic studio tracks. Sound raged and filled the room; faces were ripped apart by smiles.

In a far corner, the lead guitarist was attempting to engage a semi-nude female in conversation. She was daubed from head to foot in green food dye and had arranged sprigs of foliage apparently at random around her scant attire. It struck the guitarist that she closely resembled a classical nymph. This interested him greatly and he was earnestly awaiting an opportunity to inquire whether she had consciously cultivated this image. But there was something about her demeanour which had as yet precluded him from asking. She had barely said a word to him since he had somewhat nervously sauntered over and had singularly failed to look him in the eye. Eventually he dismissed his curiosity and decided to engage her in chat. After all, he thought as another hypnotic bass line swelled through the room, you are at a party.

“Pete wrote some really cool lyrics to this tune... don’t you think?”

Nothing, save a hint of a smile which, he thought for a moment, could have been directed toward the mirror behind him. “Eh?”, he persisted.

The synthetic nymph’s eyes suddenly sparkled into life. Ah, a connection, he thought. She held out her arm, took his hand away from his hip, and placed it upon her breast.

“Do you feel that? That is my reaction.” she breathed.

The guitarist crinkled his brow. He suddenly felt weary and vaguely self conscious. Drawing his hand slowly away he attempted to mimic her non-commital smile. Then, as the still smiling nymph left, he studied the label on his bottle of merlot with something remarkably akin to desperation.

Meanwhile Oliver - and many others - was enjoying himself. He had, as usual, innocently found himself involved in a sexual act with a bewildering number of people. The precise details need not concern us; it suffices to say that from the outside in, it seemed clear that all were were applying themselves to increasing the overall levels of stimulation in the room. At that moment the door to this strangely silent harem was opened by a roller-skating Russian offering sundry pills to the random collection of limbs writhing upon the bed, the floor, from the window. On meeting with silence and the specific kind of indifference that arises when a dozen hedonists are involved in a number of immoral, illegal and impossible acts of mutual self enjoyment, the Russian cut a neat figure eight around two adjacent collections of flesh and left. The daubed nymph entered. Sliding off what remained of her clothing she searched the mass of flesh for an opening; a way in. At that moment Oliver displayed his reflexive intuition and bobbed to the surface, welcoming the nymph into the throng with a smile. He was like that. She padded slowly over to where he lay, the guitarist’s palm print still adorning her breast. Oliver saw only her smile and new that all was well. He threw out his hand and drew her near, holding her gently to his unadorned breast. Oliver closed his eyes and all went dark. Oliver threw his head back and breathed deeply. The floor quivered with the syncopated rhythm of many bodies. Looking up at Oliver’s beautiful lips the nymph seemed to say “Who are you?”

Oliver said nothing, for Oliver could never exist.

My gear list for 16 days ultralight trekking in the Pyrenees

2009-07-16T03:56:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I fly to Spain for my annual backpacking holiday. For two weeks, I plan to walk along the GR 11 pyrenean trail from Torla in Aragon to somewhere just short of Andorra in Catalonia, a distance of around 300 km. Unlike previous years, I will be going "ultralight", taking around 4.5 kilos in weight on my back. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultralight_backpacking for more details) which is just as well as I have a niggling knee injury from over enthusiastic hill running at the beginning of May.

In case you're interested, I here present my gear list complete with the weight of each individual item in grams.

BIG FOUR (shelter, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, rucksack):

rucksack - six moon designs starlite backpack: 740

sleeping bag - cumulus ultralight 200: 600

mat - thermarest prolite plus, small: 480

poncho tarp - integral designs poncho tarp: 260

8 titanium stakes: 65

homemade bivvy / groundsheet: 270

cord / string: 80

TOTAL: 2495 grams

CLOTHING:

insulated jacket with hood: 360

warm socks: 50

microfleece: 210

TOTAL: 620 grams

SMALL ACCESSORIES:

pocketknife: 85

water purification tablets: negligible

soap: 75

earplugs: 5

cut off toothbrush: 5

simple fishing tackle: 15

tooth paste: 25

spare battery for torch: negligible

food bags: 30

ties for food bags: negligible

paracetomol: 10

deodorant: 40

torch: 10

spork: 10

2 lighters: 40

spare memory card for camera: 5

trekking pole spike covers and snow / scree clip ons: 25

surgical tape: 30

silicon glue to repair tarp: 25

disinfectant hand gel: 20

salt / pepper / spices: 20

elastic bands 5

2 spare camera batteries: 50

pen: 5

mesh carry bag: 10

TOTAL: 545 grams

LARGER ACCESSORIES:

waterbottle: 40

stove pot and drink cup: 105

binoculars: 310

camera: 250

maps and guides: 175

towel: 110

note paper: 35

photocopied extracts from Spanish phrase book: 35

TOTAL: 1180 grams

TOTAL BASE WEIGHT: 4.84 kilos

WEARING

trekking trousers: 370

short sleeved shirt: 175

socks: 45

money + credit cards + passport + keys in money belt: 120

TOTAL WEARING: 0.71 kilos

As you can see, 4.84 kilos on my back leaves me 340 grams short of ultralight status and make me more of "lightweighter" but this is quite a long trek.

Also, if you're wondering about food and water, consumable are not considered part of your base weight. Food I will pick up in villages along the route or a mountain refuges and water I will take from mountain streams.

More to come...

Act 1 Scene 1 of a work in progress

2009-02-08T11:43:00.001-08:00

Act I Scene 1

The Temple of Zeus, Mount Olympus.

It is late evening. Zeus stands alone gazing into a bright pool of water. Slowly he stoops and breaks the surface with his hand. Wavelets of light play upon the roof of the temple.

Enter Eros.

Eros: You bid me come my Lord.

Zeus turns at the sound of his voice: Ah! Fair Eros! Too many moons have fled the sky since last I bid you come. How fairs the son of Aphrodite?

Eros: My Lord provides. My home is his mountain, upon his clouds I sleep. I dine on nectar and ambrosia gifted by his hand. My Lord provides: I cannot want.

Zeus: Such tones! Truly from the purest heart you speak. Ten thousand moons and more have fled but steady is your love. Yet love is more than loyalty; it is honesty. Come, speak your mind.

Eros: My Lord?

Zeus: Come now gentle Eros, your meaning's measured: heart and mind have share alike. That your heart is true I cannot doubt; but your mind is troubled. Fair child: there's sadness in your eyes.

Eros turns his face to the floor: My Lord... 'tis true: though I gaze upon the earth entire, though beauty and eternity surround me, though I live like a God I long for the earth and the hearts of mortal men. Ten thousand moons and more you say: 'tis but one drop of our immortal blood; two thousand loveless years have passed upon the earth. More beating hearts than there are stars have faded out without an echo to their song. My Lord, though it pains me so to say, I tell you: I have wept at such a loss.

Zeus, smiling kindly: Justly have you wept for you are love: you correspond. These many moons your heart has answered mortal time and you have wept. Come, raise your face... Two thousand years... I cannot doubt that you have felt each grain...

Eros dips his head in shame and Zeus is silent for a moment. Turning from Eros, he continues

...Yes... truly has your silent heart its share of mortal sorrow. But you remain a God, your love is divine: a meld of heart and mind. Come, give answer: speak your mind.

Eros raises his head: My Lord, 'tis true that I have pondered much the loveless state of man. What pains... puzzles me is this: the word remains. It's written on walls and subway trains, it's printed thick in books and bolder still on magazines, they sing it on the radio, they shout it on TV, it's on their lips and eyes and ears countless thousand times a day but they know not what it means.

Eros pauses for breath. He is pacing to and fro gesturing all the while.

Zeus: Go on.

Eros: They call it love but they speak in vain. For some it strikes them like a headline, it takes them like a song. They are touched and call out loud their lover's name but still they do not love. They are touched but share nothing: there is no echo to their song.

Zeus: And for others?

Eros: For others love is a single bloodless word: God. They shut their eyes, they make a ghost then strain themselves to meet each to each their dim imagined thought. They pray themselves apart: there is no echo to their song.

Zeus (smiling and nodding slowly): I see.

Eros stops pacing and turns to face Zeus. His face is full of curiosity.

Eros: My Lord...

Zeus: Yes?

Eros: Your manner puzzles me. I have gazed upon the earth these many moons and locked my sadness deep inside. I have not breathed a word of what I've seen. But now that I speak I cannot help but think that you have read me all the while.

Zeus (walking closer): You read me well: I have of late passed close as you have gazed upon the earth. But you shall always be your Lord's concern. Should this puzzle you?

Eros (softly, then with conviction): No... No it does not... I do not doubt my heart found answer near at hand. But still 'tis strange... this instant that you bid me speak it was as if a stranger's voice had read to me my heart.

Zeus (now facing Eros): You spoke those words alone. I played no part, no charm was laid upon your tongue. These moons it was my heart that answered; I too have heard a stranger's voice.

Zeus places his hand upon Eros' shoulder. A smile of recognition gradually spreads across the young God's face.

Eros (shyly): No part you say, no charm: I hear you well. 'Tis but this: I've heard an echo to my song.

There is a moment's pause as Eros lifts his head to share Zeus' kind gaze.

Zeus (patting Eros gently on the shoulder and turning toward the pool): Ah Gentle Eros, we've seen too many changes since the star blazed in the east. True, Ares has never been so popular. And Hades, well, he takes a dark delight in putting all those angel seeking souls to right. But I've watched too many Gods lose heart. Athina's wisdom, her just war; the eloquence and cunning of Hermes and all Apollo's maxims: the ways of Gods are sadly far removed from that of modern man. But of all the Gods it's clear to me that you have suffered most this faithless age. Despite their creeds desire remains a part of mortal life: your mother will always have her place; not so your love: truly has it faded from the pages of their books.

There is a pause. Eros holds Zeus' gaze then stares in silence at the floor.

Eros: I hear you well... (raising his head once more) My Lord, my silent vigil's done.

Zeus: That it is for much has passed between us in this hour -- but we have just begun. You've spoken well; now I bid you listen: fair child, your love's returning to the earth.

Eros is dumbstruck.

Zeus: And with it you: you'll loose your arrows soon enough. But first a story must be told. Come closer.

Eros slowly makes his way to the pool. Zeus stoops once more to break the surface with his hand. Wavelets of light play upon the roof of the temple. An image of a mountainous valley appears.

Eros: Mount Parnassus! It is Delphi!

Zeus: The centre of our earth. There are no older rocks than these. When Chaos heaved and yielded up our world it found its fulcrum here.

Eros: The birth of mother earth. I know this tale: from Chaos sprang the earth, the underworld -- and that from which I take my name.

Zeus: Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros: the first of things. Time and space brought with them death for all that is must pass; but nothing can become without love.

Eros (briskly): I've heard your tale, your moral’s clear: the earth may turn from age to age and human hearts to different faiths but love remains. It's written in the rocks and threaded through all time, it is the warp which with the weft of death makes all that was and is and ever more shall be... It is a noble tale you tell -- and true, for we who have the eyes of Gods can read the rocks and trace love's pattern lying there. But what of man? For those that call the earth their home these are but blank and silent rocks. My Lord, I hear your tale but find no comfort in a earth bound love that has no human form.

Zeus: The tale is not yet done.

There is a pause. Zeus stoops and breaks once more the surface of the pool. Wavelets of light play upon the roof of the temple. An image appears. It is Delphi once more but this time the valley is submerged in water. Only the peak of Parnassus is visible above the waves.

Zeus: Well... what say you now?

Eros: It is Parnassus once again... in the age of the flood...

Eros turns slowly from the image. A look of consternation grows on his face as he searches Zeus' gaze for signs of his intent.

Eros (nervously): ...Oh no My Lord! It has not come to this!

Zeus (smiling wryly): Dear Eros: calm yourself. When Promethean fire stoked mortal pride, when man believed himself a worthy rival to the Gods, this was my solution; it is no answer for this fallen race. How can a flood bring love to those that drown beneath a heavy tide of care? No: it is of birth that we must speak... What say you now?

Eros stares in silence at the mountain top.

Eros (searching): Of birth you say... Now let me see... All perished in the flood save two. Prometheus foresaw the fate of man and bid his son Deucalion build a floating arch. For nine days and nine nights the rains fell. The sea rose and the land drowned but Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha survived... (turning to face Zeus) and they landed on the island summit of Parnassus...

Eros gazes at Zeus. He is beginning to grasp his meaning.

Zeus: Go on.

Eros (with mounting excitement): The waters receded. They were alone on the earth, forsaken by the Gods. But there was one to whom they still could turn: The titaness of justice. Earnestly they prayed to Themis that the earth might be re-peopled. And so it was for the will of Themis was the will of My Lord: both wished only that balance be restored once more between the worlds of Gods and Men...

Eros breaks off to flash a wry smile at Zeus

... Ah Themis... My Lord's first wife... and lasting echo to his song... But that aside: here’s the meaning of your tale: the titaness commanded Deucalion and Pyrrha to throw the bones of their mother behind them. They took her meaning and flung the ancient rocks of Parnassus high into the air. Those thrown by Deucalion became men; those by Pyrrha, women... and the earth was born anew...

Eros turns to face Zeus. An air of profound reverence marks his speech.

... Can it be My Lord? I hardly dare to ask... But if we might make just one pair, two hearts that beat in time with ancient days, with love's true ways... If we could make just two rocks flesh then all mankind might echo back and forth once more the greatest secret of the earth.

Zeus: That they could. But now you've truly heard my tale hear this: it is already done.

Eros: O my arrows! Where be this pair! Tell me Lord that I might waken each to each!

Zeus: Through all their moons they've dwelt apart. Bore by mortal mothers each was raised in separate regions of the earth. But by their mountain birth they have been bound: not two Parnassian rocks took I but one cleft by a thunderbolt. Each could not help but seek the other out -- and I have watched them. Dear Eros: as I passed close these recent moons I too have cast my eyes below, I've watched them passing to and fro and near at hand and never near enough. But now, now this hour I share with you my tale for they have fallen face to face. The time has come. Two moons have passed. Upon this night you shall return.

There is an electrifying silence. Eros holds Zeus' gaze for a moment then gradually turns away.

Eros (dreamily): So many moons... so silent have I been... This is the greatest gift my Lord could give to man. But I... What can I say to such a tale? I have longed for the earth, and now I know I shall return I hear my heart sing praises to your name; but where to find those other words, that bold refrain that only now I find I need too much?.. So silent have I been.

Zeus (turning to Eros and placing once more his hand on his shoulder): Much has passed between us -- and you have spoken well.

A broad impish grin slowly breaks across the young God's face.

Eros (breaking into a dance): To think that all this time I've gazed below... This moon I'll shed no tears but blood my golden arrows by Selene's silver light! Then down I'll fly, down to waken each to each their single song! O Parnassus: how the earth will quake! Pray tell me Lord: where be this pair?

Zeus: Come, there’s time to spare. I’ll tell to you their tale.

Zeus stoops and breaks once more the surface of the pool. Wavelets of light play upon the roof of the temple.

[end of scene 1]

Preparing myelf for a disappointment... or between glorious self justification and the purgatory of homelessness

2008-03-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

Today, we finally found a flat... or maybe we didn't. It seems that the fates intend to keep us swinging between glorious self-justification and the purgatory of homelessness for a time longer...

Maria was contacted today by sms, a rare response to our long running ad on the internet, about a flat that was available in the centre of the oberstadt. Not only was it a 2 room kitchen bathroom with balcony in such a location as to raise eyebrows, but from their method of contacting us we could safely assume that this was a private deal... without the kind of competition that we have found so... inconvenient.

