Barry's Ramblings

Nisyros: much-loved places.

Posted on September 21, 2012 by BarryH

Thursday, only 2 more days on Nisyros to go, and I decided to stick to my decision and rather than explore a couple of the new places I wanted to go I would instead finish my time on the island with fairly long walks. Two main reasons: first to use the fitness I have built up over the last month to cover long distances; second to go over familiar ground and nostalge. I guess the aim is to race around as much of the island as I can to remind myself of much-loved places one last time before I leave on Saturday

Slightly later than recently I set out at 10.0 and walked first to the caldera. Yet again I saw no one else out walking in the mountains. This is Prime Walking Season in Greece with sunshine but temperatures cooling off to around the mid 20’s. OK, today it was warmer as after a few days of cloud over the central block of mountains it was again cloudless.

And OK, I admit to being a hypocrite and an OG (Sad Old Git). I set targets for the walk. It was the only way I could do it in the time. First was to get to the caldera in 1½ hours and maintain ‘aerobic’ walking pace (60 steps per minute) on my pedometer all the way. I reached the caldera floor in 90 minutes with two 30 second stops for swigs of ice-cold water. All measured! Well, the times were but not the temperature of the water. That would have been way too compulsive and freaky.

I love walking across the caldera. I don’t know why. I guess it’s because it was once so fertile but is now an arid desert with mountain rim of the volcano rising a minimum of 1000 feet and up to 2000 feet all around. Then there is the 2003 seismic fissure which seems to get bigger every time I follow it.

The floor of the caldera looking towards Emborios on the rim. The sign reads: ‘Danger Landslip of the territory’ in 3 languages.

…. referring to the seismic fissure. Still getting bigger apparently

The Parleta pinnacles seen from the caldera floor

I headed for the small disused church at the edge of the agricultural part of the caldera and sat for 5 minutes on its roof to have an inch of nutbar and another good swig of water to hydrate me for the climb up to Nikia. It was too early for my banana and in any case I always but always eat at the top of something, never at the bottom.

Second target I set myself was to climb the kalderimi to Nikia in half an hour. It took …. 30 minutes . Measured. I kid you not. No stops for water. The kalderimi up to Nikia from the caldera is a gem (so is the kalderimi from Nikia to the caldera, but just going the other way). But I was on a mission. Target set! No wandering off to look at interesting stuff.

The footpath emerges in the car/coach/vehicle park at the bottom of Nikia and it was crowded with trippers and their coach. Some of them must have walked a whole 30 feet from the coach to the taverna. The rest were just sitting moping in the shade right next to it clutching cameras. I just wanted to shout “get off your fat a***s and walk you lazy lot. This an amazing place.” When they saw me walk to a wall and sit on it to eat my banana some of them took courage and walked 20 feet to peer over the edge into the crater below.

After a frappé in the top square (did I mention I’m addicted to frappés? Ice cold with a caffeine kick) I set off down the path which goes around the inside of the rim of the caldera towards Stavros monastery. The kalderimi from Nikia down to the saddle before going up to Stavros is a gem. I was on a mission but I did stop to photograph a pair of dramatic lava pinnacles either side of the kalderimi.

Restored section of the kalderimi

Lava pinnacles either side of the path

The walk back to Mandraki from Stavros is partly on a bulldozed track which obliterates the kalderimi underneath it in the interests of providing the island with ‘free’ geothermal energy. The geothermal energy never materialised. It was uneconomical. The kalderimi, as much a part of Greek cultural history as the grand archeological monuments, remains obliterated for all time. The track is a pain in the suspension but it links up good footpaths and gets me back to Mandraki.

Altogether the walk was about 20 kms with over 1000 metres of ascent through some of the most dramatic landscape around. It took me 6 hours including the ambling around with the camera. And to cap it all off, I arrived back at 16.08, 8 minutes after my target time but in time for a swim. Well chuffed!

Posted in Greece | Tagged Greece, lava, Mandraki, Nikia, Nisyros, Volcano | Leave a comment

Nisyros: stumbling into the past.

Posted on September 20, 2012 by BarryH

Strange how things turn out.

Wednesday and I decided that rather than explore a couple of the new places I wanted to go I would instead finish my time on Nisyros with 3 days of fairly long walks with which I’m familiar and enjoy. I would save the new stuff for next time, if in God’s grace there is a next time.

First up was to walk up to Emborios, a route I have only done in the upwards direction on one or two occasions before, then drop down the good kalderimi (stone-paved donkey path) to the caldera, walk along the tarmac to the path up through the col to Evangelistra and thence back to Mandraki. Seemed good to me so, still breakfasting early to avoid the rambling hordes staying in the hotel, I set off at 09.30.

