Barry's Ramblings

I had a good plan for Sunday but it didn’t work out at all.  Not one whit of it.  Did you know that an Amazon Kindle comes with the Oxford English Dictionary so you can check that hazy recollections of words like ‘whit’ are remembered correctly.  You may have already gathered that this ramble is really going to ….. well, ramble quite a bit.

Having been traumatized by the difficulty of getting a ticket for the ferry from Kalymnos to Symi I wanted to make sure I could get back to Rhodes for the flight home.  So I decided to book the ticket well in advance …. like, TODAY.

The travel office which sells ferry tickets is not unsurprisingly, down by the harbour so I planned a walk from there rather than from Horio, the old village up on the hill, where I’m staying.  I tend to prefer to stay in the old Horio on most islands, the Greeks of long ago knew that it’s cooler there and that the views are better.  As it turned out the travel office is closed on Sundays, something I don’t remember from past years so I don’t know if it is a long time practice not to be open on Sundays or a recent practice in view of the fact that the ferry company in question must be doing far more business than ever.  It seems that their rival for the run up the Dodecanese chain has gone into receivership which in all probability accounts for the remaining ferries being fully booked.

I would have to return to the harbour to get the ticket on Monday so it seemed appropriate to defer the planned walk until then as well.

Alternative options buzzed through my head as  I went back up the hill via another stone-stepped path, the Cataractis, rather than the more often used Kali Strata.  A real test of memory and sense of direction that was as it is a route I haven’t taken for years.  But I found the way through the labyrinth which is Upper Horio and by the time I reached the open mountain had finally settled in my mind on walking to a secluded beach on the other side of the island, usually referred to as Agios Vasilios after the tiny church set on the cliffs overlooking it but more properly called Lapathos Beach.

It struck me walking through the small settlement of Ksissos on the ridge that there are so many small, colourful churches around here. Passing places like this every day it is easy to not notice them, they become part of the background.  So I photographed a few.  And there are so many idiosyncratic images up in the mountains.  So I photographed a few of them as well.

There are bells over many of the entrance gates

Even small churches can have ornate towers

Sometimes the colour and attractiveness is in the simplicity

Must have been a heck of a wave, this is on the top of the ridge, about 300 metres above sea level

My heart sank as I made the near vertical final descent to the beach from the Agios Vasilios church as a power boat screamed into the bay. Not very secluded today then.  But more secluded than when the two round-the-island trip boats  pulled into the bay and hordes of trippers jumped into the water to swim to the beach and sit on the pebbles.  Until only a few years ago we used to walk here and share the length of the beach with one or at most two other couples who had also walked there.  No more!

Bobbing heads overboard

Washed up on the beach. Half an hour later the spot where the rucksack and towel are in the foreground was submerged by massive waves

But trip boats don’t hang around here for long.  They have a date with a BBQ at the south end of the island.  Then it was just the parked-up power boat at one end of the beach and me at the other.  I had another swim and then stretched out in the sun to dry off until a large boat passing somewhere in the distance set up larger waves than normal on an otherwise flat-clam day and forcing me further up the beach to avoid getting my stuff wet.

I must admit I was dozing comfortably in the warm sunshine when I suddenly jerked wake as I heard a roaring behind me.  I looked around just as a huge wave washed all over me and my clothes spread out to dry in the sun.  Everything was drenched but I grabbed all my stuff and moved it even further up the beach as more waves roared in.

I have no evidence for this but it seemed to me that this wave activity was significantly more than is caused by passing boats.  The thought occurred to me that it may be a caused by under-sea seismic activity in the area, though admittedly fairly minor, not on an Indonesian scale.  Nisyros just a few miles to the north is classed as a potentially active volcano and there had been noticeable seismic activity there in May just before I arrived in June.

My stuff was absolutely wet through and I had to wring it out and spread it on the rocks higher up the beach to dry in the sun.  The camera rucksack had survived unscathed and pretty dry as it was standing upright just above me.  So I took the SLR out to wander along the beach to take photos while my stuff dried.

Then the second bizarre thing in a few minutes, the sensitive and high powered electronic zoom lens just stopped working.  Having unlocked it to use the zoom it wouldn’t close down to wide-angle again.  And then it locked up completely and wouldn’t take any electronic signal from the camera body.  It hadn’t suffered any physical trauma but I couldn’t help but wonder if it had maybe been damaged by an electromagnetic pulse if the waves did indeed indicate seismic activity.

Of course it could well be a coincidence.  The waves could be just a pretty big boat going fast.  It could be just a mechanical problem in the lens.  It is a natural tendency to want to make more of things than simple observation justifies, to offer explanations which over-dramatise simple events.  It somehow enhances the observer.  Who knows.  But I’m sticking to the hypothesis that a mini-tsunami hit Lapathos Beach until there is evidence to the contrary.  I was there!!