Being a hardened old Wohnung-nik of three months service, I could not be moved by these details and read her email of our imminent viewing with forced detachment, focussing instead on the three lessons that I still had to plan... but it looked good and I did allow myself a brief recon. of the apartment block on the way back up the road from work, learning thus that it was indeed a location worthy of fantasies of self-justification.

Maria and I met outside the flat at 1 pm and went for the viewing and, from the moment they opened the door, it went exceedingly well. If we can be said to have a secret weapon as a couple, something so heart-warmingly charming that even the most stoney faced German has to yield, it must be Maria when confronted with a particularly cute young puppy... and this couple had a really, really cute young husky pup type thing with a full-on tilting head and waggling gait.

From thence on, as we intermittently broke off our viewing to pet and coo over this plasmataki (I feel the Greek word best here), things went well, so well in fact that we were offered the apartment there and then... and we took it.

Walking out into the sunshine again, it felt almost too normal, as if nothing had really happened, as if our nightmare was not yet over...

On parting from Maria I headed homeward for to waste my vacant afternoon sleeping, dreaming and reading. As for Maria, she headed back to work where she would receive confirmation from the landlord. It was somewhere in the middle of ceiling gazing whilst contemplating the fate of Chris McCandless that I got a terse sms from Maria stating only that you should "Read your email". The message I read as follows:

Fuck it! The owner wants to meet us and she is not giving the appartment until 15th of April for some reason. It was too easy to be true. And I've already cancelled Max, that house is gone. Hope she will like us.

I hope so too...

And who is Max?

Max is the owner of a cute little sunny apartment in the Sudviertel which we had good chance of getting if it weren't for the fact that we told him definitively that we were no longer interested in it on account of finding this other one.

FXXX !!!

Why should I camp in Greece

2008-03-10T15:05:00.000-07:00

Here is a little piece I just wrote for a facebook group about camping in Greece. Kinda neatly sums up why I do it.

Why should I camp in Greece?

For me, the main advantage of Greece's climate is that one can spend time outdoors comfortably. Not only this, every little effort made to explore further off the beaten track rewards the visitor with inspiring vistas and the proximity of raw natural beauty. On the smaller islands in particular, the experience of living in a little tent on a quiet island beach can be magical. So if you think you might like to spend

A: your days fishing, walking, swimming or reading
B: your evenings in your 'local' beachside taverna
C: your nights sipping raki outside your tent under a dome of stars while listening to the waves breaking on your front porch...

... this might well be the kind of holiday for you.

Can I Free Camp in Greece?

Let's get the facts straight: free camping is technically illegal in Greece. In practice, however, the law is applied to prevent gypsy settlements, and summer camping is tolerated and even welcomed in quieter places (which means NOWHERE on places like SANTORINI, MYKONOS, PAROS, IOS etc.) as long as the following conditions are met:

A: You respect the locals which means no nudity, no drugs, no 'commune'
atmosphere. As a general rule, think scout camp; not peace camp.
B: It also means being discrete with your pitch. Seek out remote beaches
with few visitors and facilities. Don't pitch in the prime spot on the beach and if possible pitch off the sand. AND ALWAYS BE SCRUPULOUS ABOUT
GARBAGE AND MATTERS RELATED TO YOUR TOILET!!! Basically, the sea is for soapless bathing and tavernas, cafes, bars etc are for... well, I think you understand.
C: Relatedly, the money that you are saving by not paying for accommodation should go to the locals in the form of payment for coffees, drinks, meals, shopping and souvenirs. Free camping will only continue to be tolerated AND WELCOMED if you show the locals that you appreciate the beauty of their home and pay for the privilege of staying there.

And where can I free camp? Got any suggestions?

Yes. The following places are tried and tested. Here is my top 3.

1. Crete: Souyia, Agia Roumeli, Lendas, Gavdos. Many other places on the south coast in Heraklion province (esp. near Tsoutsouras and Keratokambos)

2. Donousa island, Kyklades (although definitely out of season as it can get quite crowded in high summer.)

3. Tilos, Dodecanese.

And what about organised sites?

If you have experience camping elsewhere in Europe, don't expect Greece to be the same. Most sites are simply no more that an olive grove with a shower and toilet block. Often times they are some way away from shops or places of interest and have no transport links. Having said this, there are some really beautiful sites in some really beautiful places. Again, if you like the simple life of walking, swimming, fishing, reading, eating, drinking all accompanied by heart-breaking beauty, these are the kind of places for you.

When and where should I go?

As a rule, avoid high seasons and popular resorts because the campsite will be so crowded and have such terrible facilities that you will feel like you are in "Bridge on the River Kwai". Here, again, are my top 5 sites (again all on islands).

1. Aegiali Camping, Amorgos, Kyklades.

2. The campsite called something like Stefanos Camping or Flower Camping on Patmos, Dodecanese.

3. The little site on the tiny island of Koufonissi, Kyklades.

4. Camping Paleohora, Hania Province, Crete.

5. Camping Rocks, Patitiri, Alonissos Island, Sporades.

If you want any further details, do not hesitate to message me. I am always happy to talk about this topic.

Happy camping and remember always to respect nature, your hosts and your fellow campers.

A

I take that back... competition is no longer welcome

2008-02-21T12:31:00.000-08:00

So a week on and we are still looking for a flat. Maria viewed two at the beginning of the week but was unimpressed with the fact that they "looked like apartment blocks in Athens". I for one wouldn't mind living in an apartment block in Athens... but therein lies another story. At the moment, these two will suffice.

Wednesday and during dinner with a visting American guest, Maria mentions that she had been called during the day by an old lady who had seen our ad in the local paper and that she was offering us a 3 room flat in the oberstatd for 45o euros. More than this, we had an appointment the next day to view a flat in the river side area of Weidenhausen. All this, you must understand, was told to me over candlelight in a lively student bistro with much food, drink and high spirits to set the tone. We both agreed that we had turned a corner and would find something soon.

Morning brought the first viewing: a 2 room river-side flat, 1 floor up, in a old timbered building facing a central courtyard. Despite the timbered exterior, the flat was modern in appearance with a real cosy feel. I wanted it immediately.

But when the time came to talk business the owner revealed that he had already promised the flat to someone else. But if, for some reason, the other interested party should fail to sign the papers (if his hand fell off for example) he would definitely give us a call. (??!!)

Now I can see his side: he wanted to cover his back. But what about us? To drag someone away from their work and show them round a flat that they want only to tell them that they can most probably never have it seems a little off. Perhaps we wouldn't have minded so much if it weren't for the fact that we had made the appointment some days before. If he knew he had others coming to see the flat, why break our hearts by giving it already?

Bu that is not all: from the description of the landlord, we strongly suspect that the successful tenant is none other than he who beat us to the oberstadt flat.

That would make sense in world which, at the moment, seems divest of justice.

Then there was the old lady... with the old flat.

To be fair, she was very nice... in fact, she reminded me of my grandmother... but the problem was her flat was very old too... as was everything in it... and it smelled like a hospital...

... and it felt more like a tombstone in a graveyard that a charming timbered flat in the lively Marburg oberstadt.

Which is why I wouldn't mind living in Athens at all.

Flathunting in Marburg is a thankless task

2008-02-18T01:50:00.000-08:00

So we decided about a month or so ago, in a flurry of hope and expectation, to move out of our shoe-box of an apartment... blissfully unaware of the nightmare that was about to unfold.

Being a student town, Marburg has A LOT of competition for apartments. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that a flat can be advertised and gone all within a matter of a few hours. So you gotta move fast if you want to get the opportunity even for a viewing.

Also, it seems that many landlords actively favour a student tennant, for reasons perhaps of the reduced rates that they might have to pay. So straight from the off, a fair number of decent places are unavailable to hard working tax payers like ourselves.

As if this weren't bad enough, it would seem that the student population have a system whereby they can preclude the possibility that anyone bar another student can move into a soon to be vacated flat. The devilry works like this:

1. Student couple want to move out
2. Student couple contact landlord who asks them to advertise the flat, attract a fistful of potential tenants and inform him of their intimate private details (professions, back account details, bra sizes, immunizations pending, etc.)
3. Student couple do as he says thus raising the hope of innocent lambs such as ourselves that they might just be able 'get the cute little house with the apple tree on the corner for their very own'
4. Student couple invite said lambs to their place and earnestly extol the virtues of the plumbing in great German detail whist assuring them also that they would get on very well with the landlord.
5. Student couple wave goodbye to lambs who now face an agonising week long wait where they dare not hope for fear that they will be disappointed... but what if...
6. Student couple close door and heartily recommend a student buddy of theirs as next tenant... as was their plan since before they decided to move out.

In short, the student population of this town has something of a monopoly on the housing situation, but fortunately there is the odd place that favours professional couples... it's just that the landlords here, paradoxically I would conjecture, wish to have one of your vital organs on ice as a deposit.

Enter Herr Miser... (the name has been changed to protect him from the shame that he would otherwise endure).

It was the first flat we saw, a turret tucked up on an old tiled sandstone building surrounded by a rose garden in an impossibly cute position on the corner of two Oberstadt alleyways. Temporarily agog at its niceness (and proximity to our current place; we can see it from the window) and naive at this apartment hunting business, we tripped in to chat with the current tenant all stupid grins and ignorant hope.

Our first disappointment soon brought us back down to earth: the owner, we were informed, wished at least a 2 year lease, which for a couple of foreigners bound to work for the moment in a small German town on variable salaries was not ideal. So we hesitated, held out for a less than 2 year lease, asked the current tenant to suggest this to the owner, and left... only to return ten minutes later with the news that we liked the flat so much that we would accept the two year minimum lease after all.

Maria had a good feeling about it from the off, and was even on the point of bringing me round when we received the news that we should write a letter to the owner, a fella by the name of Miser, in order that the parties should 'get to know each other'.

This caused a little stress on our part as it handicapped our chances by reason of the sole emphasis on the written word as medium of contact: neither of us are native speakers of a language renowned for its (unnecessary) complexity. Also, their were question marks too over the appropriacy of this request: none of our German friends had heard of such a procedure; but write it we did...

... not that it made a blind bit of difference. The very next day after we mailed it, Maria got a phone call from the current tenant informing her that Miser had made a spontaneous visit to Marburg and would appreciate the opportunity of meeting with all interested parties at the flat in question.

Maria was thrown. For her, it was a matter of pride, and this character appeared to be taking the piss. She got in touch with me to ask what we should do. As it turned out, I couldn't attend as I had an evening lesson, but I also thought that Maria should give him the benefit of the doubt and head along to the flat to meet up. Besides, she was more than capable of giving him a hefty tongue thrashing should he reveal himself to be... the arrogant c*** that he actually was.

So go she did, and indeed she came back with a positive feeling: the other interested parties didn't really amount to much and perhaps, just maybe...

He was to let us know by the end of the week.

The week past with an occasional 'what if' moment... but mostly I tried not to let myself get carried away. It was difficult though, and soon it came to the point where I just wanted to know one way or the other. After all, we had other places to see and to have this decision that we could not influence about where we might live for the next 2 years hanging over our heads was, to say the least, unsettling. Maria in particular had made up her mind that 'Herr Scheise' was playing silly buggers. She wouldn't live in his flat even if he paid her.

The 2 weeks passed with no news, not even when we re-contacted the current tenant and she regretfully announced that she had heard nothing. Then finally, on Monday afternoon of the next week, when we had alternately fretted and hoped ourselves worn for more than 2 weeks, when we were so poisoned against him and his fucking flat that it didn't matter a damn anyway, the shameless one phoned to let us down gently.

It was a low, low moment; not, in the end, because we didn't get it, but because of the journey from sugar coated hope for dream home to the grim reality of being played by a c***.

But there may just be some justice in this world...

... yesterday we went to look at a non-descript place down by the Elisabeth Church and who did we meet but one of the interested parties for the flat. In fact, it was the successful new tenant as we found out; but he wasn't happy. It seems Herr Scheise wants all but one of his vital organs on ice as a deposit before handing over the keys. It has, he said, become a matter of pride. He was once again on the look out for a flat.

Even the prospect of increased competition cannot make up for the satisfaction of knowing that someone bad has got their comeuppance.

A Tale of Two Dogs... OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 20

2008-01-12T06:08:00.000-08:00

And so we come to the last post in what has become something of an epic travelogue of my time on Alonissos. Like I said a couple of posts ago, I never meant to write something as long as this. In fact, this whole thing began life a post holiday email to Dave and Gerry describing a couple of photos that I had taken whilst walking around their island. It only became a travelogue proper when they suggested including these comments as part of a 'visitor's travelogues' addition to their site, at which point I thought I should write something more befitting of the genre 'travelogue'.

In this, the last of my posts, I do not intend to describe a walk for the simple fact that there are no more to describe! I only did four routes of the many that are described in the two guides that I have mentioned... perhaps next time I will add to this tally. Instead, what I would like to do is tell you the story of how I left the island. I had to leave the island suddenly and before I had planned on account of receiving some bad news. However, the sadness of this time was offset by more than enough happiness... as is always the case provided we look hard enough.

* * *

As you may recall, my job, being that of an English teacher, allows me plenty of free time to escape Germany and live the simple life camping and trekking under the sunny skies of the Aegean. However, not everyone can afford the luxury of 6 weeks summer holiday every year - especially if they are a doctoral student of archaeology in the middle of their Phd - and it was for this reason that I was holidaying alone on Alonissos without the company of my wife. For Maria's part, she had decided four weeks was all she could spare from her studies and so would fly out two weeks after me when we planned to go on a kind of busman's holiday, touring the archaeological sites of Minoan Crete.

I completed the fourth walk, the walk through the Kastanorema gorge, some time early on in my second week on the island and although I had walked a lot, there was still a lot more walking to be done. Leafing through my walking guide late that evening whilst sitting in a taverna in Patitiri finishing off the last of my retsina, I considered my next outing... I had still to explore the western and northern regions of the island. Perhaps I could do a walk taking in the area around Megalo Horafi or Tourkoneri? Perhaps I could rent a bike again and drive up to the northern tip of the island to walk round Yerakas? Or perhaps I could take a boat to one of the satellite islands? I could easily spend another week here!

Rising from the taverna with a yawn, I started out on the walk back to the campsite stopping, as was my custom, at the phone box next to the ruined hotel Galaxy to give Maria a ring.

The minute she picked up the phone I could tell that something was wrong... I could hear from the sound of her voice that something very bad indeed had happened.

"What's the matter... what's happened?" I inquired.
"Lara died", the answer came back.

Lara was the family dog, a little tan coloured sausage dog who had lived with her at the family home in Athens since she was a child. Now that she lived abroad, she only got to see her during summer vacations when typically she would spend the whole morning lavishing attention on her velvet belly. Quite simply, she loved that little dog, as did the whole family, and this was going to be difficult, especially given that she was all alone up there in Germany.

It was frustrating. That it should have happened was bad enough; but for it to have happened when we were apart, just a matter of a weeks before we were due to visit the family home again was particularly cruel. It was a helpless situation... so we did the only thing we could do to take back some measure of control. She would change her ticket and we would meet in Athens in 2 days time.

This gave me one more full day on Alonissos, and I knew exactly what to do with it. Some days previously Dave and Gerry had asked me to get in touch with them before I left the island such that we could have a final lunch together. So I called them to tell them the news and arrange to meet them the next day in a restaurant near Paliohorafina.