Fit as a butcher’s dog I reached Emborios by 11.00, far too early to stop for midday snack so I forced myself to have yet another frappé in the Balcony Taverna. Can’t recommend the place enough. Chilled. Unpretentious. Fantastic view!

While sitting there sipping I noticed a few people appear on the top of one of the huge lava outcrops so, having sipped up, I headed off to find the path to it. The view of the caldera from it was good but nothing more than from the taverna, just a bit higher. But it afforded the best views of Emborios that I have seen and walking to the edge and the steep drop down I saw the curved stone roof of what was obviously an old church. The walk down to it was well worth the minimal effort and risk. No idea how old the building was but obviously from the construction pretty old. The carved stonework over the door was vaguely reminiscent of the stone-carved Horns of Consecration at the entrance to Nifios. It may have been a nod to the local practice at the time it was built or something completely different, but it was very obviously not Minoan in origin or anywhere near as old. I found the tiny place fascinating and kept going to the edge of the precipitous drop to try to get just that little bit better for photos.

View of Emborios, the Balcony Taverna closest

Looking down on the church perched on the edge of the rock outcrop with the caldera beyond and far below

The front of the church

Yet more New Stuff which I wasn’t even intending to look for.

The drop down the kalderimi to the crater was as enjoyable as usual, including the circumnavigation of the huge dead and fallen tree which completely blocks the zigzagging path simultaneously at two points. But particularly enjoyable was poking into the abandoned stone-arched houses at the bottom of the path which were temporary home to a large colony of bats.

Small group from a much larger colony

The route to the path over the col to Evangelistra and back to Mandraki is to trudge 10-15 minutes along the tarmac road. Fired by the New Finds I decided not to walk the tarmac but to drop down to the floor of the caldera, at its highest at this point, and meander down through the terraces.

What an eye-opener!! Within a short distance of getting off the road and on to the terraces I was in a whole new world. Abandoned but in many cases still completely intact there were numbers of old stone houses of barrel arch construction. Some were isolated but there was a cluster of about 10. They were larger than the ones in the mountains, some 3 metres by 5 and 3 metres in height internally, perhaps reflecting the fact that here on the caldera floor the terraces were much wider and were probably much more agriculturally wealthy than on the thinner soils of the mountains.

Two of the houses with large entrances next to each other had small tunnel enclaves inside which looked as if they may have been hiding places in times of conflict. The openings to the tunnels were only about 30 cms high and could only be accessed by crawling flat. Inside they were about 3 metres long and 1 metre wide. Fascinating.

Close to the cluster of houses was an area which must have been used communally including large vessels carved out of lava and odd scraps of imported marble. The scraps of marble seemed not to be associated with each other or any function but almost as if they were collected as items of intrinsic value in the same way that some now collect diamonds or other ‘precious’ stones, an indication of wealth. They were also an indication that this was a people who traded because marble isn’t native to the island.

Two of the group of houses. Note the depth of soil over the top of the one on the left where the stonework has slipped away: makes it usable as a field!

Two large entrances ….

Tiny hiding-hole inside

Communal area

Large carved bowl and threshing circle

But most dramatic was a large rock carved into a throne-like chair. Was this where the local community met to resolve issues, the chair reserved for the leader of the group? It reminded me of a large stone throne I had seen many years before as part of the ‘Sculpture Trail’ near Saarbrucken in Germany except that that was a piece of art. This was clearly functional or ceremonial. It made a great seat for my midday snack.

Enthroned with banana

I had thought that I might explore the area to the north of Armas on the way back but I just ran out of time. This island is amazing. Just when I was thinking that I would save some of the new exploration for another visit I stumble across a wealth of historical stuff I had no idea was there. I sometimes sit there looking at these buildings and artefacts and wish I could go back in time and experience it like it was when this place was a thriving agricultural community.

There are now squill everywhere. Millions of them

Posted in Greece | Tagged Emborios, Greece, lava, Mandraki, Volcano | Leave a comment

Nisyros: a blast.

Posted on September 19, 2012 by BarryH

Tuesday was a blast!

One of the things I wanted to do before I leave Nisyros was to revisit the Parleta lava pinnacles towering above the caldera with the ancient fortress built into them. I went there first time last year and again this when the island bus was still running to Nikia at sensible (for me) times. It really is a special place, among the many special places on the island.

Last year I walked there from the crater to which I was delivered by the ‘volcano trip bus’. This year I walked from Nikia on the crater rim. Tuesday and I decided to walk the entire route from and back to the hotel in Mandraki. A long way.

That’s why it was a blast. I had to set off earlier than usual and focus on the walking rather than on exploring and photography. It was important, after all, to get back in good time for a swim and to dry off in the late afternoon sun.