I still have the S95 but I do feel bereft without the SLR.  Last year when I came  for the Summer I brought my old SLR with its 2 lenses as a back-up but having had problem with Big Bag weight restrictions this year I decided it was an unnecessary belt-and-braces to have 3 cameras.

I walked back somewhat bemused by all this. Conscious that the weather was hotter than previously I paused to drink water at frequent intervals.  The walk down the kalderimi from the ridge back to Horio has amazing views down to the harbour.  I love the path but can’t walk it without remembering that the last time I walked it with Enfys she stopped along here just to soak it in, burn it into her mind, because she must have known that this was the last time that she would walk this way.

That view down to the harbour

That’s both the good thing and the problem with Symi and some of the other islands, they are just so full of memories.  But then that’s the good thing and the problem of home as well.

I spent the morning of my first day on Symi just chilling out, catching up with things I need to do on the internet, and meeting people.  Having spent three months on Symi last year I got to know a lot of people and while not being a local it’s a very different feeling to just being here as someone who comes for a couple of weeks holiday.

It was strange going into the supermarket where I did most of my shopping last year, being greeted by the family that run it as if I was returning to the fold.  On Friday when I arrived, naturally I ate out in one of the restaurants but I’m in a large studio apartment in the hotel with good kitchen facilities.  So when I was in the supermarket buying water and looking for nutbars I made the snap decision that rather than eating out every evening as had been my intention I would cook for myself as I did last year.  It just seemed the natural thing to do – after all, I lived here for 3 months.

I spent the whole morning on the computer and chatting to people, very relaxing.  It’s nice to have a sense of belonging.

Then I went for a walk in the mountains and after a week of walking on Kalymnos I was fair zipping along, like a spring lamb, or more realistically, a bit more like an arthritic old goat.  The weather was absolutely perfect for walking, cloudless sky, warm sun with a breeze to make it really comfortable.  Two things struck me, first that I was very familiar with the paths and second that the distances between places seemed shorter than on Kalymnos.  I got where I was going more quickly.

I walked around to one of the prime viewpoints down to the harbour and sat there for my banana and nutbar.  It’s a great place with a lot of memories and I stayed there a good while drinking it in and playing around with the camera.

An old goat leaping around the mountains

... just in order to pose for the camera

Just in case you got distracted by the scrawny old goat .... what a great view!

Eventually I left and continued around the ridge and dropped down to the beach at Nimborio where I swam and lazed in the sun to dry off.  I guess it’s the sense of familiarity and belonging but I’m more relaxed here, not as driven to ‘go-and-do’ as I usually am.

Last year’s blog readers may remember the trauma of not being able to find green beans to make fasolakia, a shortage apparently caused by the lorry drivers’ strike on the mainland.  Now, I sourced green beans and fennel very quickly and the rest of the ingredients were straightforward.  I made a good panfull of it and now have 3 more portions in the fridge.  Speeds up the meal-making process enormously.

What will I do while I’m here?  I guess I’ll make it up as I go along.

I’m now on Symi but I only just made it.  Whenever I think that I have experienced everything that the transport system can throw at me in Greece, there is always something new, something the imagination hasn’t identified as a possibility

Before leaving home I had sussed out on the internet that there was a high speed ferry, the Dodecanese Pride, between Kalymnos a couple of times a week including Fridays, leaving Kalymnos 15.30 and arriving Symi 17.45.  Perfect timing for me.  It meant that I could catch the 10.00 bus from Emborios to the main harbour, have a leisurely midday snack, and arrive on Symi in the relative cool of the early evening for the walk up to the hotel in Horio, the old town overlooking the harbour.

I finished packing, had breakfast, settled my extremely generously priced bill, said goodbyes and waited at the end of the jetty for the bus.  It was very late.  Not a problem as I had plenty of time.  When it came it wasn’t the usual low-floor bus with large double doors in the centre and space for putting Big Bags, it was a small coach with fewer seats and less generous milling space.  It was certainly a sardine-tin of a journey but we got to the town and the bus disgorged its load of sweaty, irritable humanity onto the harbour-side.  Personally I wasn’t irritable but the pulse was beginning to quicken.

First port of call (note the maritime metaphor) was the travel agent’s to buy a ticket for the ferry.  Once again I was let down by my ability to deliver a prepared request in reasonably fluent Greek and not being able to understand a word of the reply because it is assumed that I can understand normal-speed Greek which is delivered at a Formua 1 pace rather than jalopy speed.