It was always a pleasure to spend time with Dave and Gerry, not least of all for the insights they afforded me into everyday island life. But it was particularly nice to see them at this time. Not only did I need someone to talk to about our little tragedy, it turned out that they had some news for me to put things into perspective... they had just 'acquired' a little dog of their own.

As the reader of their website will no doubt know, like many of the ex-pats living on Alonissos, Dave and Gerry are actively involved in the local animal charity ASAP. More than this, if you get the chance to loiter in their yard, you might find yourself experiencing a little difficulty moving for the number of cats milling about! It was no doubt in their capacity as animal caretakers that they had begun to look after a very young stray dog that they had found scrounging for food with the cats outside local tavernas. It now seemed that they had finally taken her in as their own having assured themselves that she was indeed homeless and having just gotten her checked out by a vet.

And the name they had given to her? Zoe, a name which most readers will immediately recognise as the Greek for life.

It was a fitting end to my time on the island, to get a little boost just when it was required and under such poignant circumstances.

And with that, I bring this travelogue to a close.

A quick visit to Garbitses... Or Alonissos Travelogue Part 19

2008-01-12T05:34:00.000-08:00

Leaving Mourtitsa at about 6 o'clock, I was still more or less on schedule for my evening ritual of showering, dressing for the evening, and sipping an ouzo outside my tent. But there was still one thing that I wanted to see now that I had the Vespa: the archaeological site of Garbitses.

I don't really know why: I knew and still know nothing about the site, despite numerous internet searches. So if anyone can illuminate me as to the significance of the site, I'd be grateful. But I think that I mostly wanted to see it because it was an archaeological site and my wife would be disappointed if I neglected to visit it.

Signed off the main road on the way back, I drove carefully up the dirt road on my trusty Vespa until I came to a sign by the side of the road directing me the last 100 meters or so through scrub and olive groves to the site itself.

I almost missed it. The fact of the matter is that there really isn't all that much to see, just these blocks:

And no matter how much I nosed around, overturing stones and parting the fronds of ferns, I just couldn't find anything else.

However, if the site wasn't exactly the most interesting that I have visited, I was compensated by the surroundings. Standing next to any ancient stones in the early evening, high up on a hill side facing the sea is always an experience.

And so is an alfresco ouzo back at your tent after a long day's walking... so with this on my mind, I left Garbitses and headed back to the campsite.

The Yellow Route: "I just did a little circle hereabouts"... OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 18

2008-01-12T02:50:00.000-08:00

I didn't mean to walk the Kastanorema gorge... it just kinda happened.

You see, when I left Mourtitsa I was only curious to see what the gorge looked like. Besides, it was a little late to be attempting an unaccompanied 4 and half hour walk up a gorge. If I did choose to do it, I would get back to the campsite at something like 7 o'clock and that just wouldn't do. You see, as is always the case when camping on the islands, I had gotten into this comfortable routine. Morning and afternoon were for walking; but 6 o'clock and the softening colours of dusk were for showering, dressing for evening, reading the paper, listening to my little pocket radio, low key socialising round the communal fridges and, or course, libations. `So you see I really couldn't set out on this walk...

But it was a terribly nice path, heading north with the sea to my right and the mountains to my left. In short, it was a coastal path and therefore just the kind of walk a like.

And the landscape was just that little bit different. Gone were the pines and olive trees, to be replaced with low lying strawberry-trees and hollyoaks. And here in the northern half of the island was an unfamiliar seascape of scattered islands whose forms I hadn't yet encountered.

And there was this surprisingly appealing sense of isolation, made more intense with each step away from Mourtitsa.

In short, I wasn't focused on any goal and so time seemed simply to fly by until such a point when the landscape opened out in front of me to reveal an extensive area of flat pebble and boulder strewn land sandwiched between two low hills and the sea. I had reached the mouth of the gorge.

It occurred to me that now that I knew just how pleasant a walk it was I could come back next year with my wife and walk the rest of the way together. But I should probably find the onward path through this mass of pebbles and boulders to the start of the gorge proper, there had to be some way markers here somewhere. Perhaps if I follow the thin depression of the river bed?

Heading inland on the dried up river bed, the slopes of the low hills on either side of me gradually began to close in and rise above me. As they did so, the sound of the waves disappeared and the clicking-clacking of the bone dry pebbles displaced beneath each step I took got louder and louder. If silence can have a sound, this was it. There was no one, not a soul around.

Now this was beginning to feel a bit special, a bit like you feel while standing on a cliff top looking out to sea; a bit like being drawn inexorably into something wild yet totally alluring.

And it got better. Down in the gorge, things started hotting up as the walls closed in higher above me and the pebbles beneath my feet gave way to sheer rock face gouged and polished by heaven know how many years of flow, and it was round about when I took these two photographs that I decided to hang with the evening ritual; this was simply too special a walk to turn back on.

Stream channel, Kastanorema gorge.

Overhanging gorge wall, Kastanorema gorge

So I ended up adding the Kastanorema gorge to my list of conquests upon the island, and it was quite fitting that this last walk should be the most dramatic.

Other than extol the drama and thoroughly romantic sense of isolation that the walk engenders, I should probably give the prospective walker a rundown of highlights and advice:

1. The walking guides are right: once you are in the gorge there is no way you can get lost. Also, for the most part, the terrain is smooth rock or boulders. I walked up the gorge in a pair of trekking sandals so it really isn't the most demanding of walks underfoot.

2. There are snakes in the gorge. I disturbed a couple on my way up which slithered away as I clumsily came tramping through their domain. They looked to be the same species and of a light turquoise colour. I've just done a google image search to find out what species they are and if they are poisonous but to no avail. Very beautiful though.

3. At about the half way point, the stream bed becomes quite shallow with scrub and shrubs to the sides which at some points meet overhead forming a little arboreal tunnel for you to walk through. Further on, the stream bed becomes shallower still to the extent that you can see the landscape clearly on either side. At this point you should look out for a daub of red paint on a rock to your left indicating that you should leave the stream bed. It's quite obvious but best to be extra aware when the landscape starts to flatten out.

After this point, you walk through a little olive grove to emerge at a dirt road with a watering point for goats facing you. At this point, there is a sign post directing you up onto a little path which gently ascends the hill in front of you.

Now at this point I had been walking for about 3 hours or so having made good time in the gorge. I was, however, a little disorientated having been effectively blinkered by the high walls of the gorge such that I didn't know in which approximate direction the sea might be found. It was far from a worry however as the path was obvious as well as being periodically signposted.

In fact, it made the scene that greeted me as I rounded the crest of the hill all that more impressive for being unexpected:

As the landscape flattened out at the crest of the hill, I was greeted by this field of wild thyme and the realisation of just where I was. Here in front of me I could see the familiar form of Peristera: I had reached the top of the hill behind Agios Dimitrios, which was spectacularly confirmed when I walked down this path and looked down:

Like I said, Agios Dimitrios is best viewed from above.

If ever you find yourself on Alonissos with your own transport at dusk in late June, you could do worse than drive up here (a dirt road off the island's main road north terminates just beyond this point). If you do, I would heartily recommend a bottle of chilled white wine and the company of someone special to share the view and what must be a royal carpet of wild thyme in bloom.

The final leg, down off the hill and back to Mourtitsa where I had left the Vespa was accompanied by a song and the inquisitive looks of mountain goats. Slowly, the triangle of land that was Agios Dimitiris grew bigger and closer until I was a matter of minutes from the coast. Unfortunately it was at this point that the surrounding scrub grew tall and so thickly knit that the path was at some points virtually unpassable. But passable it was, and jumping down onto the dirt road along which I had driven about 3 and 3 quarter hours before, I met a Greek couple out for a stroll.

"Apo poy pidixes?" = "Where did you spring from?"
"Molis ekana ligo kyklo edho gyro gyro" = "I just did a little circle hereabouts..."

And with that they wished me kali ekdromi, took their leave, and left me to pick up the Vespa to drive back to Patitiri... by way of just one final distraction.

A little persuasion goes a long way... OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 17

2008-01-11T06:40:00.000-08:00

Taking once more to my little pig, I left Kokkinokastro behind and continued my journey slowly north toward Agios Dimitrios. Having travelled for about twenty minutes or so, I was by now familiar with the machine, and all in all the drive was shaping up to be a very pleasant one -- not least of all for the sense of intimacy that I felt for the environment having tramped all around it for the past week.

But then the inevitable happened... Like I told you, I have never had the most successful of relationships with motorbikes and it seemed that it was now time for us to have our bi-annual falling out...

There I was driving up the hill before the descent to Steni Vala when suddenly, for no reason as far as I could tell, the engine stopped and I ground to a halt on a bend. Once, twice and three times I tried the ignition but to no avail. It was no good. So, pushing her off the road I worked on the kick start, but even then the little pig refused to grunt for more than a couple of seconds. It was useless, no matter what I did or how patient I was the little swine was not for moving... by conventional means at least. But I wasn't going to let her have it all her own way. No sir-ee.

Grabbing her by the handlebars, I marched her puffing and panting up to the crest of the hill before the descent to Steni Vala, which took some doing on account of considerable bulk. Then, gently urging her forward over the crest, I hopped on her back and let gravity persuade her that maybe it would be best to cooperate with me after all. Almost immediately, she began to see it my way and so coasting along quite smoothly, we reached Steni Vala in a matter of minutes.

On reaching the harbour, I made a quick phone call and me and my little pig were separated... which could only have been for the best... and I got myself a newer, more reliable model. But unfortunately, someone had forgotten to inform the mechanic at the rental shop of my track record on two wheels as my replacement was not a quad-bike but a Vespa.

After everything that had happened I was in no position to argue, so simply took the keys, waited for him to get out of sight, took a deep breath and climbed on board. And then it was off to Agios Dimtrios with my mantra ringing in my ears: "don't fall off... don't fall off... don't fall off... don't fall off..."

And, to my credit, I didn't.

In fact, it was a really nice drive, taking it easy along a quiet road north from where I had reached the previous day, with the sea lapping a thin strip of beach to the right beginning just where the asphalt finished. All too soon, I arrived.

Agios Dimitrios, of course, is famous for its shape: a triangle of pebbly beach pointing out to sea in the direction of Peristera. As we will see later in the next post, it is best photographed from a position high up in the hills behind it, but I just couldn't help snapping the 'apex' if you will of the triangle up close:

If you look closely at this photograph you will probably be able to make out a dark blob on the beach to the left of the photograph. Once more, this is a sea urchin and once more, great care needs to be taken while swimming in the waters here as the seabed was simply full of the little blighters. (And once more I dived in without a care and was merrily splashing away quite the thing before I realised this was so... )

What else of Agios Dimitrios? Well, it is exceedingly picturesque, with good swimming and enough beach space to cater for all those who, understandably, are attracted to one of the best beaches on the island. However, if you are looking for a little more peace and quiet, can I suggest the little beach of Mourtitsa just a ten minute walk north? You can see how to get to it from this map:

As you can see, the main road ends at Agios Dimitrios but a dirt road (here marked in yellow) continues as an access road to a villa for rent which overlooks Mourtitsa. After taking a dip a Agios Dimitirios, I drove the short distance up here and was very impressed with what I found. Basically, Mourtitsa consists of a single old style villa complete with balcony of flowers looking out over the strait to Peristera above what to all intents and purposes is a private beach. And to top it all, a picturesque rowing boat lies hauled up on the little shingle beach below, just picture perfect. So much so that I spent another half an hour here on the beach just dozing and dipping... and no sea urchins!

This travelogue has been a long time in the writing, especially considering the fact that it originally started life as a hasty email to Dave and Gerry cobbling together the bullet pointed highlights of my trip to their island. But we are almost at the end. It only remains for me to describe my fourth and last walk on the island, the walk depicted here on the map above by a broken line heading first north from Mourtitsa before looping inland and round the bulk of mount Strovili, to lead back once more to the coast -- the walk through the Kastanorema gorge.

An unexpected surprise at Kokinnokastro... OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 16

2008-01-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

Pulling out of Patitiri on the back of my little goyroyna, I had a plan. My travels to date had seen me take in a substantial swathe of the island's terrain; but I had yet to explore those worthy attractions in the more northern part of the island. From both my pre-holiday research and my occasional meetings with Dave and Gerry, I knew that no visit to Alonissos would be complete without a trip to the beaches of Kokkinokastro and Agios Dimitrios. I was also intrigued by the archaeological site of Garbitses and furthermore by the Kastanorema gorge... it was to be another full day.

My first stop was Kokkinokastro. A short drive north on the main road, it was an opportunity to ease myself into the saddle of my little pig. Arriving without event, I de-saddled, parked my little friend under a tree out of the fierce sunlight and headed down to the beach.

Consisting of a high triangular outcrop separating two picturesque and sheltered beaches, Kokkinokastro was bound to be busy on this, one of the last days of July. And sure enough, as I reached the bottom of the lane, the beach was crowded with holiday-making families, umbrellas and the like. However, it wasn't the opportunity to bathe that brought me here, but an interest in the arachaeology of this site. From the few resources I could find about it, it seemed to be a site with a long history and one which some claim to have been the Ikos or ancient capital of Alonissos. Certainly from the topography of the area one can imagine that such a high outcrop would have attracted the attention of ancient peoples. However, it is worthwhile noting that the present day coastline bares little comparison to that of the past. Looking at Kokinnokastro today the sea licks its shores; but it is arguably the case that centuries of earthquakes and subsidence have served to raise the sea level in the area to its present position and that there is good reason to believe that the site would not have appeared so impressively well-defended in earlier times.

However the fact remains that it is extremely well defended today... so much so that I was unable to access the triangular outcrop no matter from which direction I approached! My apologies for using such a low quality image of the site, but it really only is with an aerial view (as is provided by this postcard) that one can appreciate just how impenetrable this site is today.

The beach I have described is the one that you can see here... even with such low resolution I am taken aback at how nice it looks! But to get back to the point, as you can see, it is impossible to gain access to the raised triangular outcrop from the beach itself. You either have to swim out and look for a way to clamber up the rocks on the seaward facing side, which is equally steep, or somehow get up to that little spine of earth that connects the outcrop to the island proper and walk across it. This was my plan, so I found a way through the trees you can see here (actually someone's garden!) to the edge of the spine. But when I arrived and took a good look at it, I knew that it would be impossible to cross: it was just to sheer.

Undaunted, I carried on through the trees to the other side of the outcrop to assess the situation here. Perhaps here I could find a way to access the site?.. no dice... it was the same story on this side: steep rocky slopes. However, I was compensated for my trouble with this:

With a picture like this, you don't really need words but me being me I have to say something and that is this: thank God that Greeks, on the whole, value sun-umbrellas, company and the proximity of a cantina over such isolation... for people like me (and, I suspect if you are still reading this, you) it is a perfect trade off.

Four wheels or nuthin' at all... OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 15

2008-01-09T06:18:00.000-08:00

I have never really had the most successful of relationships with motorcycles. I got my one and only motorcycle during the long and boring summer of 1995 when I was the tender age of 19. It seemed a good idea at the time... along with purple shoes, lamb-chop sideburns and 32 inch flared levis.