The path up to Nikia was ‘new’ in that I haven’t walked it in that direction before, always from Nikia previously. It’s probably one of the most dramatic paths on Nisyros, running around the inside of the caldera with views straight down into the crater with the hordes of trippers barely visible so far below. It is well used and reasonably well maintained with significant sections of it stone paved.

The impression was very different going in the other direction, so much so that at one point I took a wrong turn. Nothing serious, just to emphasise the point that walking the other way, certainly in the mountains, is a very different perception and experience. En route I stopped off briefly at Stavros monastery to catch the place in the morning light. I was moving well and making good time, reaching Stavros in less than 90 minutes and Nikia in not much more than half an hour after that. Time for a frappé.

Stavros monastery with a volcanic dome and crater below

The next section of the route to Parleta was in reasonable condition, though it necessitated climbing up onto the terrace above for a few hundred metres where it is blocked by holly oak scrub.

I reached the Partleta pinnacles in less than 2½ hours after starting off so indulged myself and climbed up them to have my snack in the magnificent eyrie at the top. The pinnacles drop down vertically to the caldera floor about 1000 feet below and the views are amazing.

The approach to the Parleta pinnacles: straight up the crag

Looking towards the crater

Some of the pinnacles

I spent longer than I should have done there given that I still had a long way to go so I reluctantly and wistfully climbed back down and set off on the next leg of the walk. That was when things unravelled slightly. Very shortly after leaving Parleta the path crosses unstable scree of very fine material littered with rocks of all sizes and bits dead tree. The path disappears here with a faintly discernible ‘better line’ across it. I was still thinking about how great Parleta is and not concentrating so I got the line wrong and found myself grovelling on all fours to avoid going cascading down the mountain.

No significant injuries or blood–letting, just severe irritation at not paying attention and getting it wrong. As soon as you start to think that you’re the kiddie, you’re on top, things are good ….. that’s when you lose focus and things go wrong. How many times that’s happened to me, particularly canoeing when if I capsize it’s always after getting down the rapids or the weir/waterfall, and I still fall into the same trap. On terrain like this you can’t relax until the end.

I carried on from there to Emborios, going off exploring some caves at one point, before yet another frappé in the Balcony Taverna.

A line of very red caves

A common sight on farms in the UK but very, VERY unusual in Greece …. a bath used to water animals

That was a minor incident on the way. Overall it was a great day. A blast. And back to Mandraki in time for a late swim to wash off the dust.

The breakwater behind which swimming is possible in rough seas

Posted in Greece | Tagged Emborios, footpaths, Greece, lava, Mandraki, Nikia, Nisyros | Leave a comment

Nisyros: brimstone and pigs under a cloud

Posted on September 18, 2012 by BarryH

I’m now on countdown for leaving Nisyros. Not that my return to Grey Britain is imminent, I move on to Symi on Saturday to meet up with family and friends.

As an aside, the hotel has now been invaded by two large walking groups, one from the UK and the other from Germany. Therefore I made sure that I went down to breakfast half an hour earlier than usual as big walking groups tend to breakfast earlier than the average visitor in order to set out earlier. Military precision in the organisation!! Major Bonus … really good wholemeal bread as an option. And I managed to get a table outside on the terrace.

There are a number of things I want to do while still on Nisyros, an unwritten list. Long list. Indecision. Finally, over breakfast I decided to go back to the last crater I visited in the caldera, explore and photograph it some more and collect some samples to take back for a friend. Why he wants sulphur crystals I don’t know but if brimstone fires his imagination, fine. (URL below)

Ramble coming on. My late wife’s grandfather was a lead miner (that’s mining lead, not leading miners) in Cardiganshire and, as was the custom at the time, he worked in whatever mine needed labour. This meant that he frequently had to walk over the top of the mountains from the Rheidol Valley to the Ystwyth Valley, Ystumtuen to Cwmystwyth, carrying his tools in a canvas bag. He would then do a 12 hour shift and walk back. All seasons!

It struck me today walking over the mountain pass into the caldera that that was kind of what I was doing, walking to where I wanted to be to do the stuff I intended to do. In my case it was warm and sunny and pleasant, not raining and cold and wet underfoot (and that’s in the summer in Cardiganshire). And then there’s the important psychological factor: I was doing it because I wanted to, because I enjoyed it, rather than because I had to do it as part of the daily grind. I revelled in the walk and the anticipation of exploring somewhere interesting. I got to the caldera in 1½ hours. Dead chuffed. Despite what I said in Sunday’s blog, I’m basically a driven person. Most of the time I have to push targets as an inner necessity. I wish I could be more relaxed about it more of the time. Ramble over.

The crater I went back to was just as fascinating as on the first visit. I spent nearly 2 hours exploring around its flanks as well as re-visiting the core area. There were more fumaroles to look at photograph and further to the west an outcrop heavily coloured by red sulphur.