It was repeated for me, a little testily, but then I had to ask for it in English.  I suspect that the reason I couldn’t understand any of it was that the reply did not contain any of the expected responses: “that will be €30”, “can I have your name?”, “do you want a single or a return?”, “it leaves at three thirty”.  Instead I was being told that no, I couldn’t have a ticket because the ferry was full.  End of story. However he did offer the grudging information that if I went to the ticket office on the harbour half an hour before the ferry sailed then maybe, just, maybe, they may have a spare ticket.

It may be remembered that I had booked 4 nights in the Olympic Hotel under the mistaken impression that 2 September was Tuesday of next week and that I had to go there to cancel the reservation.  The story was now even more complicated.  The alternatives for travelling to Symi were a Big Ferry (the kind with escalators which vicariously attack your shins) at 05.00 the following morning and taking 6 hours to get to Symi via half the other islands in the Dodecanese, or a high speed catamaran on Monday.  So, if I couldn’t get a ticket I would need a room for the night.  Or part of a night.  Very messy, very unsatisfactory.  I didn’t simplify my life by retiring from work and going away from home to escape the myriad jobs which need doing in house and garden for this!!!

Frankly, the guy in the hotel could not have been more helpful.  The fact that I was cancelling the reservation was “no problem”.  The Greeks have a way of saying that with a droop to the corners of the mouth and moving the hands gently apart in front of them palm-down in a very chilled manner clearly implying that it really is ‘no problem’.  Not only that but he telephoned another travel agent and after a few minutes said that there were seats on the ferry and I should go to book them straight away.  I left my Big Bag and shot off 150metres along the quayside.  But when I got there it was the same story.  This was the main office for that ferry company and it seemed that in the time it took me to walk 150 metres the last seats had indeed now all gone.  But maybe, just maybe, they may have a spare ticket at the harbourside half an hour before sailing.

By now my pulse was really going a bit.  I calmed down by sitting in the lounge window of the hotel, drinking a frappé and doing stuff on the computer.  I could once again access and reply to e-mails and I moved bits of money between bank accounts just because I could.  When you are on your own it is amazing how disconnected you feel if you can’t use the internet to be in touch with people and how reassuring it is when you can.

I thanked the guy in the hotel for his help in the accepted Greek way of indicating sincerity, by touching your chest with the flat of your hand or the side of your fist, and then left in time to make sure I was first in the queue for a ticket.  It’s quite an expanse of harbourside in Kalymnos and took me a little while to track down the relevant ticket office but when I did I was pleased to see that I was first there, an hour ahead of sailing. I waited leaning on the ‘L’ shaped counter looking out of the window about 3 feet away. After 20 minutes a woman came and leant on the counter next to me, then a trickle and then a torrent of people all wanting tickets on the ferry-which-was-full.  But I was at the front!.  What a joke that was!!!!!!

Eventually two young girls came to person the desk.  After booting up the computer, which seemed to take an age because I was by now a bit pent up and wanting to get this sorted, one of them asked the woman 2^nd in the queue for her name and where she wanted to go.  To be fair the woman was very polite and said (in Greek) “this gentleman was first” but, no, her name was taken first and written under a heading of her destination ‘Ροδος’ – Rhodes.  Then my name and destination, again written under a heading but half way down the page. My name had to be carefully spelled out – remember this is a name in a completely different alphabet and they have no letter ‘H’, or rather they have a letter which looks the same but is pronounced ‘ee’.  In the end we got there ‘Hankei” … well, what’s in a ‘y’, I was on the list.  Then the two young girls behind the desk left and were replaced by an older woman.  Clearly more gravitas was needed for this situation.

Third people in the ‘queue’, by now it was, to use a rugby metaphor, a pushing, shoving rolling-maul , spilling round the side of the desk as if trying to encircle the woman with the computer who clearly had the ball, were a Scandinavian couple whose names were so complicated that they had to be written by down by them in a tiny space left at the bottom of the page under the heading ‘Κω’ – Kos. Then others were shouting their names out, all heading for Rhodes and all Greeks with the result that the woman was familiar with the spelling and just scribbled away furiously.  The top of the page under the heading ‘Rhodes’ went into a second column!!  And we all wanted tickets for a ferry which was already deemed ‘full’.

Believe me, I have simplified what was going on.  There were far more complications than that.  One woman had booked a ticket for herself by phone but forgotten to say she was accompanied by her children.  Others were buying tickets to put packages and parcels on the boat.  Others wanted tickets for freight and themselves.  One guy came around the blind side of the rolling–maul on the outside of the building, opened the window next to the desk, and started bellowing his name and requirements in the poor woman’s ear.