I should have seen the omens coming... it absolutely poured it down the day I picked it up from the bike shop, so much so that I felt I should make my way back to my little village on the back roads on account of the fact that there would be less traffic for me to collide with. When I finally got to the end of my street, soaking wet and very much in need of a hot bath, the local village idiot decided to cross the road between two parked cars without looking and wham! That was my first accident. To be fair, it wasn't my fault... my light was on and I was driving as cautiously as I could without actually getting off and pushing the thing home... but it was not a good omen.

My second spill came about a month later on the back roads near Loch Lomond. It was the height of summer and I had just spent a thoroughly pleasant summer's afternoon by the Loch, alternately swimming and reading Lolita and was now driving home to meet up with some friends when wham!... A car full of young guys out on a joyride sped round a corner giving me the fright of my life and causing me to make a sharp left turn into the kerb. As the front wheel clipped the kerb I lost control and down I went, skinning my knees, denting the petrol tank and ruining my favourite pair of flared trousers.

But the last straw came one summer, years after, when I was travelling round Crete. I had found myself in Matala and, tired of relying on busses and the limited number of coastal resorts that they could take me too, had hired a scooter to take me inland. I had it for 3 days and the plan was to tour the interior in a huge circle, driving by day and sleeping out in some olive grove by night. As it was only a scooter, I planned to travel light: just my sleeping bag, a hammock and a change of clothes for the evening. Otherwise I would be driving in my sandals, swimming trunks, shades and bandana... note the lack of helmet.

... I didn't get very far. I had only been driving for about fifteen minutes when I saw a sign for a beach. Heading down a quiet asphalt road early in the morning, I opened up the engine a little more than I should and before I knew it was fast approaching a tight right hand bend. Pulling on the brakes, I tried to swing the bike out to the left such I could drive into the bend at my higher speed, but at the moment I hit some gravel and the front wheel skidded out from underneath me, throwing me down hard onto the asphalt.

I hit the road with my head and skidded on my unprotected limbs for a while before finally coming to a bloody halt somewhere in the middle of the opposite lane. I didn't feel any pain at first, just shock and the shame of being such a fool... again. Jumping to my feet I walked unsteadily over to the scooter, it's engine still running, to survey the damage. It was then that I noticed a lot of blood was gushing down over my eyes from an open wound in my head... but this seemed to matter less than getting the bike off the road. It was as if hiding the evidence of my stupidity from passing cars would somehow undo the damage... I guess I was in shock.

Stemming the blood flow with my bandana, I wheeled the bike into an olive grove, then gingerly pulling back the bandana, checked my head wound in the broken mirror of the bike... there was a big hole in my head... there was no way I could just pop back on the bike again and carry on as if nothing had happened; from previous experience I knew that this needed to be cleaned and stitched. Besides, the wounds on my limbs were pretty extensive too and they too were beginning to hurt.

I don't know how long I spent alone in that olive grove with only my conscience and and ever more keen sense of pain to keep me company, but I do know that I was eventually discovered by the driver of a rubbish truck who kindly informed the bike company and called me an ambulance. But once again I had to wait alone in that olive grove, replaying the incident; dealing with it. I swear I could have kicked myself with shame... if I had been able to find a part of me that wasn't bleeding already.

One X-ray, five stitches, a trip to the rental office and 100 euros later, I sat in my sleeping bag in a hammock strung between two trees on the campsite in Matala. My wounds had been sprayed but not bandaged as they needed to breathe, which left them at the mercy of every insect that happened to be passing that corner of Crete. They had also started to tighten to the extent that I did not have the necessary flexibility of movement to put up my tent in what was a stiffening breeze. So that night, I slept out in a hammock, sweating in a sleeping bag that had to be zipped up tight to protect my wounds from flies. I say slept, but closer to the truth would be agonised... both on account of the pain and over what might have been.

It was then or then-abouts that I made a promise to myself never to ride a motorcycle again, and to my credit it was a promise that I managed to keep... until I got married.

I got married in August of 2006 on the island of Anafi, a simple ceremony in the village mayor's office with only a handful of friends to witness it. The day after the wedding the point was mooted that it might be a good idea to rent some bikes and head off on a tour of the island; or, to be more accurate, everyone apart from me was dead keen on the idea and I was beginning to look like a bit of a party pooper. So bowing to pressure and participating in the spirit of the occasion, I broke that promise.

Needless to say that carrying my recently acquired wife on the back of the bike as pillion passenger was more than enough incentive to take it very easy indeed. However, just because I was the very model of the careful driver didn't mean that I wasn't, at times, haunted by the prospect of... well... falling off. Indeed, the very fact that I was responsible for my wife's welfare too only served to heighten my anxiety.

So in a nutshell and like I said, I have never really had the most successful of relationships with motorcycles. That's why when I went to the bike rental office that morning in Alonissos I walked in asked them...

"Mipos ehete mia goyroyna?"

Strictly translated this means: "Do you happen to have a sow (as in a female pig)?" But you will no doubt better understand my meaning when privy to the knowledge that this is the name that Greeks give to those sturdy, grunting off-road quadbikes.

Now that my responsibility had been halved since that last time I drove a motorcycle, I was taking no chances: it was four wheels or nuthin' at all.

The Pink Route: 3 beaches, 2 turkeys and a bus back home... OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 14

2008-01-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

The onward route from the stable where one emerges out onto the Isomata plateau down to Steni Vala rivals that of the first leg of the red route for one of the most scenic of the island. Not only is one high up on a plateau with ever more expansive views of the neighbouring islet of Peristera, the landscape of the plateau itself represents a stark contrast to most of the rest of the island with its red earth interposed between rutted grey rocks... not to mention its forest of cedar trees.

However, searching my photos of this part of the walk it was the sight of two turkeys which appeared out of nowhere to strut 'neath the shadow of pine tree that seems to have arrested my attention!

The cedar forest is worth another mention, which is not to say that the trees are tall; but rather that they are so thick and densely packed at times that with a little bit of imagination one might believe one was wandering in a maze! No doubt for this reason, the descent down off the Isomata plateau through the cedar forest is one of the most well-marked of Alonissos' routes with yellow and black poles supplementing the familiar red splotches of paint upon rocks. I should also add that half way down (or of course half way up) there is a beautifully situated picnic bench with great views of Peristera from amidst the cedars... just the thing for a nice evening picnic watching the exposed rocks composing the neighbouring islet taking on an ever more intense and firey hue.

On reaching the foot of the hill, a dirt road greeted me and led me after five minutes to Agios Petros beach, the beach neighbouring Steni Vala. Although it was a little difficult to find the beach at first given the amount of residential buildings crammed into the land behind the beach (I took a few wrong turns here into the yard of a private house) I eventually found the unsigned way down to the water through a garden there to bathe a while and enjoy the tranquility of one the islands more sandy, if small, beaches.

However, soon curiosity go the better of me and, seeking shelter behind a low wall, I changed out of my swimming shorts and back into my walking trousers to take the path for the final five minutes or so round the headland to the next bay of Steni Vala.

As Alonissos goes, there isn't really much in the way of accommodation, facilities or indeed substantial habitation besides Patitiri and the Hora. The notable exception to this is of course Steni Vala, a little anchorage catering for summer yachts with a couple of tavernas, cafes, a shop and even accommodation options which extend to a fairly large campsite. It was this latter feature which had attracted my attention many months before when I was casting around for a summer holiday destination which would allow me a range of camping options. In fact, I had at one point planned on heading straight for Steni Vala on arriving on the island for fear that the southern half of the island might be over-run with tourists given the time of year. In the event, this was far from the case; I had settled in well at campsite Rocks and was very much enjoying my quiet little patch. But still, I was curious to see what this other site had to offer. Very seldom do you find an island the size of Alonissos with two campsites and I felt I might just be tempted to move here for my second week on the island, or at least have it as a viable option for a future visit to the island.

On approaching Steni Vala by the coastal path, I didn't have to wait long: the campsite enjoys prime position right behind the beach:

If you look closely in this photograph you can see a tent just overlooking the beach behind a boat which is pulled up on the pebbles -- a pitch which, if not always the most private, certainly affords a wonderful view. Also impressive was the scale of the site, an important factor if you are to secure sufficient grounds around your tent to give you enough privacy. Taking a walk around the perimeter fence I could see that it stretched back some ways from the beach end, getting quieter and quieter the further one chose to be from the sea.

Although I never entered the site and have no idea what the facilities are like, I would say that little Steni Vala's campsite is worth a visit especially if you value peace and quiet and the tranquil atmosphere of a little harbour. However, it is probably an option to move on to after first having located to the south of the island or, like me, one to return to on a second visit.

Moving on round the bay, I enjoyed spotting which nationalities had moored here by the flags adorning the yachts, and once more allowed myself to be carried away by the little fantasy of one day owning one. Then it was a quick visit to a cafe for a frappe, to stock up with water, make inquiries about bus times back to Patitiri and, seeing as I was in the mood to explore a little more, make inquiries about the onward path to Glyfa, the next beach to the north.

As it turned out, I had a good two hours or so until the last bus so I set off round the coast once more relaxed and unhurried. Glyfa beach, situated some five minutes from Steni Vala was a real treat: a long, smooth white pebble beach with clear water and only minimal construction in the large area of olive groves behind. The kind of place where you could spend an afternoon with a good book and hardly notice a soul around you.

Glyfa beach: quiet with clear water... but bring a pair of bathing shoes!

More than this, climbing the low hill at the far end of the beach takes you onto the main road again for all of 2 minutes where you can descend a little onto the patch of land heading down to the coast to find a little secluded cove all to your own. However, one thing you must be very careful of on this stretch of coastline is sea urchins. They seem to thrive on the combination of smooth pebbles and clear unpolluted waters, and are by no means always apparent from the shore... as I can testify. I had plunged headlong into the water at Glyfa and was gaily splashing around when I suddenly noticed the bay beneath me was a mindfield of sea urchins! Best to get yourself kitted out with a pair of hard soled bathing shoes, available in local shops, before getting into the water along this stretch.

As I still had the time and the energy, I thought I might as well push on further north on the asphalt for a while to see what sights lay in store after Glyfa. However, when I reached nearby Kalamakia, another fishing harbour lined with tavernas, but nowhere near as cute as Steni Vala, I could see that there wasn't much more mileage I could get out of this stretch on foot and that it would be better to return to this stretch the following day... this time with some wheels.

So that's exactly what I did, on reaching Kalamakia, I took a walk out onto the little jetty to better see the lay of the coast line further north. Tantalisingly, Agios Dimitrios with its triangular shaped beach could just be made out. This would be on the cards for tomorrow, but first the gentler rhythms of the evening beckoned... as did my bus back to Patitiri.

The Pink Route: Trekkers' Etiquette OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 13

2008-01-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

The reader of this travelogue will by now be well-acquainted with the landscape and paths of Alonissos. Thus there are no surprises to begin this, the description of the third and penultimate of my walks on the island: the route from Patitiri to Steni Vala. This is particulary the case given the fact that the first leg of this walk is exactly the same as that of the white route, taking the walker from Patitiri to Mega Nero via a pleasant detour off the main road to the hora.

Indeed, after this stretch there is little else of note till at least half way to Steni Vala. Which is not to say that the initial stages of this route are dull or in any way unpleasant. It is rather that in comparison to what lies ahead, the route that takes one from Mega Nero to the half-way point on a quiet dirt road interspersed with short spells lopping off a bend or two via a quick jaunt through a glade of pines is simply a pleasant stroll...

Twin cypresses snapped on the dirt road through Rahes, stage 1 of the walk to Steni Vala

... the real work begins when this dirt road hits the main road at the northern edge of the region known as Rahes.

On connecting with the main road I knew I had a kilometre or so on the asphalt so I whacked on my ipod to enjoy Giannis Parios' Nisiotika in the kind of landscape that they were written for. I must have got through about 4 or 5 songs by the time I reached the beginning of the footpath to Steni Vala. Here at the right hand side of the road lay a sign beyond which a dirt path descended into a lush valley scarred by the grey stony vein of a dried up river bed. I had found my way to the middle of the island and the sea, though visible to my right was not yet my immediate destination. First I would have to follow the river bed for a whiles before ascending a table topped hill onto a rocky plateau. This was more like it I thought, unhooking my earphones and silencing my ipod.

Then it was off down into the ravine, hopping from one smoothe sun-bleached stone to the next and all the time looking out for the familiar red splotches of paint that would tell me when to leave this river bed and start ascending the dark bulk of the hill to my left. After a little whiles, the way-markers appeared and I cut sharply north, first through an olive grove, then over a low wall, and eventually into the thick shade of some deciduous trees where I started my ascent onto the plateau.

This was exactly the kind of challenge I needed after the Sunday stroll along the dirt road. The path was becoming steeper, composed now of exposed rock steps leading me, bouncing on the balls of my feet, with ever increasing levels of endorphines, ever upwards through a mosaic of sky and branches.

Hitting the top of the hill, I found myself, as the guide had described, skirting the perimeter fence of a stable stuffed with goats and surrounded by quacking ducks before entering out onto a dirt road... whereupon I came face to face with a lost Greek holiday couple in a car whom it pleased me to set off on the right path, with an appropriate wish I might add, in their own language.

And that is the thing about Greek: it seems to have a wish for every occasion. In our, in this case, impoverished tongue, we can only muster the following set responses for occasions of non-celebration:

Have a nice meal!
Have a nice trip!

And perhaps 'Have a nice walk!' and other wishy-washy combinations along the lines of:

'Have a _____!'

But in Greek one can, and indeed, at times, should, come up with one of the following on parting depending on the occasion:

Kali douleia! = Something like 'have a nice working day'.
Kalo dromo! = Something like 'have a nice trip' but for driving; or 'safe drive'
Kalo banio! = 'Have a nice swim'
Kali diaskedasi! = Literally 'good entertainment' but in my experience seems to be the kind of thing that is said when one needs an all purpose, non-specific wish as is the case with
Kali sineheia! = which means something like 'keep on keeping on'!

As is so often the case with exclamations, one can feel a little strange using them if they have no equivalent in your language -- no doubt because they lack an emotional connotation for the non-native speaker and are thus too close to empty gestures. In fact, although I have been speaking and living with Greeks for 8 years now, I still do not feel completely comfortable with them.

So it was that at the close of my conversation with the lost Greek couple, having shown them where they were on the map, I made them endure a pregnant pause as I, aware that a wish was required yet unsure which one would be appropriate, detained them a moment or two before releasing them with the utterance:

Kali Ekdromi! = 'Good excursion'

By the looks on their faces, it seemed that this would do and off they went, bound for Steni Vala, as was I... but by an considerably more scenic route.

The White Route: Curiosity finds the Path... Or Alonissos Travelogue Part 12

2007-12-26T00:00:00.000-08:00

From the coast at Tsoukalia, an asphalt road winds inland up a gentle incline to connect after 30 minutes walking to the area around Mega Nero. A little whiles before this point, at about 20 minutes from the coast, a dirt track heads off through the pines to the north in the direction of the little cliff top chapel of Agioi Anargyroi. It is a pleasant, if storyless little jaunt, taking in ever more satisfying glimpses of the sea through the pines until one arrives after another 20 minutes or so to the chapel itself.

As you can see, it is a singularly picturesque spot - although one, admittedly, which is endlessly repeated throughout the Aegean - and must be even more breathtaking in the softer colours of a summer evening when the sun dips down low on the facing horizon.

It is also a blessed spot in that it is situated in the general locale of some secluded little coves, offering the, by this time rather exhausted walker, an opportunty to cool their feet in the Aegean. To reach this area, known as Tourkoneri, one need only descend via a pleasant shady track through the pines which after ten minutes, will bring you to the grounds of a single house situated in an enviable poistion overlooking a sheltered bay.