More sulphur encrustations around fumaroles

… some in the form of tubes

The well known view of the caldera but with the red sulphur cliff in the foreground

Huge lava blocks fall down and have been used to make dwellings virtually in the crater

House and walled garden, underfloor heating

Scale shown by the size of the people getting off the coaches and heading for the main crater in this zoomed in shot

To add a little contrast to the photos some cloud had built up over the mountains in the morning and then cleared except for one bank of dark black cloud off to the east over Turkey.

Side of the crater with black cloud

The crag of red sulphur

Flank of the crater with the sulphur crag

Cluster of dwellings and enclosed area built onto lava boulders at the edge of the active area of the crater

I collected some samples. Someone had clearly been up there with a pick axe breaking the sulphur outcrops so I had fragments to work with. I wouldn’t take from intact sulphur encrustations, they are just too intrinsically aesthetic. The rock fragments bearing the yellow sulphur was soft enough to break using the point of my Swiss Army Knife as I wasn’t using it to amputate any limbs at the time. Then I carefully packed them away in the cut-off end of a water bottle as they are so fragile. Main problem was that the rocks in the area have underfloor heating and the soles of the feet get very hot if stopped too long in one place. I shall expect an ice cream as a reward for diligence, effort and ingenuity.

I lost all track of time until when I checked I found I needed to move on smartish in order to get back to Mandraki, still a couple of hours walk away by the route I was taking. But time first for yet another frappé in the crater taverna. I have been there more times in the last 3 weeks than all the rest of the visits to Nisyros combined. I think I’m regarded as some weird itinerant who wanders around the caldera in shorts and sandals and drops in every few days for a frappé μέτριο, χωρίς γάλα (sugar but no milk)

I’m not really a nervous sort of guy but one of the things I openly confess to is being nervous about free range pigs, especially a sow with piglets. They wander the floor of the open caldera and can be seen moving through the trees at a distance. On the way back from the caldera the path took me through what in the UK would be an un-gated farmyard and just as I went through the narrow opening a massive sow with about 10 freshly hatched piglets was crossing in front of me.. I made sure that the sow was between me and the piglets but being skittish they were running around wildly. The sow, which up to the point I appeared on her scene, had been making kind of contented deep grunting noises, suddenly started snorting aggressively and moving towards me purposefully

I changed direction to get closer to a tumbledown stone wall. The thinking was that if she went for me I could get up onto the remains of the wall and make like a mountain goat. The sow, heavier than I was but I’m sure less agile, would find it slower going over the rocks, particularly so being low slung and with a dozen teats heavy with milk hanging below. The assumption was that though pigs might fly they would not hop sure-footedly from rock to rock. Fortunately I was spared the indignity of putting my subterfuge and doubtful logic to the test.

The walk up the steep zigzagging path to the rim of the caldera which I successfully followed from the top a week or so ago, posed no problems, helped by the fact that Red-Spot Man had positioned his daubs to assist going up rather than down the path. Close to the top I had to duck underneath a dead goat hanging from a tree by a broken back leg. Even mountain goats get it wrong sometimes. Salutary lesson!!!!!

Brimstone: http://www.biblicalscholarship.com/whatisbrimstone.htm

Posted in Greece | Tagged lava, Mandraki, Nisyros, Volcano | 1 Comment

Nisyros: freed from the tyranny of targets

Posted on September 17, 2012 by BarryH

Sunday. It’s hard to believe that it’s my third Sunday on Nisyros and that I have been here for 3 weeks. We have been here many times and last year I was here for a month in June. But still I have been discovering new things and walking new routes every single day. The island is so full of variety and interest that I guess it’s unique. Still the best part of a week to go before I move on and without thinking about it there are more walks queuing up to be done. As soon as you get the confidence to go off-piste the island becomes vast.

It’s shrunk a little because of circumspection in light of the hunters roaming the mountains blasting off at anything which moves, including in the protected areas, but there is still a lot more to do.

The last few days of hard walking in increasingly hot conditions have taken me a bit by surprise really. Therefore on Sunday and I decided on a modest day’s exertions were called for before what I anticipate will be a tiring final week. So I decided to do something I have never done before in Greece. Walk to a taverna and have a mid-day meal.

I feel another ramble coming on. When I finished my degree in college and was embarking on research my Professor didn’t get my grant application in time. Result: a year of research with virtually no money. Thanks to the generosity of friends accommodation was sorted out but I had precious little money for food. Result: my stomach shrank and I found I could manage on far less than I had been used to eating. Ever since then my appetite has been limited. Large portions in restaurants put me off. I eat very modestly …. and thrive on it!! While I’m in Greece my midday ‘meal’ consist of a banana and half a bar of nuts and honey. With another banana towards the end of the afternoon. Plus copious amounts of water. Either side of that are a good breakfast and evening meal. I am, as the saying goes, as fit as a flea on that. Though why fleas are considered exemplars of fitness I don’t know. I generally find somewhere dramatic for the midday snack: top of a mountain, edge of a cliff or prominent lump of rock, a dry waterfall, impressive monastery grounds, Minoan settlement …… you know, the sort of place we all stop for dinner. End of ramble.