The ‘system’,  I’m sure there must have been a system, was that the woman had to phone Head Office at a prescribed time to find out if any more tickets could be issued.  She phoned several times with no result, each time having to shout ‘περιμένετε’ – ‘you’ll have to wait’, to the Greeks baying for tickets.  Eventually she was given the all clear and suddenly started typing all the Greek names under ‘Ροδος’ into a spreadsheet, pressed a button and the printer started spewing out tickets which changed hands for cash at high speed.  Then it seemed she had to get another clearance from Head Office for the three people going to Kos.  And still I’m standing there, having been first in the queue by 20 minutes.

Then she got the clearance for Symi and I got my ticket.  Seems it works on the obverse of redundancy system here: First-in, last out.  But I didn’t care, I had a  ticket.  No-one could have been more pleased if they had walked out clutching a ticket to watch Wales play England for the Grand Slam at the Millennium Stadium with only 5 minutes to kick-off.

Now I’m on Symi and chilling out.  And just look at the view from my hotel balcony!

Must be one of the best views in Europe.

Another megablog, just to put you off completely.  The same problem as before, needing to wait until I got to the internet-connected town at the other end of the island.

I started this from the Hotel Olympic on Kalymnos en route to Symi but there was a major problem with The Plan.  More of which in another blog.  For now, for the rest of my time on Kalymnos.

Monday, and having been cut off from the internet since I got to Kalymnos, here I decided that a visit to Pothia was a priority in order to check and send e-mails, check bank accounts and to blog and, as a secondary consideration, to try to find nutbars, the Emborios Mini Market not having any.

Problem was that I had to compile the blog before I left but, in the event, I managed it comfortably.  I bought tickets on the way to the bus and then suffered increasingly cramped conditions as the bus passed first through Massouri and then Myrties and Hora picking up vast numbers of unlikely looking climbers and a host of ‘character’ locals.  What was surprising was the large number of people trying to get on the bus without knowing that you have to buy tickets before boarding, making ‘old hands’ like me feel smug having already sussed the system and impatient to be on our way without being delayed by laggards.

Once in Pothia I headed straight for the Hotel Olympic where, amazingly, the Australian- Greek girl in reception remembered me instantly and shook my hand and welcomed me back, enquiring after my welfare.  How do Greeks do it!!!!  They seem so interested in people and able to remember them after even the briefest acquaintance.

So I spent the rest of the morning accessing and replying to e-mails, posting that very long blog, and checking bank accounts on-line.

That done I came out of the hotel and decided to go up the mountain on the Italian Path and try to find the chapel so clearly visible on the skyline from all angles around the harbour but not shown on the maps.

The chapel may not be shown on any maps but having taken the plunge and gone off the incredibly well-paved Italian Path there was a not indistinct and occasionally marked ‘normal’ mountain path leading meanderingly to the chapel.  The door was chained and padlocked but the views from the side of it were dramatic, vertically down to the harbour and over the town.  I wasn’t in a hurry to leave.

Looking down to the harbour from above the church

.... and the view in the other direction

But eventually I did in order to catch the 17.00 bus back to Emborios.  With only two buses a day you don’t want to make get left behind!!

Back at Emborios by 18.00 and it was quick change into swimming cossie and then down the 100 yards to the beach and another great swim.  That’s ‘great swim’ purely in the sense that it was very enjoyable, not at all in terms of any athletic prowess exhibited.

Then a very enjoyable meal of curried chicken, mouth-wateringly fabulous, after which I sat up talking with friends until 02.00.  You would think I would learn by my age!  But no, it seems not.

Tuesday saw a very sluggish start after a day’s shopping and blogging and climbing mountains …… and, OK, sitting up chatting until 02.00 in the morning.  Shame really as I had big plans for the day.  I was going to repeat the walk up Oros Profitis Ilias but then instead of going back to Hora, to drop down the other side of the ridge to the floor of the Vathy Valley and return to Pothia via the Italian Path to catch the 17.00 bus back to Emborios.   Ambitious!  Particulalry so as I couldn’t start in the cool of the day but at 11.00 when the bus got to Hora where the walk began.

There was only me and a family on the bus leaving Emborios but by the time we had reached Hora it was more than usually crowded.  Most people get caught out by the ticketing system and try to get on board without having first bought a ticket in the periptero (kiosk) so that the driver can tear it in half, keep one for the records and give the other back to you in case an inspector gets on I guess.  It’s a similar system to that in Athens except there its more mechanised.

The problem is that people try to get on in groups and with rucksacks and Big Luggage and then have to get off again to buy tickets, pushing through the crush of people behind them also trying to get on.  They then run to the periptero, buy tickets and run back to the bus passing the people who were clamouring to get on behind them only to have met with the same problem.  The bus can be delayed at certain stops for significant number of minutes while this process takes place and then, increasingly resembling a sweaty sardine tin, lurches off once more with those standing clutching the rails in a desperate attempt to avoid being thrown around the inside.