You can just glimpse this house in the top left hand corner of the above photograph. However, one cannot see this little cove, where I swam naked for half an hour or so in complete isolation, from the path leading down from Agioi Anargyroi. In fact, on arriving at the coast by this path, one is met by a dirt road which, if followed, would take one back up inland eventually to meet up with a bigger dirt road running parallel to the main road through an area know as Rahes. This would be my route home; but before then, I fancied exploring the hidden inlets and coves on this part of the coast... but how?

The answer came, as usual, after a brief period of curiosity.

Leaving the house, I walked along the dirt road past the baking bodies jostling for a little more room on the tiny cove which was Tourkoneri proper, and up and a little inland on the dirt road. Sensing that this was the same road marked on the map and that it would soon take me back in the direction of home, I sought a little shade under a pine tree growing at the edge of the road to get my bearings once more. Looking up from my map at one point, I saw that I was actually sitting on the top tier of a stepped olive grove which wound around a little cove in an elegant arch, hugging the horse-shoelike contour of the land. Not only this, but there, a couple of tiers down below me and only just discernable, was a path which followed the countour of the olive grove first inland then back out again on the finger of the opposite peninsula. Once again, a little disinterested curiosity had shown me the way forward.

Getting up and following this path, I was led to a gate beyond which the path forked, with one route heading up onto a cliff-top path and another heading down the peninsula in the direction of the bay. Taking this latter path, I found myself after 5 minutes at the secret cove snapped in the photograph above and, confident that I would have the place to myself for a good while, stripped off for a highly refreshing and much needed skinny dip.

Refreshed and ready for yet more walking, I took to the cliff top path in good time to admire the view of a tourist kaiki gliding into the bay below me, the passengers of which would have got an extra little thrill if they had arrived five minutes earlier. From here, the path descended once more to the coast for the remainder of the walk, all the way to Megali Ammos beach in fact, alternately looping around little coves and out onto the rocky fingers of interposed peninsulas.

All in all, it was a beautiful and none-too-demanding stretch to top off what had been a long day's walking. So long in fact that when I got to Megali Ammos, I realised that this was as good a place as any to call it a day and head back to Patitiri on the wide road through Rahes...

... A route that I would revisit the next day on my way to Steni Vala.

The White Route: Sherds, Sherds and More Sherds OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 11

2007-12-23T00:50:00.000-08:00

Over the years, I have steadily added my own touch to the standard Greek holiday activities of swimming, trekking and eating. First there was fishing, a fleeting fad brought to an abrupt end when Maria arrived on the scene with her swift judgement that no man of hers should come within down-wind smelling distance of fish, nevermind 'murder' them. Next, there was an equally fleeting love affair with geology which for the most part saw me needlessly burdening myself with interesting looking rocks in the course of a holiday's walking only to chuck them all away at Eleftheros Venizelos airport flummuxing thus the odd itinerant geologist. And of course there has always been a healthy interest in cafes, with many an evening spent combing cycladic alleyways in search of the perfect view to accompany a sundowner... or two.

But none of these myriad ways to eat up time when not actually trekking or swimming can come close to the thrill of amateur archaeology. I always had at least passing interest in exploring the rich variety of ancient sites to be found on the islands, but it was not until I met Maria that my wall climbing and earth raking took on a more serious air. With 13 years spent studying the ancient artefacts of the Aegean, as well as practical experience of excavations, she was well placed to point me in the right direction.

Not that there was any great secret about it: all she did was make a casual remark while climbing up a low hill on the site of a Mycenaen Acropolis near Naoussa, Paros in the Autumn of 2004

"This place is full of pottery", she remarked.
"Really!? Where!?", I responded whirling round and raking the panorama less it should fly off like some startled bird
"Under your feet silly", she added tramping on ahead.

I looked down. She was right; the entire site was strewn with fragments of rust coloured sherds. What seems so painfully normal and obvious 3 years later - that even the most scrupulously excavated ancient site will contain traces of pottery - seemed like a revelation back then. I bent down to take a closer look, picking up an interesting sherd and rolling it around in my hands, only to toss it aside when a brighter or bigger one caught my eye.

Simply put, this discovery was a revelation, and even more so when I found fragments of fine-wear vessels whose light black brush strokes made even Maria excited.

Since then, I have always kept a keen eye out for finds, especially while exploring the more remoter sites, and thus have unearthed such finds as fragments of bronze, cup marks and even obsidian flakes in addition to scores of interestingly painted sherds.

But I had never seen anything like the amount of sherds scattered around the unexcavated site of the classical era pottery factory at Tsoukalia. Not only was the beach thick with ostrika, many of the chunks were sufficiently large enough to incorporate whole handles and lips. Here are just a few of chunks that I found lying around.

However, despite this wealth of finds, I found the location of Tsoukalia to be a little disappointing. Although initially impressive, on closer inspection the vast array of pottery appeared to be composed almost entirely of coarse wear, with few indications as to which period, ancient or not, they might date from. Also, the beach too was a little uninviting as the prevailing northerly winds had raised the waves and chased a fair amount of rubbish into the bay.

So it was that having clambered about in the sherds for while, exchanging first one then another for a brighter, bigger chunk, I decided to hit the road again, this time bound for the picturesque chapel of Agoi Anargiroi.

The White Route: A to E via Q, Z, and X... OR Alonissos Travelogue part 10

2007-12-11T12:01:00.000-08:00

Looking back on my ten days of walking on Alonissos, I am on the whole proud of my little adventures: not only did I cover a hell of a lot of terrain, I did so with the minimum amount of getting lost. Equipped with an accurate map, two independent descriptions of each route and most of all, the patience to study the lay of the land and the position of the sun with some degree of accuracy, I almost always made my way from A to E via the logical progression B then C then D.

The spectacular exception to my otherwise impeccable sense of direction came during the next stage of the white route from Mega Nero to Tsoukalia. On paper this stretch appears impossible to cock-up, not least of all because a sign-posted asphalt road separates the two locations by all of a 30 minute walk. However, on leaving Mega Nero, little did I know that I was about to embark upon an unplanned excursion up a mountain.

In my defence, I was subject to mitigating circumstances: I had set out on this route backwards.

Flashback to the early morning of that day. Andrew sits outside his tent, drinking coffee and studying the map...

... So where do I want to go today?.. Tsoukalia, yes... Oh and here's the walk to Tsoukalia in the guide book, excellent... but wait a minute... this route goes first north to Megali Ammos before taking in Tsoukalia on the way back... I'd much prefer to go the opposite way... I wonder if it is possible to follow the directions from the end of the walk and work back to the beginning and still be able to follow the route?... let's try... [...] ... seems easy enough, all I have to remember is that left is right and right is left... got it. Piece of cake!

And it was... right up until the point when I was directed to walk up a gorge.

I think you may be one step ahead of me here... but let me pull you back a little to walk a ways with me in ignorance so that I can tell you how it all happened.

Like I said, an asphalt road links Mego Nero and Tsoukalia, but the route described in the guide neatly avoids this completely by following a dirt track beginning some metres before the turn off to Tsoukalia, and leading one on a path through a charmingly sheltered patch of pine forest. In fact, this path penetrates so deeply into this patch of woodland that after fifteen minutes or so, the road disappears from sight altogether. It was at this point that I understood that I had to turn right; that is, had I been doing the route in the direction that the authors intended, I would have been directed to turn left at this same point having just emerged from the direction in which I was now about to set out...

...Got it? Not so easy after all, eh?

Anyways, what threw me here was not the cat's cradle of figuring out left from right, this was relatively simple; rather it was the more prosaic yet infinitely more frustrating situation of being confronted with 2 possible rights. Indeed a path did slope down away from me to the right, but on closer inspection, this forked after 10 meters or so leaving me with no indication just which of these two rights I should take.

The intrepid walker will often be faced with this very dilemma, though it should be the aim of all guide books to eliminate the agony of such 'russian roulette' moments. In practice one must call upon all one's resources to make an informed choice: the lay of the land, the position of the sun, moss growing of the northern side of tree-trunks (and other such 'boys' own' fun). However, in those cirumstances where doubt persists, there is no other solution than to choose a path, set out, and seek to confirm or reject your groundless hypothesis by checking the lay of the land against the description of the route.

Choosing the left fork, I wandered down a wide path flanked on one side by pines and on another by an olive grove before arriving at a little track which left the wider path to the left and led me into a shallow gorge. As all this checked out against the description of the route, adjusted, naturally, to compensate for my backwards direction, I felt confident that I was now within a brief walk a Tsoukalia.

Safe in the knowledge that I was well and truly on track, I paused for while in the little gorge to enjoy the silence. Just where I had entered, a handful of olive trees stood in a flat patch of long grass, sheltered from the elements and presumably well watered by what would have been a seasonal stream. Although I must have been a short walk from the road leading down to Tsoukalia, I might as well have been in the middle of nowhere; so quiet it was. Paradoxically perhaps, the sense of peace was made more intense by two hawks which at that moment were circling above me, plaintively screeching and every so often swooping close enough for me to hear their wings cutting through the air.

Perhaps it was the fact that I was caught up in the atmosphere of this little place; perhaps it was the sense that the difficult part was behind me. Whatever it was, when I got up and looked at the map to figure out in which direction I should walk to get to Tsoukalia beach, I did not walk down the gorge as common sense would dictate, but up it. What had momentarily escaped my attention was that when you read route directions backwards, not only should left be read as right, but following a similar topsy-turvy logic, up the gorge should actually be rendered as down it.

Think about it...

So with a spring in my step, a song in my heart and two harbingers of doom screeching and swooping above my head, I set out to ascend the gorge.

Two minutes later I hit a dead end: a dense thicket of thorns blocked the conventional ascent up the bed of the gorge. No worry, I thought as I took to a narrow and precipitous goat track ascending sharply up the right face of the gorge. Within a further twenty metres or so, this petered out, as so often is the case with goat tracks, leaving me to rely solely upon my sense of direction to see me through to Tsoukalia (which, as you will no doubt realise, was situated at an ever increasing distance behind me.)

Things went from bad to worse. The terrain became first steep and rocky, forcing me up ever higher onto the mountain and away from the gorge, then, when I had hit a sufficiently high enough altitude as to impress upon me most forcefully that I was definitely not headed for the coast, I found myself in the midst of a dense thicket of hollyoaks. The sun was pretty high at this point, and I was running desperately low on water too. And to top it all, the hawks were still relentlessly pursuing their quarry high above me. But despite all these set-backs, I remained cheerful: there are precious few opportunities to feel like a hero in this day in age... especially if you are the English teacher in a small provincial German town.

Eventually I broke out of the cover of the hollyoaks to see a little church crowning the ridge at the head of the gorge, which I could now see as a dark gash into the landscape way below me. Checking this against the map, I realised it must be the panagia sto boyno and knowing it to be loacated in the direction of a natural spring, struck out for the little church. After a few moments I came to some residential houses and a dirt road, and with half an hour I was drinking cool clear water in the shade of the little church.

Having quenched my thirst, I took stock of my situation. I still couldn't figure out what had gone wrong down in the gorge, but that mattered less than trying to salvage the walk. A glimpse at the guide revealed the answer: if I were to retrace my steps back along the dirt road, away from the church in the direction of the houses that I had seen, would come to the end of the road and a large property surrounded by olive groves. Arriving at the gate of the yard of this property, I should follow the perimeter wall in search of the familiar red splodges of paint upon boulders that seem to act as way markers throughout the Aegean.

Sure enough, as soon as I left the gate of the house and entered the olive grove, I found a string of way markers which eventually started to lead me back down the mountain. After a short while I entered pine forest again and the path began to get steeper and steeper... and every so often as I glimpsed the sky between the pines I could see the pair of hawks circling, swooping and screeching.

It was a beautiful walk, as usual accompanied by a symphony of sights, sounds, and smells: again the air moving through the trees, again the heady resinous scent of the pines; but this time the kind light of the forest floor and everything punctuated by the mournful screeching of the hawks, whom I was now considering less as harbingers of doom and more as companions on this little adventure.

After a while, I reached the edge of the forest and as is so often the case in dear green Alonissos, the beginning of an olive grove. Here, the ground became ridiculously steep, necessitating my gingerly proceeding crab like, inch by inch down a rugged track. But this was to be the last obstacle. Soon the landscape gave way to gentle tiers of olive groves affording a view of the last leg of the asphalt road down to Tsoukalia.

On hitting the road I heard the sea, which soon revealed itself... as did several hundred thousand pottery sherds.
.

Same face... different name OR why has this blog changed its name?

2007-11-20T01:40:00.000-08:00

When I was born, my parent's named me after my father, Alexander. However, subject, perhaps, to the same chronic indecision that sometimes paralyses their son, they changed my name after three days to Andrew. This confused my elder sister who on being told that 'this was now baby Andrew', plaintively inquired: "But what happened to baby Alexander?!"

As was the case with my nascent self, only the name has changed: I still reserve this space for experiences, memories and impressions that, otherwise, would be ill-formed... if not irrevocably erased from consciousness all together.

So why the pearl factory?

One will no doubt be familiar with the process whereby an oyster forms a pearl: a tiny foreign body enters the oyster's mouth, irritating the shit out of the poor thing and prompting it to secrete layers of a crystalline substance called 'nacre' in order to protect itself against the offensive item. With time, the layers of nacre build up forming one of nature's most wondrous and beautiful gems.

In the beginning there is this niggling irritation, the sense of being subject to an impression.

Next there is the attempt to come to terms with it by rolling it around, transforming it eventually into...

...something not just benign; but beautiful.

Welcome to the pearl factory.

The white route: spiders, cypresses, startled fowl and springs OR... Alonissos Travelogue Part 9

2007-11-19T08:23:00.000-08:00

Having picked Dave and Gerry's brains about where to go the previous night, I thought it might be nice to walk to the beach of Tsoukalia on the South West coast to take in the as yet unexcavated classical era pottery factory located there, before looping up a little further on the west coast to visit the picturesque church of Agoi Anargiroi and the nearby coves of Tourkoneri and Megali Ammos.

It would be a long walk, all of eight hours what with breaks and swimming time, so I set off nice and early bound for the starting point of Patitiri... and the harbour shop to get myself my breakfast of a little tub of 'Total' yoghurt with a couple of miniature preserves of honey. This I slowly savoured under a tree down by the harbour, enjoying the comings and goings of a work-a-day port.

As with the red route, this white route starts with a thoroughly pleasant stretch once you clear the perimeter of Patitiri. The path proper begins at the first hairpin bend on the road up to the Hora where a sign for Mega Nero, ostensibly pointing at the house situated on the bend, but actually sending one up a slope skirting the perimeter wall of the house, leads, after a couple of minutes, into the familiar Alonissos landscape of pine forests and olive groves.

It was amazed to find this Arcadian stretch with its herb strewn paths and surprisingly dense thickets of ferns so near to the main road up to the Hora. It seemed like I had been transported into a different land on clambering up that little slope -- an impression made all the more forceful by the fact that one emerges into the little glade from the relative darkness of a thick kopse of pines.

I was used to seeing such undergrowth in the forests and moorlands of Scotland, but not in the Aegean in late July!

I should also add that other attractions on this five minute stretch included...