Anyway! Sunday I decided to take the newly scheduled 09.45 bus to Palloi and walk up the old path to Emborios and have a meal rather than just a frappé in the fabulously located Balcony Taverna. This is the first time in 3 weeks this year and 4 weeks last year that I haven’t bought bananas in one of the island’s 3 fruit shops. I shall find out tomorrow whether any of the fruiterers have been hospitalised with shock. How will they manage without my daily €1 purchase!!

I decided to walk up the old path from Palloi rather than direct from Mandraki and via Evangelistra for two reasons. First was to support the bus service: if it’s not well patronised it will not appear on the schedule in future years. Second was because I am rather pleased with myself to have found a good route and hope to add it to the list of Greek Island Walks I post on the internet for Nisyros. It’s obviously been there for centuries but it’s new to me and isn’t shown on any of the maps of the island.

It was to be a relaxing day so I began with a frappé in a taverna on the harbourside in Palloi. Then a gentle amble along the coast road with a flat-calm sea and sea daffodils nodding gently in the faintest of breezes. That set the tone for the day, strongly reinforce by the fact that I left my pedometer in the hotel …. unintentionally.

Sea daffodils proliferate along this bit of coast

Flat-calm and crystal clear

Another ramble. Many years ago I concluded that setting targets as a management tool is a load of bollocks. Targets are entirely to do with quantity and not quality. For one thing, and there are many other problems with them, they measure time or money or number of widgets but do not and cannot measure quality of product or service. I was given a pedometer for Christmas 2010, a really good one, and it has to some extent changed my life. I love it. One of the best presents I have had. It means I aim to walk a minimum distance so many times each week and that is A Good Thing.

BUT it also has a facility to measure ‘aerobic walking’ and that isn’t such a good thing. I won’t bore you with the mechanics of it but it means that I aim to set a minimum pace of 60 steps per minute and not stop for longer than 60 seconds because that switches off the recording of aerobic steps. It’s a slave driver. A tyrant. I try to keep walking while taking photos. Mad!!! End of ramble.

Sunday and I forgot the pedometer. And I was on a mission to have a relaxing day. I stopped to take photos. I stopped to just look. I climbed rocks to take photos of rocks. I ambled off the path to look at stuff which caught the eye. I mooched around looking for a better angle for a photo. I almost grabbed a snake by the tail as it slithered off the path in front of me before could get the camera deployed (the reason I didn’t was because I didn’t know how sharp the sharp end was). I wandered off the path to investigate what looked like a Greek trig point on top of a terrace wall and found it was part of a carved marble pillar with a few other perplexing ancient artefacts. Great walk.

Dry waterfall with a cave underneath on the line of the path

One of many lava outcrops

Photographer on the edge again

On top of a rock to photograph the huge boulder overhanging the old path

One of many houses built under the terraces

Carved marble pillar and other artifacts alongside the house

Close-up of the carved figure, about half a metre tall

And to top it all (pardon the pun) I had a Greek salad in the Balcony Taverna looking out along the length of the caldera. I had the place more or less to myself. Last time it was heaving with 3 coach loads of multilingual trippers from Kos: Russians, French, Germans, Bulgarians, Brummies ….

Carved lintel over door of collapsed building in Emborios …. dated 1810

Path up to the old castle and church above Emborios

The church

Then a walk back down to Mandraki in time for a swim and a lounge on the beach at Hochlakkoi. The sea there has been calmer for the last 4 days than I have ever seen it. Great for swimming.

On the way back from Emborios Enfys first spotted this as a photographic composition but the sun wasn’t in the right place. Today it was right

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Nisyros: to the top of the world and underground into the distant past

Posted on September 16, 2012 by BarryH

Saturday, hunters popping away from early morning, I headed for the central block of mountains to keep out of the way of stray bullets. It worked, none came my way despite seeing men with rifles roaming the terraces nearby.

I climbed Oros Diavatis again, at just short of 700 metres the highest mountain on Nisyros. Once again it was cloudless and, with barely any breeze, it was hot going. The views from the top are great but on Saturday augmented by a strange weather phenomenon. The distant sky was almost opalescent blue and there were low-level clouds on Kos to the north and Tilos to the south, and the odd wisp of cloud below Nikia on the opposite side of caldera rim. Ethereal.