The bus is used by tourists but also by many locals, some of them quite elderly and infirm.  Chivalry is not dead and in most cases those in need of a seat are offered one.  But one elderly guy seems to repeat the same pattern every day.  Obviously a local and equally obviously familiar with the system, he gets on opposite what I assume is where he lives in the middle of nowhere but always proffers coins not a ticket.  The driver is not allowed to take coins but a woman on the bus seems to have a bundle of tickets so the driver holds out the coins he has been given which the woman takes, gives the tickets to the driver who then tears them in half and gives the half back to the guy.  He gets on clutching a  plastic bag  and crumples into two seats.  As the bus fills up he then gets out of the seats to let others have them  and sits on the floor by the middle door until he gets off in Hora.  It works for him, so why not?  I bet he’s looking forward to the end of the tourist season so the locals can have their bus back.

Having got off in Hora I then headed by the ‘steep’ route up to the top of Profitis Ilias, this time taking notes and GPS readings in order to write it up in the walks guide.  The pace was therefore necessarily slower than on Friday so I arrived at the top reasonably fresh and ready for the long drop down into the Vathy Valley.  Even with the delays of recordings I got to the top in 1½ hours, had a banana and set off down before 13.00, giving me 4 hours to make it down to the bottom, along the Valley and back over the ridge to Pothia.  I reckoned that was plenty of time but couldn’t be sure.

Typical well trodden path

Then a cautionary tale of over-confidence.  I was fairly bouncing along the well-marked if, in places, somewhat indistinct path. I reached a hairpin bend and thought I saw the line of the path and started on the next section only to find that I hadn’t been paying anywhere near enough attention and I was sliding down loose scree.  Rather than try to get back up the scree I decided to cross it and try to pick up the path further on.  More difficult than I thought.  No real problem even though I was wearing sandals but it was slowing my progress and I still had a long way to go down to the valley floor.  But my line was right and I eventually spotted the stone terraced edge of the kalderimi just above me and scrambled  up to it, very thankful to be back on track.  From there on I paid more careful attention to the red spots and arrows as they guided a course zig-zagging through the thorn-scrub vegetation.

While crossing the scree I did however come across a piece of terracotta from some kind of vase or flask.  It was later identified as part of a water flask, probably used by shepherds, not very old at all but interesting to have found it.

The neck of the water flask

There had been a very pleasant breeze on the top of the mountain but the valley floor seemed oppressively hot.  A half-hour walk along a track down the valley and then, after a sit under an olive tree for 5 minutes to eat my other banana to fuel me for the climb, I headed back up to the ridge-top via the very good kalderimi known as the Italian Path.

The amazingly well stone-paved Italian Path on the high plateau

I arrived back in Pothia at 16.00, plenty of time for a frappé before catching the bus back to Emborios and another very enjoyable swim.  I will miss the closeness of the swimming when I leave.

Another big day planned for Wednesday, this time to walk the length of the Emborios ridge taking, in a couple of the peaks I didn’t climb last Saturday, following the path shown on the map to its conclusion ….. and taking notes and GPS readings to write it up in the walks guide.

View of the Telendos Channel from the road trudge

I think I must be getting my fitness back now as I got from Emborios to the church at the top of the col, a distance of 5 kilometres and a height gain of 300 metres, in less than an hour and still had plenty of legs left.  It’s pretty boring walking along the road for that distance but it means that a lot of ground can be covered quickly and the views are spectacular to say the least.

From the church the path is a completely different walking experience, all the joys and frustrations of a narrow mountain path in Greece.  The frustrations?  Principle among these are the Greek gates.  The local style, the ‘vernacular’ to use an architectural expression, is about 18-24 inches wide, consisting of a thick wooden frame with wire mesh stretched across set in a stout wooden frame with a wooden lintel and barbed wire stretched across at neck height (if you’re 6 foot tall like me).  The hinges are usually made from anywhere between 3 and 6 pieces of car tyre which means that it takes some strength to open the gate and then it whacks you in the backside with considerable force as you stoop to go through it. This is, of course, always assuming that you have the nous to manage to undo the fastening which seems always to have been done up from the other side with twists of rusty wire and positioned so that it is almost unreachable from the side you are coming from.

The first of these on today’s path is only about 5 minutes up the mountain from the church and was so difficult to negotiate that I was shouting imprecations against the local goatherds into the wind.  I redid the fastening in a more user-friendly fashion once I was through but it took about 10 minutes to crack the puzzle and I daresay that by the next day it had been put back as it was.