A: Startling some kind of wild fowl on rounding a bend (being Scottish I would identify it as a grouse or partridge or something like that, but I feel sure this can't be right). It had been hidden from view in the kind of thick undergrowth you can see above when this lumbering giant happened along, causing it to take to the sky with much clucking, flapping and fuss (beware of spoonerisms here).

B: Taking a momentary wrong turn on my way back through this glade and briefly entering the narrow channel of a track that, by the looks of things, hadn't been used in a while. I was quite sure of this as no sooner had I entered the space between the two hedgerows than I found myself gazing eye to eye with a huge spider (and I mean big enough to make the author yelp expletives of terror and surprise) perched horny and crab-like in a thick spun web which totally sealed the entrance to the path.

C: Cypress trees. Three of them. Baby ones. I do like cypress trees.

After this idyllic little stretch, I emerged at the spring of Mega Nero. Here, in a little depression surrounded by fields, was a rough build concrete trough in which a couple of taps had been inserted. As I ventured closer to fill up my bottle with the cool water, bravely sweeping aside the clouds of thirsty wasps grazing from the droplets clinging to the underside of the taps, I once more wondered just how it was possible to have the miracle of fresh running water in this parched land. As I had learnt the previous night from Dave and Gerry, those islanders who weren't fortunate enough to be connected to the mains water supply had to make do with collecting and storing what rain water they could by their own means and filling up the rest of the time from springs such as this one. It was another hot day, the earth was cracked from weeks, if not months of drought; yet here was an abundant reserve of water which was not only openly available to all, but which at that moment was leaking its way back into the earth by virtue of numerous instances of careless plumbing.

My water bottles replenished, my hair soaked with cool water, I was ready for the off once more. So, greeting the old woman gathering the lush sprigs of horta thriving in the midst of this little oasis, I hit the road.

I guess I should start publishing these walks in installments as they are growing way beyond control and heaven forbid that I should bore the few people who aren't even reading anyway.

Off the beaten track and back for a beer OR... Alonissos Travelogue Part 8

2007-11-19T04:10:00.001-08:00

The day after the red route, I walked up the eastern side of Alonissos as far as Chrysi Milia. It was a nice walk at stretches, especially the cliff top path north from Spartines beach where I snapped the following photo:

View of second, more northerly Spartines beach from the cliff top path between the two beaches

But besides this stretch, however, it really was a bit of a disappointment. It was the one time that I abandoned the guides and set off in search of that most satisfying route: the coastal walk. One of the first places in Greece that I ever went walking was on the south west coast of Crete. Here, in the region of Hania, where the White Mountains tumble into the Libyan Sea, are miles of coastal paths stretching almost the whole length of the region. With the proximity of the sea on one hand and the mountains on the other, such walks are always a real joy.

Unfortunately, the topography of the south-eastern coast of Alonissos is such that no route can feasibly be undertaken over the jagged outcrops, scree-strewn ravines and, at times, residential housing that characterise this coast. Time and time again I was forced to make headway on the asphalt, thus losing instantly that childish yet highly agreeable sense of being an explorer.

Anyway, when I got to Chrysi Milia after a 3 kilometer stretch on the asphalt to find the tiny beach packed with young families enjoying the only sandy beach with shallow water on the island, their young kids volubly voicing their wants, I decided that I had had enough. After a fruitless period awaiting service at the crowded taverna, I phoned a taxi and escaped back to Patitiri where I beered and tramped cheerily back up to the campsite on my little path through the pine forest.

That night, I finally met up with Dave and Gerry and enjoyed a sociable evening up in the old town over a few beers and a plate of yemista. It was a chance for me to effervesce about many of things that I here describe as well as get a few tips about where to go next.

And so it was that awaking the next day, just a little fuzzy headed, with another day's walking ahead of me, I knew just where I would go.

The Red Route: A long way to come to watch bats OR... Alonissos Travelogue Part 7

2007-11-14T13:08:00.000-08:00

I undertook the first part of this walk, from the campsite to Megalos Mourtias, on that first restless evening on the island. So it was that when I awoke the next day with this circular route in mind, I knew what to expect of the first leg. Flanked on either side by olive groves, one walks south from the campsite on a quiet asphalt road with the sea to your left, where occasional yachts are the only addition to a seascape punctured by scattered low lying islets. Soon, you meet a dirt track sloping up to the right: the road to Megalos Mourtias. Here, the scenery changes as you head east through pines with distant views of Evia to the south and facing you, the forested flank of Skopelos.

Although it was the first stage of my first walk on the island, this stretch was amongst the most beautiful of my entire tour, and, conversely perhaps, one of the most accessible in terms of walking surface and distance from the main settlements (drivable in a normal car and a mere 30 minutes on foot from Patitiri). Despite this proximity, it was, more often than not, completely deserted each time I visited it, leaving one to enjoy the views of the islands peeping out from behind the pines in perfect peace.

Substantially more relaxed on this first morning, with a corresponding tendency to the treat the walk as an end in itself, I was also much more in the mood for distractions along the way to Megalos Mourtias. To wit, I had already explored those off road curiosities which had presented themselves on the walk down the south eastern coastline, namely:

A) A narrow cove 100 metres or so south of the campsite, but unobservable from the road, and accessible only by bringing your own rope to scramble down the last three metres of sheer gorge face onto your own private beach.

B) Marapounda resort: A raucous Italian holiday village consisting of faux cycladic alleyways laid out around incongruously lush green lawns where, on the basis of my unintentional visit, every aspect of one's precious time away from the deadlines and demands of everyday life appears to be planned with boot camp precision (think megaphoned reps directing wholesome group activities). Mercifully, the considerate owners have fenced off the entire site thus preventing all but the most curious of walkers from stumbling upon the tackiness it conceals.

C) The remains, at the edge of a cliff just south of the cove and half covered in vegetation, of a very old dwelling place indeed.

Wall and steps on coast facing side of cliff-top dwelling, south east Alonissos

While unlikely to be of ancient origin, the position and state of this dwelling were of enough interest to the author to prompt a brief 'discovery of something important' fantasy.

However, perhaps the most entertaining diversion presented itself on attempting to gain access to the beautiful and seldom frequented beach of Vythisma at the very south of the island.

The descriptions of this beach in the two guides that I had read were alluring: remote, sandy, south facing and thus sheltered, and seldom frequented by reason of its unaccessability. Lying at the foot of a cliff, both guides describe how one picks one''s way down from the dirt road on a path strewn with fallen pines to arrive, tantalisingly, about 5 metres above the beach with a sharp drop separating you from the deserted sand below. Whilst such an descent is by no means difficult to negotiate (standing on the edge of the precipice one can easily imagine jumping down onto the soft sand below), the ascent back up again would ideally entail, if not a ladder, then certainly some rope.

However, the authors of the internet guide I have mentioned had found an alternate descent, one which, although far from straighforward, provided at least a means of getting off the beach without the assistance of a helicopter.

The description on their internet site goes a bit like this (but naturally I'm paraphrasing):

"...on arriving at the precipice, double back and search the path for a 'double trunked tree'. Just behind this tree, a fainter path runs parallel to the beach. Follow this through the pines for a few minutes until this path runs as thin as the sole of a single sandal and a vertical drop down a scree slope awaits you should you be unfortunate enough to lose your footing. At this point, place your faith in the sparse clumps of scrub like vegetation eking out an existence on the near vertical cliff face, relying on them to take your entire weight as you abseil inch by agonising inch down to arrive eventually at a ruined drinks kiosk. Here you will find something like a rusting postcard stand which you will greet as an ersatz ladder and again rely on it to sustain your entire weight as you once more inch gingerly but hopefully not bleeding too heavily, onto the sand."

I'm paraphrasing of course, but have added nothing but a flourish to this description; in its essence it is as the authors descended onto Vythisma, post card stand and all... I know 'cos this is exactly what I did too.

You gotta hand it to them: they were intrepid explorers with a keen desire to enjoy the delights of the remote and beautiful Vythisma. However, what they and Keller and Tsoukalis fail to relate is that an alternative and incredibly straightforward descent exists.

There are in fact two paths descending from the dirt track down to Vythisma: the first one encountered on approaching from the east leads you into the aforementioned Harold Loyd like japes; the second, however, situated some 10 metres further on toward Megalos Mourtias, leads you down on a relatively simple jaunt through the pines. After five minutes or so the beach swings into easy view and one passes a ruined portocabin whose Greek sign reading "please do not break the door: nothing of value is kept inside", written as it is on the wrecked remnants of the said door lying some feet away on the forest floor, provides brief entertainment. Just below this, a slightly damaged stone staircase begins which leads directly onto the beach.

It is indeed curious that neither guide, whilst obviously written by those in the know, mentions this far simpler descent. And it's not as if the staircase is particularly difficult to locate when on the beach: I had found it within five minutes of the 'conventional descent'.

So finally on Vythisma with no worries about extracting myself off of it, I was in the mood to take a few photos:

As you can see the shadows in this photo are pretty long: I guess I did get up pretty early that morning. But here, in all its glory, is the ruined drinks kiosk:

Onwards from Vythisma, it was my pleasure to take a swim at the popular beach of Megalos Mourtias, which, at that time in the day, was agreeably empty. Then it was off and up to the Hora on the hiking trail which provides a neat way of avoiding the asphalt.

This part of my journey was again a joy. Starting as a scramble up an embankment off the main road just outside Megalos Mourias, the hiking trail up to the Hora crosses the road once more before ascending steeply on a thin trail parallel to the perimeter wall of the tennis court of a private house eventually to lead one to a tiny kops of trees and bushes which provide sufficient respite from the sun to gather your breath and admire the views back down to Megalos Mourtias in comfort. It was here, neath this little green kops, that I had one of those moments of quiet euphoria which solo walkers are often prone to. Whether these can be put down to a quasi-spiritual affinity with nature, or, as I would believe, the body's unfamiliarity with endorphines after months of sedentary slothing matters not; the point is that such experiences have always accompanied my trips to the islands and have, like the light and the mythology, contributed to making the Aegean the wonderful place that I feel it to be.

And so to the Hora itself.

I found myself there almost my accident, so involved was I in the rhythm of the walk. But, grateful for the opportunity to distract myself with coffee and company for a while, I headed to a cafe where I spent a good hour or so admiring the view and lapping up the entertainment provided by holidaying Greeks. To wit, a story:

Having sat for some 3/4 of an hour on the terrace of a traditional coffee and cake shop, the relative peace and quiet of the post lunch lull was shattered when a group of four well-to-do Athenian ladies sporting voluminous and colourfully printed beach smocks, huge wide brimmed floppy hats and chunky YSL fly-goggle sunglasses burst onto the scene with copious ooohs and aaahs at the view that greeted them. There was further cackling and chaos as they debated the relative merits of locating at one of the three free tables and indeed who would sit where once the table had been decided upon (in the sun, in the shade, facing the sea, nearest the toilet, etc.). Finally, when they were all settled, each to their satisfaction, and any normal person would think that they could do no more to make a spectacle of themselves, the girl brought out the sweet menu and the little party erupted again into ebullient life .

This was too good to miss. There are few types in this world who take the ritual of coffee and a cake as seriously as well-to-do Athenian ladies. Sure enough they began cooing as soon as they set eyes on the array of home made sweets on offer.

It was at this moment that the loudest and most colourful one among them, the leader if you will, took the initiative and, grabbing the menu from out of the clutches of an unsuspecting other and pausing only for as long as it took to gain fully the attention of the entire coffee shop, proceeded to intone the names of each dish with a lusty suggestiveness whilst the others sucked air in sharply through pursed lips and repeated: kataifi, ffffooo!... soutzouki, ffffooo!... melamakarona, ffffoooooooo!

However, when it came to the crunch, this was as far as her gang were prepared to go. Content just to roll the words around in their mouths, they each declined to order from the gooey menu for fear of compromising their figures in what is Greece's most diet wrecking season.

Their leader would have none of this. With the kind of extravagant gesture all too typical of a Greek in the grip of kefi, she ordered four plates of the richest gooiest and most expensive sweets on the menu, reasoning perhaps that by the charm of her extravagant gesture alone, her minions could be persuaded to join her in her indulgence... and thereby, perhaps, sanction it.

It was a bold move, and one which, I remember pondering as I looked on at her savouring the first morsels in an orgy of ostentiation, might have worked... if it were not for the untimely intervention at that very moment of their tour guide with his sudden declaration that their bus would leave from the main square in five minutes.

What would you have done?

She didn't let herself down. True to her plan, she continued to entice her friends to join her in finishing off the four ample plates piled up in front of her. Again and again she petitioned them and again and again they declined, each time giggling a little more at the sight of this well-to-do Athenian lady, replete with all the accessories of her position, gorging herself on the gooiest of gooey sweets, firmly convinced that she would, by her example, persuade the others to help her out of what was becoming an increasingly intractable situation.

Eventually, inevitably, she accepted that circumstances had gotten the better of her and that she was all alone in her crusade to champion these homemade delicacies; but to her credit, she held fast to her course and continued to praise them, now through smaller mouthfuls and more sympathetic laughter, right up until it became time for the cabaret to leave.

Such consumate entertainment is the stuff of dreams. My entertainment gone, my frappe finished, I paid the girl and took to my feet once more, this time bound for the picturesque beach of Gialia.

I had wanted to visit Gialia for some time because of the impossibly picturesque appearance of the little beach: situated at the head of narrow inlet and neatly offset by a wind-mill. The walk down was without event, plodding away on a dirt track downward, ever downward toward the coast.

Gialia beach

Here I stopped for a brief swim, then snacked on some soutzoukakia, picking out the saucy meatballs from the tin with my fingers. It was by now around 3 o'clock in the afternoon and very hot indeed. I had been walking since about eight in the morning, had just eaten, and quite frankly was in need of a little snooze. All this I barely registered as I closed my eyes, savouring the touch of the sun upon my skin and the knowledge that I could lie here as long as I damn well pleased.

When I awoke the sun was just a little lower in the sky. Refreshed, I rolled up my psatha, picked up my bag, took a long swig on my water bottle and readied myself for the upward march back to the main road

What actually happened after I reached the main road is far from interesting and would involve travelling on through a beautiful yet storyless landscape back to the campsite. So let us travel back by a more entertaining route...

I had that evening travelled back to the old town by bus to see if I might be able to meet up with Dave and Gerry, but had succeeded only in meeting their cats and scoring an ouzo and sunset mix back at the cafe where I had enjoyed my afternoon entertainment. It was now around half eight and had, by kilometres as well as hours, been a long day, so I decided to call it quits and head back to the campsite for a well earned rest.

Now I could have taken the bus... as I walked past the square, one was due to leave in a little under half an hour; but it was such a beautiful night and I was so captivated by walking on the island that it felt like a betrayal of my purpose to take the bus back when I could walk on the old kalderimi back to Patitiri and from thence on a fifteen minute jaunt through the pines to the campsite. So I stopped in at the shop for a little retsina and that is exactly what I did.

Strolling down that dusky kalderimi with my destination, the sea, a dark band between the treetops and the azure blue sky, was a perfect end to my day. With my little bottle dangling from my fingers and a song in my heart, I drew out my steps to savour the colours of the dying day: the golden fields of the hora where the sunset still reddened the sky; the shimmering silver of the olive trees as they lost their colour with the dusk; and eventually that murky little glade where I watched the dark silhouettes of bats flit against a dull metallic sky.

I must have spent a good half hour watching them flit to and fro, and these days, some 4 months later, it is this memory more than any other that dominates from that first walk.