Cloud on Kos and a strange light

Looking south across Nikia to Tilos

To the east, terraced fields to the top of the adjacent mountain and the lava bubble bottom right

After enjoying being on top of the world for a while I headed back down and took a high level path which serves as the ‘back entrance’ to the Nifios caldera. The intention on Saturday was to spend time looking at the evidence of older settlement there.

Set into the side of the caldera there is a tiny underground church built underneath an outcrop of lava with a central stone pillar. It is thought that this predates the Christian era and was probably a pagan shrine in the distant past. Now it has two tiny stone altars on one of which someone left a bottle of wine many years ago, still there though with the label not so intact, and more recently a bottle of olive oil. The church is furnished with candles and matches for the faithful to light in prayer so it is obviously still visited.

Rock crag with carved holes for wooden beams: maybe Neolithic

Entrance to the underground church: the door is less than a metre high and inside steps drop steeply about 6 feet

Inside the church with its central pillar

The two alters in the church

Minoan ‘Horns of Consecration’ at the entrance to the settlement

The main settlement of Nifios set into the rocks

Abandoned

After mooching around Nifios for a while it was back down to Mandraki and a very welcome swim. It seemed hotter on Saturday than for a while. I don’t know what happened to Autumn. Fine by me.

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Nisyros: Pinnacles of cowardice and lava art.

Posted on September 15, 2012 by BarryH

Friday was the first time I have made a decision based on cowardice. Maybe that’s a bit strong …. a decision based on circumspection.

Thursday evening it became clear that the hunters were once again descending on Nisyros. It’s an annual happening, sadly. Over a large part of the island hunting is prohibited, the core area of the mountains are a permanently protected area. There are blue signs saying so, most of them with bullet holes in.

Hunting prohibited. Permanent refuge.

Other parts of the island, mostly the areas closer to the coast, are not protected. And the open season begins on Saturday. I had forgotten! Thursday evening and the hunters started appearing: easily identified by their dogs, their guns, and their manner. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with locals shooting birds for food but these are people who travel for the ‘sport’. If it was meat they were after it would be far cheaper to buy it in the most upmarket ‘charcuterie’ in Athens. These are people who like killing, disguised as ‘protecting traditional ways’.

On Tilos hunting was banned completely a few years ago, tourism being considered more important than protecting tradition.

Another walk I had planned for my remaining time on Nisyros was to walk down through the Argos area again and carry on down to sea level to try get a better view of the lava pinnacles. The route would take me down through major hunting territory and I didn’t fancy being collateral damage for a brace of chukkas. (rock partridges to you). So I brought the plan forward to Friday.

It isn’t that I’m afraid of being shot. I’m not. Genuinely. I suppose it’s that I’m afraid of personal confrontation, particularly in a language I’m not master of. In a work context I like to think that I actually thrived on confrontation. Try to avert it if all possible but when the gloves were off I knew the rules. But on a personal level it just isn’t me. Confronted with armed blokes with dogs complaining and shouting that I was in their way, interfering with their sport, just isn’t my idea of fun and I don’t know how I would react.

Despite the fact that the season doesn’t begin until Saturday I was passed on the track section of the walk up to Argos by 4x4s with cages with dogs in strapped to the back and scooters with dogs in the footwell and rifles slung over the back of the rider. Cum Saturday the scooter riders will have the rifles barrel up, stock balanced on the knee. I’ve seen it before. Fortunately today they must have been on a practice run. Having passed me I didn’t see them or their parked vehicles again.

The walk was great. Summer has definitely returned and there was little breeze so it was very pleasantly hot. The walk down to the coast was partly over ground which is, after 2 previous walks this summer, one each way, almost familiar. Minor problem overcoming a goat fence close to the coast but no real problem a climber couldn’t surmount.

Once down at sea level the pinnacles were even more dramatic than I had anticipated. The position of the sun made for silhouettes and washed-out sky rather than detail of the rock but it was great simply being there. Just me with the camera and a couple of bananas and a lone fisherman fishing from the beach.

I managed to explore half the length this stretch of coast so I may have to risk the hill-billy pot shots towards the end of the week when the initial exuberance has subsided and the hunters have realised the chukkas have built-in calendars and have all gone into the central mountains, and go back to explore the other half.

Looking along the foreshore and beach from the pinnacles

The strata at the top of the cliff

Lava sculpture: ‘camel with the hump’?

From the other side

Close-up of the neck and head

Detail of the rock

Same rock from the seaward side

Approaching the lava pinnacles in the sea

Lava sculpture: ‘Seahorse’?

Lava sculpture: ‘leaning away from each other’?

Cluster of pinnacles seen from the cliff above

Zooming in

2-metre diameter globe of the Planet Zog

Friday evening back in Mandraki and a very pleasant meal with a French Canadian couple and then back to the hotel via the usual nightcap. And the barking of hunting dogs tied up close by, continuing into the small hours.