A typical tyre-hinged whack-you-up-the-bum and garrote-you gate

Another frustration on this particular path is that sections of it are alongside a chain link fence which not only has sharp twists of wire all along its top at shoulder height but also a strand of barbed wire.  You don’t want to let your shoulder get anywhere near it yet the path is tight up against it in places.  And then there are the straining wires which prevent the fence being pushed over and inconveniently stretched tight across the path at garrotte height.

However, not only did I manage to negotiate the path without being attacked by the fence and without my ankles being too badly savaged by the thorn scrub, but I actually enjoyed the walk hugely.

Looking down from the path on the ridge-top across the road and along the Telendos Channel

It had been clear from walking along it on Saturday that in places the path was a well-made, if not well-maintained, kalderimi, with retaining walls along the steep mountain side to maintain a consistent gradient as much as possible.  What I hadn’t spot until now was that the path which seems to meander onwards through the thorn scrub on more level ground is in fact marked for much of its length by parallel lines of stones and boulders spaced about 3 metres apart.  At some stage in history this must have a been a major highway.

Part of the built-up kalderimi on the steep flank of the ridge

Example of the parallel stone-lined path on level sections on the ridge

Carefully constructed earth-dwelling - by ants??

I followed it to its end on a section of mountain named ‘Patela’, presumably because it looks from some angles like a kneecap.  The top is marked by a crumbling trig point and a couple of large heaps of stones, presumably the remains of buildings, and affording great views including across the narrow channel to the North between Kalymnos and the island of Leros.  My guess is that the summit was used as a look-out post by the Italians during their occupation of the island in the first half of the 20^th Century and that the path was laid out and built at that time.  There is certainly no better place to keep an eye on the Leros Channel.

Looking across the narrow channel to Leros

Brisk walk back to Emborios, altogether another walking day of about 19 kilometres like yesterday.  And yet another great swim.

Thursday began with a bit of a shock.  I think I’m losing my grip.  I’m certainly losing my grip on time.

I was downloading photos from the cameras onto the computer and sorting them by date for filing when it struck me that it was 1 September.  That wasn’t unexpected because I realised that yesterday was 31 August and the two facts are concomitant.  Then suddenly it flashed to the front of my brain from the dark recesses at the back that I had made arrangements to go to Symi on Friday 2 September and booked accommodation accordingly.  All well and good, I had remembered in time rather than after the event.

But, and this is very big BUT, I also had it fixed in my mind that I was going to Symi next Tuesday and had booked 4 days accommodation in the main town of Kalymnos, Pothia, at the other end of the island so that I could spend time exploring walking routes down there before I left.  What a lemon!!!!!

I confirmed the arrangements with the hotel on Symi and concluded that I had better call in the hotel in Pothia, explain, and claim decrepitude.  I just hope that I worked out the times of the ferry to get to Symi correctly.

So, trauma over, readjusted plans set in place, I could set about the business of the day.

…. which was to walk around to the furthest beach around the headland and then try to find a way up the cliff face to the ridge-top.  I was looking for a walking route rather than rock climbing so that it could be incorporated into a circular route taking in the path along the ridge top which I recorded yesterday.

It was a great walk but I didn’t find a route up the cliff despite some rock scrambling verging on climbing.  The problem was simply that local famers have put fences across the 2 or 3 likely routes to keep the goats on particular parts of the mountain.  The issue was simply that if potential lines of approach had been made goat-proof there was no way that I was going to compete.  If the goats couldn’t get up then nor could I.

I skirted the base of the cliff for quite a way, great fun.  Those who are interested in my welfare will be pleased to know that I was very restrained at times and didn’t commit to climbing up something which I was not confident that I could down-climb.  The consequences of not being able to go either up or down were quiet severe.  The target was to follow the cliff around to the Kastri, the ancient fortification built into a natural bowl of towering , very steep and overhanging rock.

Caves in the small small gorge long-time used for animal enclosures

Gate in fence right under the cliff

Olive tree high under the crags, an indication that this extreme fringe of Europe was once home to lots of people

Impressive crags

Yes, straight down there was part of the route I took

Close-up of the stone walls of the Kastri lost against the crags

So my walking from Emborios ended as it began, with a visit to the Kastri,  as I said when I first got here, a very impressive and nostalgic place.

Then a very chilled end to the day and to the stay In Emborios.  A drink sitting at the water’s edge, Shirley Valentine style, followed by yet another fabulous meal in Paradise (Harry’s Paradise) with friends.

Great end to my stay in Emborios

Long time since the last blog.  I hope that no-one was getting withdrawal symptoms, though the length of this one will doubtless make up for it.  Either that or serve as aversion therapy.