The Pre-amble to the Ambling... or Alonissos Travelogue Part 6

2007-11-11T03:53:00.000-08:00

The aim of the posts that follow is not to provide a detailed description of the walks of Alonissos. As I mentioned in my previous post, such guides can be found in the form of Keller and Tsoukanas' "Walking on Alonissos" as well as the internet site:

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

My aim, rather, is to give you a sense of what it is actually like to walk the paths of Alonissos with reference to some of the highlights of my tour. In addition, I will also try to ensure that future walkers are well enough informed to avoid the very few tricky situations in which I found myself after following, as best I could, complicated, vague, or just plain baffling descriptions of the route.

For the purposes of writing up my experiences to entertain rather than inform, I have divided my ten days walking into 4 routes . These I have illustrated with regard to the following map and the accompanying descriptions below.

KEY

RED: Plaka Campsite - Vythisma - Megalos Mourtias - Hora - Gialia - Kalderimi into Patitiri - Plaka

WHITE: Plaka Campsite - Mega Nero - Tsoukalia (via forest / gorge walk) - Agoi Anargiri - Tourkoneri - Megali Ammos - Mega Nero (via Raches)

PINK: Plaka Campsite - Mega Nero - Raches - Isomata - Agios Petros - Steni Vala - Ghlifa - Steni Vala (bus back to Patitiri)

YELLOW: Mourtitsa - Strovili - Kastanorema Gorge - Mourtitsa

As you can see, with the exception of the Kastanorema Gorge walk, the bulk of the walking to be done on Alonissos centres around the south and central parts of the island. This is not to say that walking opportunities do not exist in the north of the island; but these present themselves as a less attractive option than the circular routes of the south and centre which can be more satisfyingly negotiated from a base in one the charming settlements to the south of the island. More importantly perhaps, the southerly walks in particular afford the opportunity to break one's journey in a cafe to sip a frappe, take in the views and rest on one's laurels for a while.

It should be noted, however, that my actual movements during the time that I spent on Alonissos bare little resemblance at times to these four routes - both insofar as they appear on the map and as they are related below - and that what you will read here is, in keeping with the rest of this travelogue, 'a story'. Although I have made every effort to be scrupulous where accuracy has mattered, I have, in most other cases, been guided by the requirements of style.

And so to the walks...

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

2007-10-15T05:43:00.000-07:00

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

2007-10-04T04:36:00.000-07:00

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.

Just because it's better to travel than to arrive doesn't mean it's not nice to arrive in the end... OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 3

2007-09-26T02:55:00.000-07:00

Leaving Agios Konstantinos, on the ferry to Alonissos.

I can remember a time, not so long ago, when a journey by ferry was an absolute joy. Not only were you outside, under the sun, up on deck with a 360 degree panorama of the Aegean and it's scattered islands, you could also enjoy that singular atmosphere of camaraderie which comes from being 'all in the same boat'.

These days, however, I more often than not view ferry journeys as a necessary inconvenience. After all, the Aegean has long been the place where older vessels, no longer fit to serve in the North or Baltic Seas, go to cruise the more placid waters of the Mediterranean. By the time they find their way here, consequently, they have seen better days. Not to put too fine a point on it, many of the passenger ferries that link the lesser isles are great, loud lumbering beasts whose rusting funnels belch out a steady stream of acrid fumes that I can never seem to evade no matter where I sit.

However, such aging vessels do have one saving grace: their names. Unlike the modern and sleek "Flying Kat 2", no one who has ever travelled on Dimitroula, Romilda, or Rodanthi can fail to feel at least a little tenderness for their dear rusting hulks.

So passed my journey to Alonissos. Deprived of the most effective means of passing time (I had given up smoking some 4 months previously) I could only attempt to eat up the hours by snoozing in those areas of the ship less plagued by fumes, and fiddling with my ipod... Oh, and scanning the passing islands with my binoculars.

To wit, I must mention the astonishing verdure of Evia's northern coast seen here from the ferry a hour or so after leaving Agios Konstantinos:

The thickly forested northern coast of Evia.

Unused as I was to seeing such greenery on the islands, this really impressed me. Later, on Alonissos, whilst discussing this impression with Greeks and other travellers, I was to find out that northern Evia is renowned for the beauty of its forests as well as its trekking opportunities. Indeed, so intrigued was I by this discovery that we made a snap visit to the island 5 weeks later on my last day in Greece where what I saw was enough to convince me that a walking holiday on Evia may well be on the cards for next year.

(While the fires which blighted Greece in the summer of 2007 did affect considerable regions on Evia, fortunately, they did no significant damage to the forests of north).

All this, however, was an afterthought. At the time, I was as yet unsure how to react to this verdant landscape. Yes, it was impressively green... but wait a minute... that's not any Greece I recognise!

For so long I had associated holidays in the islands with the parched lunar-like landscapes of the southern islands. Whilst they do not exactly conform to the accepted idea of a desert island paradise (not only do they have no palm trees, they more often than not have no trees... period), they do have a stark beauty which exerts itself ever more strongly with each subsequent visit. Quite simply, I was used to associating the pleasures of a holiday in the Aegean with a certain kind of landscape... and it didn't matter how impressive these views were, I felt a little... displaced.

A couple of packets of chewing gum and a paximadhi or two later, I woke up from a fitful snooze to admire the impressively rugged coastline and peaks of Skopelos from close up as the ferry prepared to make the final turn toward nearby Alonissos. Here at least was a feint echo of something that I was used to... exposed limestone rock cliffs interspersed with scree and boulder strewn stretches.

Rock slide on Skopelos as seen from ferry.

The ferry turned... and at last Alonissos swung into sight. Green. Out came the binoculars once more.

I knew roughly what I was looking at from the maps that I had studied and was able to make out the village atop a ridge above the south coast and the scattered southern beaches below. As the ferry drew nearer, I tried to find the campsite, which I knew was somewhere on the south east coast. But it was no use: the tree cover was just too thick.

And then there was no more time to contemplate Alonissos from afar. Despite the captain's thick Greek accent, the wind, and the dodgy tannoy, there could be no mistaking the message: "Would all passengers whose destination is Alonissos kindly make their way to the exits."

Down in the belly of the ship, the doors opened slowly to reveal... the open sea: we were still turning, eventually to back up against the port. As is always the case, the wind had died down now that we were next to land and the temperature had risen noticeably. It had been cool in the morning at Agios Konstantinos and now that it was mid-afternoon, the familiar relentless heat of the Greek summer greeted me like an old friend.

Soon the door was fully open and I could see what I could hitherto only expect.

It was nice... very, very nice.

Disembarking from the ferry, I finally stepped out onto the port. There was the usual hustle and bustle as rooms were touted and passengers vied with vehicles for a way off and on to the ship simultaneously, but Patitiri does indeed please at first sight. Enclosed by steep, markedly striated yellow limestone cliffs on two sides, the town winds around the calm bay. Whilst not the quietest or smallest of places (and let's not forget that I am used to THE quietest and smallest of places!) it was in ample possession of that most important of qualities: atmosphere. The guide books had indeed got it very, very wrong. It was high summer on the islands and what presented itself was a lively and thoroughly charming little port side town, the kind of place where one could sit quietly and comfortably in a harbour-side cafe and pass a good hour or so just soaking it all up.

I didn't have time more to form a fuller impression; the campsite jeep was about to leave. So off we rattled past the brightly painted fishing boats tied up under the cliff, past the central harbour-side cafes, through the winding whitewashed alleys draped with shocking violet bougeanvillea, up onto the narrow winding road flanked by thick scented pines... and all the while a million hot cicadas crackling away.

It doesn't matter how organised you are, some Greek official will bugger things up... but what the hell... it's sunny! OR Alonissos Travelogue Part 2

2007-09-20T02:54:00.000-07:00

I more or less consistently subscribe to the belief that it is pointless to look forward to something 'too much'. Such an all consuming desire for things imminent, and the calender watching it entails, can only limit your ability to live in the reality of the present. Nevertheless, I equally consistently find myself counting the days and searching desperately for ways to speed up the passage of time in the pre-summer months.

Maybe it's because I'm a TEFL teacher and that by this time, I am almost convinced that half the words in the English language mean the same thing in the madness of continually approximating meaning through the twin beacons 'good' and 'bad'.

But I had an extra special reason to be restless in the run up to Alonissos, 2007. From late May on it rained almost relentlessly here in Germany such that by mid-July I had begun to suspect that the April heatwave was actually our summer, precocious though it was, and that what we were now experiencing was an equally precocious Autumn. In fact, so pervasive was this sensation that I recall firing off an email to Dave and Gerry, nervously inquiring whether it was 'nice and warm' over there.

In retrospect, as we look back at a summer when Greece was plagued by heatwaves, water shortages and devastating forest fires, this behaviour seems a little neurotic. But in my defence, I would say this: it is difficult to believe sometimes when you are lazing on a quiet island beach in late afternoon, where there is not a breath of wind and the sky above your head melts from deep blue through tourquoise to the fiery red hues of the setting sun, it is difficult to believe in such an environment that the heavy leaden skies of northern Europe could ever exist. The vibrant, heavenly light of the Aegean reveals a very different world.

But finally the day of departure came, and with a somewhat teary goodbye, I left my wife in rainy Marburg and headed south.

The journey from the Eleftheros Venizelos airport to Alonissos can only be described as smooth. After all, I had had about 12 weeks to prepare and had read and re-read (and printed out) Dave and Gerry's advice about this very journey many times. Sure enough we stopped at the Joe 90 cafe and sure enough our departure after much queueing was barely signalled by our driver -- such are the 'hazards' of travelling in Greece that can infuriate the one time visitor, while thoroughly entertaining those who are possessed of a hard won familiarity with the culture.

I should also point out that the trip itself was a pleasure. Even though I was tired from a night flight on which I snatched all of 30 minutes sleep, I found ample energy to marvel at densely forested mountains, (makari na zoun akoma!), lakes and craggy limestone outcrops whose smooth pink to yellow rock and dark fissures stood out in stark contrast against the morning sun.

Only one, slightly awkward part of the journey deserves comment: the bus to boat transfer in Agios Konstantinos. I knew that it would be tight: the first bus rolls in to Ag-Kon at 8.45, the exact time that the first ferry leaves for Alonissos. Now this might not be so bad... if the bus dropped you at the ferry terminal and there was the opportunity to buy tickets quickly from a port-side kiosk for example... or the next ferry left within, say, an hour of the first; but neither of these were the case. As it happened, the next ferry left at 10.30, alright for some, but I really didn't want to wait. And as for the ticket office, well it was in a square on the other side of a busy dual carriage way (in fact the main road north of Athens) with no opportunity for a pedestrian weighed down with a 20 kilo ruck sack to make it across the barrier of the central reservation by any means other than hurdling. As usual, it is that quintessentially Greek approach to organisation where the right hand doesn't know (nor give a shit apparently) what the left hand is doing.

In the end I made the connection,... precisely because I chose to hurdle.

But like I said, after years of travelling in Greece these things only serve to entertain... Besides, if I had got stuck for two hours in Ag-Kon I would have been hard pushed to find anything to do bar sip a frappe and read a magazine whilst looking at the sea... and isn't that what holidays in Greece are all about?

How to go on holiday ... or Alonissos Travelogue Part 1

2007-09-19T03:47:00.000-07:00

In April of 2007, Germany experienced a remarkable heatwave. From the middle of the month on, temperatures soared into the high twenties and for a period of 6 weeks, we didn't see a drop of rain.

It was around about this time, sitting by a lake, watching my wife swimming and sipping on a frappe, that my thoughts turned to Greece and my pending summer vacation. Where would I pass my five golden weeks in Elladha? I already knew that I would have to spend most of it by myself as my wife was feeling the squeeze after three years study on her Phd. She just couldn't afford the luxury of five weeks off -- and I couldn't imagine spending any part of my summer vacation in hot, sunny but landlocked Marburg.

So it had to be somewhere like the small, atmospheric, friendly islands with good camping opportunities that I had hopped around before I met Maria: something like Donoussa, Amorgos, Koufonissi, Anafi, Gavdos, Tilos, Kimolos, Karpathos, Lipsoi, Fournoi...

... that was the problem. I had pretty much exhausted the possibilities in this area, sometimes more than once. Or had I?

I had pondered the Sporades before, but had never visited the island chain. Like many aficionados of the islands, I used to land at Eleftheros Venizelos and get the first bus to Piraeus... with the result that I had hopped only in the Cyclades, the Dodecanese and some of the Northern Aegean islands. Moreover, those times that I did consider the group, I recall being put off by disparaging guide book reviews of the touristic horrors of Skiathos, the inaccessibility of Skyros or the infamous earthquake struck, vineyard ravaged and un-Greek Alonissos... Nevertheless, I was intrigued and, knowing how wrong guide books can get it, I turned to the internet for a second opinion...

...And that is how I met Dave and Gerry. There were many internet sites about the island of Alonissos but theirs excelled where it really mattered: it is informative, user friendly, entertaining, comprehensive and so obviously written from the perspective of a couple who have a great fondness for the island. See for yourself:

http://www.ivicourt.com/

I had to get in touch.

A couple of days after I sent them my congratulations on the quality of their site, together with a query re the campsites on the island, I received a friendly, informative and comprehensive reply together with a invitation to meet up with them should I find myself on the island during the summer.

Now this initial contact had a quite magical effect on me. All this research about where to go for my summer vacation boiled down to one thing: I wanted to experience being on the island before I got there. One instinctively knows when something is right and this applies particularly to island hopping. Sometimes, you fall in love with an objectively unremarkable place the minute you step off the ferry. Atmosphere and the idiosyncrasies of subjective experience go a long way to colour one's experience of a place. So it was that on receiving this friendly reply, I had stepped off the boat and knew that it was to be Alonissos, 2007.

A list of things that I find important at the age of 31... and what I actually have

2007-09-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

A list of things that I find important at the age of 31:

1. The touch of the sun upon my skin.
2. A certain quality of daylight that makes the colours of the world vibrate.
3. The sensual proximity of the sea.
4. Stimulating friends.
5. Simple wholesome fayre: goats cheese, fresh tomatoes, oregano, whole wheat paximadhia, olives and barelled wine.
6. Maria.

Six should do it. And of the above? What do I have? Well, let me post here something I wrote from around about this time last year. Trust me, nothing has changed: as I look out the window here at work I see rain... and it has been raining for about as long as I can remember.

... I´m sitting in the office at work once more, once more alone, once more bejacketed, once more rubbing my cold fingers and nose and every so often reaching over to the radiator for warmth. It is cold. And what´s more, it is very, very wet. The sky is grey and it feels like it has been raining steadily forever. I cannot believe that I used to walk around outside wearing a swimming costume... and that that was only l0 days ago.

On Friday after work Maria came to pick me up from the school. Whilst walking to a bistro through the pissing rain we decided to go to an industrial park the following morning to pick up some shelves, a mirror and maybe a washing machine.

The next day we woke late and shagged away the morning. So it was that we reached the bus stop - through slanting rain and wind - at 2 o´clock.

On arriving at the bus stop, Maria decided to be hungry and, as we had 20 minutes to spare before the bus, we went in search of Käsestangen (whatever).

On reaching the bakery, it decided to be closed, so we walked for a further ten minutes into town because she wanted a specific kind of Kasestange from a specific fucking bakery. Needless to say that although we got the pastry, we missed the bus.

