greece: journalioannina - 19th juneafter departing from the ferry, it was great to be out into a sunny greek morning. the landscape was very different to the one we'd left in italy. it was drier, more barren and less cultivated. the roads were wide and empty, curving gently through the low mountains. for me though (andy), the journey was tainted by the untimely and unceremonious expiration of a tortoise. it was in fact the first wild tortoise i'd ever seen; just for a split second - my concentration absorbed by trying to overtake a lorry - before it crunched under both wheels.
i'm writing this now, not to make light of it, but more by way of confession. it was quite upsetting. i hadn't run over anything before, and to kill a tortoise of all things seemed particularly despicable - slow moving and gentle that they are. i cursed the lorry and vowed to pay more attention. oh well, nothing to be done about it now. better than the indignity of a pet shop jail sentence perhaps. by the time we arrived at our campsite by a lake it was nearly forgotten. we spent the afternoon relaxing and testing out the new telephoto lens on the local wildlife - birds, snakes and frogs. we shouldn't have camped so close to those reeds though. come nightfall those frogs made a serious racket - there must have been hundreds of them. we thought they'd keep us awake all night.
turns out it wasn't the frogs we needed to worry about though. at about 5am, the dj turned up the volume at the all night party going on just across the water. it drowned out the frogs completely. we couldn't decide if we were annoyed at being woken up, or not being at the party - it sounded pretty good. vikos gorge - 20th junein search of rivers, forests and ravines we went to vikos gorge located in the vikos-aoos national park in the remote pindhos mountains. the gorge was a lot bigger than expected with awesome views. some people choose to hike through this stunning landscape but it was way too hot. here's the photos from the mountain tops.
on the way back we visited perama cave, one of the largest in greece. calcium deposits built up over millions of years have created vast and magical looking caverns, full stagmites-and-tites. over the last fifty years, archeologist have given them names like; "christmas tree" and "candlestick". these are explained in the surprisingly fun tour. but caves and photography go together like baked beans and ice cream, so here's some sheep we saw on the way.
meteora - 22nd junethere is some crazy scenery going on here. monasteries built on the top of monolithic rock structures surround and dominate the small town of kalambaka. we spent the morning walking up to varlaam, one of the oldest monasteries in the valley. it was a hot, steep climb through stinging nettles, over boulders and past sleeping tortoises. we arrived exhausted and with a final clamber up the entrance steps cut into the sides of the rock we found the huge wooden doors closed; it was lunchtime for the monks! so it was back down again for us. we returned the following morning but this time in the landrover.
with scenery like this though, you can't complain. the view changed dramatically at every different angle and we found it hard to stop taking photos - so sorry for the overload, but here are a few of the best.
mount olympus - 24th junespurred on by the guide books declaration that 'no special expertise is required to reach the top' we decided to climb mount olympus - the 'mythical seat of the gods'; technically this is correct. there is a good, clear trail that climbs to the first refuge followed by an ascent on scree before a ridge walk to one of the summits. but, as we discovered, it is an extremely steep and exhausting climb. we decided to break the climb up over two days. the first day's climb taking us to the refuge, to spend the night and get used to the altitude (about 2100m at the refuge). apparantly this should only have taken about 2 and 1/2 hours, so we were expecting an easy day to break us into it. that was a tough 2 and 1/2 hours; especially as it took 3 hours, all up - very up.
when we staggered into the refuge we were relieved, and slightly surprised, to find them serving hot food and cold beer. we gulped down some of both, and it was only later, as we started to recover that we realised that it was actually quite cold and fairly cloudy. the beachside campsite we'd left that morning had been stinking hot, even at 8am. it's amazing the difference altitude can make. the strange thing was, between the clouds, we had a clear view down all the way to the coast and where we knew our camp had been. looking down from the terrace - perched high on a mountain ridge at the limit of the tree line - as we shivered in shorts and insufficient layers, it was hard to imagine the heat and the sweating holidaymakers, just there on the hazy blue horizon. mount olympus - 25th junethe push for the summit. the big day had arrived. there had been some trepidation as we were expecting the last part of the climb to be a bit hairy. this fear was amplified a little as the previous day's "easy bit" had not been so easy. non-the-less, we gladly evacuated the refuge's dormitory and set off apace up the mountain.
the skies were clear and the scenery breathtaking. the dense pine forest became rapidly sparse; the trees becoming stunted and knarled, jutting sideways from the rock before curving up towards the light. snowstreaked peaks glistened in the distance and glaciers gripped the crevaces of the rockface, sometimes crossing our path, forcing us to crunch steps into their slippery sides.
mount olympus has three main summits; mytikas, scala and scolio. mytikas is the highest, at just over 2900m, and therefore the true summit. the climb to it is precarious and apparantly claims a few lives each year. just 8m lower is scolio, and scala a bit lower still. not being confident of our mountaineering skills, we aimed for scolio - nearly as high as mytikas and with better views (because the view includes the mytikas summit).
the morning was still clear and bright as we reached the summit at scala, breathless but grinning, and followed the ridge up to scolio. the view was spectacular, as promised. the adjacent peak of mytikas looked formidible, whisps of cloud trailing from it's craggy summit. we couldn't make out the path up to it. it looked unasailable. but if we looked closely, those two dots at the top; was that the two young american girls we'd met at the refuge last night? turns out it was.
kalamitsi - 26th junekalamitsi is on the middle prong of halkidiki - the three pronged peninsula south-east of thessaloniki and for us it was that time again, beach time. despite it being the weekend the beach was uncrowded and we had lazy days sunbathing. in the evenings we sampled the local tavernas eating lamp chops (my favourite - claire) washed down with an ice cold beer. we stayed at a very small campsite, a bit like sleeping in someone's garden and each day we received a gift of figs and plums from the owner. to turkey via alexandroupolis - 28th junewe're on the road now for a couple of days driving to istanbul. this will be our first border crossing where paperwork may be involved. one dutch couple we met had to totally unpack their vehicle to get through customs so we are hoping that this will not happen to us as the land rover has been packed and repacked enough times already!
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greece: accomodation
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greece: other infoentry checks: passport required for booking our ferry tickets costs: diesel cheap at 48 pence per litre; giving beer away. with amstel at only 50 pence for a large bottle; camping just under £10 a night must sees: don't miss meteora; a great feeling to summit mount olympus but a tiring climb. |
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| kusafiri: the swahili verb "to travel" |