The problem is that broadband hasn’t reached Emborios at the northern tip of Kalymnos and it is not practical to use the dial-up connection in the restaurant.  So I have taken the bus to the main town, Pothia, at the other end of the island partly to use the internet and partly on a quest for nutbars, there being none in the Mini Market in Emborios.  Quiet backwaters have their drawbacks.  Now I’m sitting in the Olympic Hotel on the harbourside, sipping frappé and luxuriating in internet connection.

So this is catch-up.

Thursday  morning I woke at 07.00 having set my alarm clock wrongly but still in good time to pack things away, have breakfast and check-out (€50) before walking to Colonna Harbour to catch the Dodecanese Pride at 08.30 for the 3½ hour trip to Kalymnos (€38).  In fact I had half an hour to spare so after dumping my Big Bag in the right place on the ferry I walked back to the Old Town to take a few photos in the early morning light and to get a bottle of water – it was very hot and I was very thirsty.  I should have guzzled more juice and coffee in the hotel.

St Paul's Gate ... though I doubt it was here when he was on Kos

One of the carvings set into one of the towers of the old walls

As is the way with Dodecanese Seaways, the Pride left dead on time.  After Enfys was ill one year from travelling inside on the Dodecanese Seaways high-speed cats we always sat outside at the back.  I managed to find a seat outside again even though I was late arriving back from my amble and as usual it was very pleasant.  The wind made the sun bearable until we reached Kos and then fearing that with a combination of wind and sun I was beginning to burn by the end of the morning I went and sat in the air-conditioned inside of the ferry, put my Greek Vodaphone SIM card into the mobile phone, read a bit of the Hemlock Cup on the Kindle ….. and then we were in Kalymnos harbour.  It’s a very short crossing from Kos to Kalymnos on the high-speed cats.  One hour to Symi from Rhodes, 2 hours to Kos and ½ an hour to Kalymnos.  We arrived dead-on time, 12.00

On the way out of the harbour, trundling my Big Bag, I called in the Information Office to see if they had a bus timetable.  They had and it was really bad news.  Only two buses a day from Pothia to Emborios and back, leaving Pothia at 09.00 and 17.00.  It meant I had 5 hours to kill before the bus but it also meant that my options would be severely limited once in Emborios.

I thought I had been hanging around airports and the like for long enough so I took a taxi to Emborios, another €25 into the Greek Economy, but it got me to Emborios before 13.00, an extra half-day to do something worthwhile.

I unpacked my stuff and then went for a walk up to the Kastri, an ancient fortification built into the cliffs high above the village.   As always very pleasant in the afternoon sun and very nostalgic. Had a not-unexpected attack of Repetitive Photo Syndrome.

The remains of the Kastri looking down the channel between Kalymnos and Telendos Island (from a toe-hold on the cliff behind)

I came back down and went for a swim.  Fabulous!!!!  One of the major joys of Emborios is that the beach is only 100 metres away.  The sea is very clear and the beach is small pebbles with good quality sunbeds to dry out on afterwards.  Very much enjoyed it.

Also enjoyed a sit in the garden f the restaurant with a late afternoon drink. The garden is a remarkable place, and oasis in the barren heat.

The late-afternoon sun picks out one tiny corner of the garden

Friday and I had sorted yogurt and fruit to have for breakfast so had that with orange juice.  Couldn’t face instant coffee so I went without my caffeine injection.

A book on walking on Kalymnos which I bought before I left home listed two walks to the top of the 700 metre-high Oros Profitis Ilias, the path I did last year and a steeper one.  I decided to tackle the steeper one with a view to revisiting it to include in the walks guide I have been researching for so long. The bus timetable is extremely restrictive but I reckoned I could take the 09.50 from Emborios and get off in Hora, climb the mountain and get back down in time to add on one of a number of variants, including possibly going down into the Vathy Valley on the other side of the ridge and back to Pothia via the Italian Path.

I had seriously underestimated how much fitness I had lost while back home and how much I was not acclimatised to the heat any more.  Temperatures were in any case about 10 degrees hotter than they were on Amorgos where I had last been walking.  I seriously considered committing a  cardinal sin in my walking philosophy and stopping for a rest on the way up the mountain.  I have long been a pain when walking with others in insisting that you shouldn’t stop at all on the way up because lactic acid forms in the muscles and only makes it more difficult.  The preferred strategy is to set a pace that you can maintain all the way to the top.  For the first time that I can remember I seriously wondered if I could make it to the top in one go, my leg muscles were getting to the point of refusing to go any further.  The path was certainly steeper than the other one and maybe I set too ambitious a pace, but I reckon that the nub of the matter was that I had lost fitness.