I have two T-shirts for walking. One is grey and blends in nicely with the lava. I’ll be wearing the bright red one tomorrow.

Posted in Greece | Tagged art, Greece, lava, rock pinnacles, Volcano | Leave a comment

Nisyros: Autumn came and went again.

Posted on September 14, 2012 by BarryH

Unexpectedly amazing day on Wednesday, as already said. And un-anticipated, though with hindsight not entirely unexpected change in the weather. Since I arrived on Nisyros on 26 August there literally hasn’t been a cloud in the sky. Wednesday and high cirrus advanced from the north and by the end of the morning there was orographically induced cumulous cloud (cloud formed by air being force upwards by mountains and cooling to condensation level) over Oros Diavatis, the highest peak on the island. It grew and diminished and grew and diminished through the afternoon but was still there as night fell.

Coupled with that was a distinct change in temperature. It was nolonger hot in the shade. In the evening locals were all wearing coats.

Autumn had come.

The cloud was still over the peaks as I set out on Thursday to catch the newly scheduled 09.45 to Palloi but by then there was quite some heat in the sun and it was verging on being too hot sitting on the harbourside waiting for the bus.

The plan was to walk along the coast towards Lies in order to photograph the lava clam shell and adjacent pumice cliffs which I blogged about a few days ago. Then the light had been over the back and the whole face of the lava and the pumice had been in shade. The hope was that earlier in the day it would have the sun on it making for better photos. That worked reasonably well, half the lava clam shell being in the sun and the whole of the pumice cliff. Not perfect but distinctly better.

I climbed up to the top of the clam shell, apparently more accurately described as a ‘ramp lava front’ ……. but it looks like a giant clam shell so I’ll stick with the descriptive rather than the scientific. Then I climbed cautiously and delicately around its lip on both sides with the aim of trying to capture the shape of it and the colours in the lava. I really needed to be there a couple of hours earlier in order to get the whole of the structure in the light. But the photos I did take I hope manage give an impression of it.

Lava clam shell from one side

……. and from the other

Small section of the lip of the lava

Layers of pumice and ‘paleosoils’ laid down in pumice cliffs by different eruptions of the volcano

In places much eroded

The line of sea-eroded caves seen from the tip of the clam shell

The next stage of the plan was to reverse the walk up to Emborios which I sussed out last Friday. Bit of time-warping here. It’s difficult to believe that I have been here now nearly 3 weeks and it’s difficult to believe that it was nearly a week since I did the Emborios–Palloi route-finding. As the cliché has it “doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself”.

Apart from being resolutely uphill all the way retracing the route in reverse up to Emborio wasn’t too difficult. I managed the 20-foot dry waterfall no problem and the only real decision was when I reached a confluence. Following the combination of path and stream bed downhill there is no decision to make, two streams becoming one, but going uphill one stream bed becomes two. Is it left or right?? No anxiety. I thought it was the right hand option and knew that if it was wrong, when it intersected the road and the upward continuation wasn’t immediately opposite, then I just had to turn left and I would find it.

Worked a treat. Right was right and within 20 minutes I was at the road and the next section of the path, a well defined and mostly paved kalderimi was straight ahead across the tarmac.

Some people don’t like ‘out-and-back’ walks on the basis that they don’t like doing the same route twice. The route back up to Emborio bore no resemblance to the route down. Same path but two completely different walks just by looking the other way. I think only two features were memorable and identifiable, first the waterfall and second a lump of lava the size of a house overhanging the path.

I reached Emborios by 12.00 and the cloud over the peaks had disappeared completely. The wind had dropped and there wasn’t a cloud in sight anywhere. Fabulous. Time for a frappé on the famous terrace cantilevered out over the caldera.

Summer had returned, for a while at least..

It must be said that while September is a great month in Greece, probably the best, there is always the likelihood of unsettled weather towards the end of the month. Unsettled in terms of the reliability of clear blue sky. The likelihood of rain is still very low. But for Wednesday an early finish to the walk meant time on the beach at Hochlakoi where the sea was crystal clear and, for once, amazingly calm.

Posted in Greece | Tagged Emborios, footpaths, Greece, lava, pumice, Volcano | Leave a comment

Nisyros: volcano art and origami.

Posted on September 13, 2012 by BarryH

Unexpectedly amazing day on Wednesday. Most days are good but this was better than good.

Tuesday evening I found out that the island’s bus service is to be augmented by an 09.45 run to Palloi further along the coast. Agreed a bit late in the season but nevertheless welcome for those of us still here. I planned to use it and had a new walk planned ….. but other things got in the way.

So instead I planned a walk back up to Nifios, the Minoan settlement high in the mountains as a relatively easy day after the rigours of the off-piste on Tuesday and a long walk on Monday. Surprisingly I set out and continued with far more vigour than I thought and the Nifios option seemed a little timid given the speed at which I was moving. I would finish far too early.