It was, she assured me, OK. We would take the bus from the other bus stop and make it just the same. We waited under the rain at this bus stop for half an hour before it transpired that in reality, no such busses as the ones we required had ever passed this way nor indeed were planning to do so in the near future. We walked desultorily back through slanting smir to our first bus stop.

When we got to the industrial park, it was even more dark; the rain a little more persistent. We found the warehouse in the bleakest zone imaginable and the mirrors and shelves it contained. But, we thought, we might find something better and cheaper at the recycling centre that we had visited once, briefly, two and a half years ago. We left the shop, centre bound.

Some time later, as we emerged from the relative shelter of an arboreal tunnel which we had found through lack of knowledge about where the fuck we were going, it started to rain heavily. I mean it pelted it down. I mean there was donner and blitzen. I mean
the rain was horizontal. I mean it was a fucking monsoon.

As we sheltered in the doorway of Hansel and Gretel´s hardware store (closed) wondering where the fuck we were and in which direction civilisation might decide to be found, we realised that this was not a hardware store at all but the recycling centre. Hurray! we thought, unbowed by nature´s torments, then, sortly
after: Shite! It had closed down and moved next to my school. This last we knew because we read the sign: "Grand Opening at new premises on Gisselberger Strasse 33, Sat. 7th of September." (naturally, I have translated, but note the date.)

Once more we walked once more through the rain once more desultorily this time back to the grimmest zone of the industrial park. On arriving simply drenched to the skin we bought the said items and emerged out into... more rain.

She took the mirror, I, a large twenty kilogram pack of wood that had the potential to be shelves. We walked to the bus stop through slanting rain.

On arriving at the bus stop, the busses decided not to run after 4:30. It was a quarter to five at this point and though I remained as cheerful as one can be when one is carrying a twenty kilogram block of wood through an industrial estate with wet clothes, I was
becoming a little weary. We walked to another bus stop, only ten minutes away, through slanting rain.

We eventually got home at 6, lay down our things, took off our clothes and sank into the bed. I was bloody knackered and just wanted to sleep. However, unfortunately I had somewhat shortsightedly offered to cook Maria a tortilla when her brolly committed suicide in the monsoon. As I now learned, she had, at the time, fantasised a tortilla with a specific kind of cheese from a specific shop down in the unterstadt. The rain continued. Maria pulled the duvet up around her ears. I pulled on my squelching
shoes and went out once more into slanting rain.

I do not have sun. In fact, I do not even have sky at the moment. Just grey. It is cold and I miss my paximadhia. But I have Maria and all is well.

Like I said, nothing much has changed.

The day I saw a tornado

2007-09-14T03:35:00.000-07:00

I saw a tornado once... in Crete.

It was early October of 2005. I was on holiday in Crete with my now wife, backpacking and camping our way along the south west coast. The weather had been terrific the whole time... bright sunny skies, pleasantly warm, hardly any wind. It was an indian summer in Crete, and rainy, dull, cold old-Glasgow seemed to be on another planet.

It was my 5th time on the big island and a time to relax in my favourite region, revisiting old haunts and introducing Maria to the charms of Hania. So it was that we had passed our time in Paleohora, Souyia, Loutro, Frankokastello and were now free camping under a kopse of pines, itself situated on a low lying island at the mouth of a dry river bed just outside the village of Agia Roumeli.

In fact, it was no ordinary dried up river bed, but the seasonal stream - and sometime torrent (of which more later) - which flows through the Samaria Gorge -- the longest gorge in Europe and a world famous tourist attraction. These were the last days of our holiday, a time, for me, of immeasurable sadness as the thought of leaving Greece, the place that permits and embodies all that I feel to be important, looms over my every moment. Being outide, being near the sea, walking in the mountains, walking tall in my shoes, pride and generosity and the importance of gestures, good company and good food, and the wonder that comes from a mythical landscape infused by vibrant, heavenly light. A real life: that was what I had to lose.

As much as I love to spend summer in Greece, so much does it pain me to leave. So we whiled away our last days just being there: I watched Maria swimming, we drank ouzo with octopus for lunch, I read a magazine, we slept in our tent and listened as the wind gently caressed the canvas. And every so often I sighed as the thought of leaving took momentary precedence over the immanence of Crete.

So our last full day swung around... with a surprise. The sky that had for two weeks been blue and clear, had turned a heavy leaden gray. It was to be expected I guess, it was no longer high summer. My mind flit back to landing at Eleftheros Venizelos three weeks before... the storm and the surprisingly cool air that greeted me as I left the airport lounge... Still, there still wasn't a breath of wind... Far from it, it was as still as the grave.

We got up and did what we always did on waking: we went for a swim. Now, I'm not much of one for 'swimming'. Don't get me wrong: I love being in the water, it's just that I seem to spend most of my 'swimming' time expelling stinging salt water from tender orifices. So I usually just do a quick bloom to cool down and spend most of my remaining beach time raking the horizon of the water with binoculars in attempts to find out just where the fuck my dolphin of a wife is. But on this day, there was something in me that did not want to get into the water... period. The sky was bruising further and it was like darkness was descending. Standing by the shoreline, there wasn't a single soul on the beach save us. I looked into the water... no sea bed could be seen beneath the smooth gray glaze of the waveless surface. I felt like some primeval and malevolent force, hardly cognisable, was coiled ready to strike should I get into water...

My wife teases me about my beach habits. Unable to understand how I can simply bloom and watch the sea for the duration of her swim, which has been known to last up to 2 hours, she calls me frightened. And perhaps I am in a way. I can remember as a child visiting a gorge in the highlands of Scotland on a family holiday... again it was dull, again I had planned to swim. But then everything stopped as we stumbled across and read the simple stone memorial next to the shore telling the story of a couple of kids who had drowned at this spot... one trying to save the other.

And then there was Nas, Ikaria at one singularly difficult time in my life, again backpacking in the Aegean, this time alone. On an island infamous for it's huge waves, strong tides and incidence of drowning, I sat on the little beach of Nas, again out of season, again alone, surrounded by the ruins of the temple of Athina, Patroness of Bulls, staring at the sea wondering if I should get in...

Something akin to the feeling that I felt on that occasion did I feel while looking at this smoothe metallic sea under the heavy leaden sky of Agia Roumeli... and again I couldn't get in.

Maria was happily splashing away on the mattress, I was rolling cigarette number two, the air was so still I could hear her limbs gently breaking the surface of the water...

... I looked up from the labour of my cigarette to sea a tornado out to sea, it's funnel connecting the sea to the dark mass of the sky.

My heart leapt into my mouth... not out of fear, but rather from the excitement of witnessing something utterly incredible... the confusion of not knowing what to do. I let my half finished cigarette fall to the sand and pointing, shouted at Maria to look at the horizon...

I have never seen her move so quickly to get out of the water, and to tell you the truth, I was panicking too and ran in a little to give her a hand out... then abandoned her to make the last few feet out wearing mask and flippers and carrying a fully blown up mattress... I had something more important to to.

These days, everyone of us has a digital camera. More than this, we seem to pass our entire lives in one endless project of self-documentation at a level of detail that is often hard to justify. Anyone who has ever had to sit in front of a friend's laptop while they go through their 16 folders of photos and videos... from a weekend in Brussels... will know what I mean. But would I, at that point, when it really mattered, when I was standing in front of a fucking tornado... in Crete!... would I have my camera handy and if so, would it have enough battery power or indeed space to document the moment?

I fumbled in my bag, every so often glancing up, half expecting it to just turn tail and disappear. There it was. I pulled it out and switched it on... Fucking shitty machine! It takes so fucking long to power up! If I just manage to take just one photo, I swear to God I'll buy a new one!

Still, the delay did give me time to actually stand and look at the thing. There was no doubt about it: it was getting closer. When first I saw it I could have estimated it's distance from the coast to be something like 10 kilometres. It was easily discernable, but far enough away to be viewed without fearing for one's welfare. Now, as I waited for the tiny green and amber lights on my camera to stop flashing, thus confirming that it actually had enough battery power to take at least one photo, now it had moved a little closer was a little bigger... and now you could actually see it spinning, the look of which I can only compare to a heat haze on a hot asphalt road.

You know those heat hazes which rise from the surface of the road in high summer, you see them best from 50 metres or so away from the point at which the road turns suddenly affording a backdrop of vegetation or buildings to your gaze along the direction of the road. These then seem to bend a quiver as they are distorted by the current of hot rising air. It was like the entire funnel of the tornado was composed of a spinning film of this stuff, moving slowly from the surface of the sea to the darkness of the cloud base in a spriralling motion.

The camera beeped. I had enough juice for a shot... Snap. Got it.

Maria was, as usual, full of questions: Where did it come from? Why does it spin? Do you think it will come further in? Do you think we should run away? What do you think? Are you listening to me? ...

I was, it was just that something else was distracting me...

The locals were running down to the water's edge, to the little harbour where a few rowing boats lay tethered to a small concrete harbour. The sea was still as calm as a sheet of polished steel, but they were taking no chances. They too had watched it move further toward the coast and had decided to get their boats out of the water. We walked towards them.

"Ehete dei pote tetoio pragma;" we asked (Have you ever seen anything like this before?) "Ohi, pote" came the surprising reply. (No, never). It was then that I realised just how special a moment it was. I turned once more to face it. Yep, it was closer, still spinning around itself, now bending slightly in the middle. The loacals busied themselves with their boats. I cracked off another shot, framing the phenomenon between a lampost and the harbour side Greek national flag. However, something was different about it. It was changing, turning into something not quite as dense, not quite as as striking. And then, it struck me what was happening: It was beginning to disappear... from the bottom up.

Its contact with the sea had now been broken, and in place of the spinning haze was a clear view of the waves. Above this, the tornado continued to spin, but it would move no closer to the coast.

Soon the horizon was visible, and within five minutes of it beginning to disappear, the whole thing had vanished leaving only a few whisps of cloud rapidly evaporating against a brightening sky. The whole thing had lasted about fifteen minutes.

The sun came out. We continued walking into town towards the taverna where we had passed a pleasant morning the day before. O Kyrios Georgos again was there and again business was slow so again we were treated to coffees in exchange for... having the intimate details of our private and public affairs teased out of us by his endless questioning.

How long had we known each other? Do we plan to get married? What religion was I? What do you think of the war in Iraq? Have you ever been anywhere as beautiful as Agia Roumeli? What do you mean its too early for raki? Min les malakies bre!

O Kyrios Georgos was, of course, 100% Cretan, and a force of nature in his own right.

And when his curiosity had been slaked and we finally had an opportunity to ask HIM something, we asked him if he had ever seen anything like it in his life...

"Ohi", he answered "Pote", and immediately changed the subject in an attempt to scare us with a fictitious story about a sea creature he had once seen in the bay.

That's what I love about Crete: it is awesome and sublime, and nature is at its rawest down there where the White Mountains tumble into the sea. And while its inhabitants have a just reputation for being proud, hardy and phlegmatic souls, they are simultaneously of the most generous, quixotic and playful of people... and for all this I hold them and their land in my heart.

This tale is not yet finished... we had another adventure that day, one which brought us into much closer contact with the powers of nature. But I cannot imagine a better way to end this post than with those words.

UK yet NOT

2007-09-07T14:51:00.000-07:00

Being a brit abroad, through choice, one has a certain amount of baggage which must be clarified. Why leave your shores, what attracts you to other climes etc. This will be a running theme, but for now I include my best response to a mate who travelled from UK to Saigon to teach and was feeling a little melancholoy on day 1 in the Nam.

Cheer up. Only poofs get sad.

Besides, it could be worse -- you could be here.

Today, it rained steadily all day. Needless to say it was not tropical rain but wind whipped drizzle which seemed to wash the very colour out of the world.

I taught academic reading for 4 and a quarter hours. The subject was statistics.

Just before lunch, I handed back some essay marks. An Iranian man in his forties apologised for having failed to write in paragraphs. He told me that three of his colleagues had died in an industrial accident on the day of the test. In his faltering and barely adequate English he made it know that he was the kind of man who cries when his daughter 'has a headache'. Tears were welling up in his eyes as he struggled to make it known that although he had been reflecting on a personal tragedy, this was no excuse for his poor performance. He had, he said, let me down.

At lunchtime a new and highly annoying teacher turned up. He finks he's witty. He ain't. However, this little fact seems to be lost on the other members of staff who encourage him by tittering uncontrollably at the humourless dross that passes for his quips.

After lunch the bulb in the overhead burnt out during a vocab pre-teach task for a highly complex text. I was up until mid-night last night making the overheads. They proved to be useless.

Went to safeways after work to get some shopping where I was stalked by teenage mums with unfeasibly large prams and a litter of bejewelleried 'will be criminals'. When I say stalked, I mean that they seemed to appear at the end of every aisle in hoplite formation thus blocking my exit and forcing me to brush against their sweaty tereline bodies in order to pass.

Like I said, it could be worse -- you could be here.

Hope this has helped -- keep on keeping in touch ya poof.

Why I had to buy a new mp3 player

2007-09-03T02:45:00.000-07:00

Very, very happy about having an mp3 again. Trip into work this morning was a pleasure - despite having to thread the bike through the twin hazards of articulated lorries and thick smir - accompanied as it was by an eclectic mix of cretan folk, Polish dance and 90s indie.

It is also black and shiny and smooth and lights up electric blue when you press a button. Like I said, very, very happy.

Much better than my inert ipod... to which this reference allows me to tell the story of it's demise.

Came back from holiday two weeks ago with a rucksack full of smelly clothes. In fact, so concerned was I for their rabid condition that I had them stuffed into the washing machine within minutes of entering the flat. I think you can see where this is going...

... concept check question: Did he check the pockets?

To be fair, the ipod shuffle is so small that anyone could make the same mistake... and a fair few have. Naturally, when I realised my blunder I went online for an answer and found a veritable community of hapless victims. The general consensus seemed to be that five days drying out assisted periodically by a quick blast from a hairdryer would render it usable once more.

When 12 days passed last Saturday with no signs of life I decided to give in and buy the black one.

Like I said, very happy with it.

Men and Machines

2007-08-31T07:22:00.000-07:00

Took delivery of wife's new laptop today... hardware and wife doing fine. She asked me to open it start it and put programs on it for her cos she is a woman and she finds these things to be pointless and dull. I tried unsuccessfully to preserve an air of adult-like phlegmatism that should be my modus operandi now that I have A) a marriage and B) 31 years. Failed. So sat hunched over 17 inch screen in stony faced ecstasy for an hour... or so.

How dirty and used I feel now that it is all over. It's almost as if its a machine.

2007, August 28, 16.00 - A start

2007-08-28T06:39:00.000-07:00

A cancelled Tuesday morning lesson for the English teacher working in a small German town but dreaming of Greece accounts for the start of this blog. 'Otherwise-ill-formed' because here I can finally find a satisfying solution to all those everyday epiphanies which would otherwise pass into the oblivion of forgetting... whilst deluding myself that I am actually 'communicating'. With such modest ambitions have I been drawn into this space.

So a quick setting of the scene before the afternoon lesson...

... Arrived back from annual summer holiday 10 days ago. As usual, I feel gutted about having my idea of a life wrenched from me and replaced with, well, Germany. Who wouldn't?

But as I surrender hope with every passing day, and as I accept the life that I had spent five weeks alternately deriding and forgetting, I am drawn back to the source of my only comfort in this grey, grey land.

My wife, Maria.

This little Greek, so fine a find...

Verpflichtung calls