A tiny church built into the rock, which I hadn’t spotted last time I climbed the mountain, saved my pride as I felt obliged to go and look at it which gave my legs a rest from the inexorably upward path as the short section of path to the entrance was level. After the short break from climbing but not from walking I managed to make the top without a stop.  Once there I had a good break to eat my banana and remnant of nut bar and take advantage of the photo opportunities being on the top of the highest peak on the island.  Amazingly peaceful places mountain tops.

Approaching the summit of the mountain, topped by a monastery

The main courtyard with a well ... which still has water in it.

View down the Vathy Valley to the fjord outlet to the sea.

Orange groves give-way to a more productive crop - photo-voltaic panels

I reckoned it would be foolish to try to drop down to the valley floor on the other side and then climb back over the Italian path to Pothia as that was a taxing walk in itself and my legs were not giving me good vibes.  So, to use a cliché, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and I dropped back down to Hora via the less steep path, the thinking being that I could write this up as a circular route.

Once down at Hora I had 2 hours to kill before the bus back to Emborios so I suppose rather foolishly, somewhat refreshed and caffeined-up by a frappé, but really out of bravura, I decided to climb up to the Castle which towers above the old village on a massive crag.  There is almost as much climbing to do inside the castle walls as to get up to the entrance and the top is well out of sight of the entrance gates.  I didn’t know what time the gates were locked so not wanting to get trapped inside I made my way back down in plenty of time to have a cold orange juice and catch the bus.

The castle perched at the edge of the crag, just visible from the bottom of the gorge

Approaching the walls, typical Crusader architecture

Saturday and I thought I should have a less taxing day in view of how tired my legs had been climbing Oros Profitis Ilias and then up to the Kastro in Hora.

As is ever the case, it didn’t quite work out like that.

I decided to walk along the road for about half an hour and then head up a hairpin road up the flank of the ridge to take photos at one of the spectacular climbing crags, ‘The Palace’.  Taking photos would be less tiring than walking steep mountain paths.

It's not hedgehogs which get run over on the roads here!

I had been there before when Enfys and I stayed a number of years ago and amazingly I remembered the way.  To get in the right positions to set up the photos properly involved basic rock climbing, for which I was very glad of the ‘Spider Rubber’ soles of the Teva sandals, the same rubber as on rock boots.  After an hour of perching on toe holds in crazy positions I had exhausted the photogenic potential and myself so decided on the second part of the plan, to continue to the top of the road and then follow a path along the ridge behind Emborios shown on the map but seeming to go nowhere.

View from The Palace, one of the iconic views on Kalymnos

..... and yet another view

Rich colouring on the walls of the cliffs and the caves

I got to the top of the col in good time but in need of some shade for a short break to eat my banana and peanut brittle (no nut bars on sale in the Mini Market in Emborios).  Unfortunately the newly built chapel at the top is surrounded by walls topped by steel fencing which would not have looked out of place on a moderately high-security prison, so no possibility of getting any shade.

Descending back to the col with its high-security monastery

I soon found the path which was surprisingly well trodden considering that it didn’t go anywhere.  I followed it diverting to take in the tops of 3 of the peaks along its length and finally reaching the top of the crag looking straight down along the main street in Emborios.  I think the path is there because in times-past it linked ancient settlements along the ridge top, now the spectacular views of both East and West sides of the island make it worthwhile with the added benefit of approaching the northern tip of Kalymnos and so looking towards the island of Leros a short distance to the North as well.

View of the channel between Kalymnos and Telendos Island from the top of the mountain

Looking straight down the main street of Emborios

I'm afraid that I disturbed this 4 inch-long creature when I opened a mountain gate

But an easy day it was not!  Altogether I walked 21 kilometres compared with 14 on Friday.  Admittedly I only climbed to 440 metres compared with 700 but I started at sea level rather than 100 metres.

Whatever the rationalisation the effect was that when I got out of the sea after an amazingly refreshing swim back in Emborios, I go worse cramp than I have ever had and it took ages for it to clear. It took me 10 minutes to be able to bend my legs to get my sandals on!!!  Very definitely need an easier day on Sunday.

Sunday and I did indeed have an easier day.  After a lazy first part of the morning loading photos from the camera onto the computer I ambled out for a leisurely walk around the headland.

Emborios and the mountain behind from the top of the headland

Peaceful around the headland

I went to a beach which is unique as far as I know, the biggest part of it being fenced off as an enclosure for goats.  A small part of it is not fenced and just about big enough for one person/couple/family so I had a lazy swim before walking back to Emborios and having another lazy swim on the main beach.

Tiny bit of beach not fenced in for the goats

Not a very exciting day but more relaxing than the previous two..