Sooo! midway to the first target at Evangelistra monastery I decide to continue to the caldera and visit the only crater I haven’t yet been to. Got there in 1 hour 40.

I was chuffed with my fitness and the crater was great. I’m sure that the geology of it is significant but the visual impact was dramatic to say the least. I couldn’t stop clicking away with the camera. (there is an option to turn off the ‘click’ but I like the reassuring sound and only turn it off if it might startle the wildlife.)

The photos are not so much to do with geology or geomorphology as the art inherent in the landscape.

Many years ago I concluded that I didn’t have the technical expertise to paint or draw so I decided that I would give expression to any artistic ability I had with a camera. Basically, for me, that comes down to seeing the art in the landscape. The crater I visited on Wednesday was full of it and I just wished I had the talent to express it properly. But here’s my best attempts.

Combination of the macro and the micro, patterns of colour splashed across the rocks, shapes large and small sculpted by the forces of nature. No captions, just photos.

That origami bit?? You wouldn’t believe the shapes I had to fold myself into to get the right position for some of the shots, tucked in between fumaroles belching clouds of steam and sulphur gas at unpredictable intervals. A few times I had got origarmed (another new word, OED please note) into position only to find that a cloud of steam and gas engulfed me and the camera.

CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE

Incidentally, the walk was great too. Covered over 20 kms and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

Posted in Greece | Tagged art, Greece, Nisyros, Volcano | Leave a comment

Posted on September 12, 2012 by BarryH

Nisyros: the lost coast; going off-piste big time.

The island bus service is now useless for visitors wanting to use it to go out walking. As I’ve said before 07.00 is too early and 14.15 is too late. No other choice. However, a conversation with some people over breakfast on the hotel terrace on Monday led to a shared taxi up to Nikia at 10.00 on Tuesday. The cost was 4 times what it would have been on the bus but at least it got me to the starting point at a good time. That in turn meant that I could have a go at a challenge I had all but given up on, a walk which from Mandraki would have meant a very long day but starting from Nikia was feasible.

The plan was to drop down on a reasonably kalderimi from Nikia to the now-deserted settlement at Avlaki and find a route from there to the long-deserted sulphur processing plant at Agia Irini before heading into the Argos area and up to the track from the Stavros monastery back to Mandraki. The majority of the walk was very definitely very ‘off-piste’ with no path just steep and overgrown agricultural terraces and craggy volcanic rock outcrops dropping steeply down into the sea.

We had walked from Agia Irini to Avlaki a few years ago and found it very demanding. But I was confident that I had enough of the walk in my head to recognise key features of it in reverse. Fat chance! Either the topography has changed significantly or I was on a different planet. There was nothing whatsoever which was familiar. Nothing sparked a memory of it.

That wasn’t a problem. I had a picture of the terrain in my mind and knew where I wanted to get to so it was a matter of interpreting the ground as I went and following goat tracks through aggressive vegetation and over rocky ground. I have neither the agility and sure-footedness nor the mentality of a goat so the route I took, though it got me where I was going, lacked style and finesse. Very disappointing. Climbing competitions are marked not only on speed but on style. Even as a low grade, and most certainly not a competition standard, rock climber I value style and finesse.

To be fair, I did meander around a good bit, not with the objective of making progress so much as to look at things and take photos. It is a fascinating area of coast both geologically and historically and is very obviously rarely visited. Even though it is one of the areas on Nisyros where hunting (shooting chukkas) is allowed the number of shotgun cartridges per kilometre of meandering through this area was very low. Shooting is the only reason people would come here. Clearly not many do. It seemed an abandoned area. A bit of the Nisyros coast where nobody comes. Given up on by the farming community long ago.

It clearly had not always been so. There was much evidence of settlement and terraced fields wherever the terrain would allow. Most of the steeper terraces were almost completely blocked by thorn scrub with stone built houses here and there. Having rounded one rocky headland I dropped down to a small area of less-overgrown and wider terraces which seemed to be devoid of settlement but turned out to have caves dug out of the pumice with stone-built fronts, the terraced fields simply continuing over the top.

It had been very slow going up to this point and it was good to walk on more open ground for a short while. Then there was a clamber up more steep terraces to reach a cluster of buildings higher up the slope and in an onward direction. One of them had ‘1930’ carved into the arch over the door which was of a more sophisticate design that the straight stone slab lintels elsewhere. I find it amazing that people were still building these one-room houses well into the 20^th Century.

It was a tiring walk because most of it was across very rough ground but I got back to Mandraki unscathed and very ready for a beer. It is not easy country to trek through but I saw enough to whet my appetite to find out and explore it more. And I was irritated enough to be determined to find a more satisfying route through it, one with more style.