Tilos: compare and contrast

Posted on June 23, 2011 by BarryH

Breakfast doesn’t begin until 08.30 in the hotel I’m staying in but I got up at 07.00 as usual and pottered around a bit.  I was first one down in the breakfast area by a good margin.  Breakfast is very similar in content and every bit as good as in the hotel on Nisyros but is served rather than buffet … and very large.  I took my time eating it, after all, I am on holiday on Tilos.

The owner of the hotel, great bloke, showed me to my table and asked me in very rapid Greek what I planned to do today.  At least that’s what I think he asked me. I had a couple of ideas in mind but no fixed plan but, suddenly confronted with the question, or what I thought was the question, my brain went into early-morning-overdrive and I replied in Greek with my 3-second-old plan. This entailed walking to a beach on the other side of the island.  I may have got his question wrong because he then resorted to English, in which he is quite fluent. and said he hoped I was taking my mobile phone with me in case of unforeseen problems.  He also made sure I had his phone number.

I have to backtrack here and record a conversation I had with a Greek guy in English on Tuesday just after I got here.  I still struggle to understand Greek being spoken because it is so fast but this guy asked me in flawless English if I understood Italian.  I’m not too bad in French but my Italian is pretty much limited to restaurant-Italian and enquiring about the location of the loo. Minor digression: I love Italian food and think it much under-estimated.  Anyway, he was trying to phone somebody in Italy and kept getting a rapidly-spoken automated message which he couldn’t understand.  Brashly I said I would give it a go.  After all it may have been a dial-a-menu service.

My slow brain had just about kicked-in to the torrent of Italian when I recognised it was a Vodafone answering service which, after the rapid-fire Italian, kicked-in to English (as it does with the Greek phone service) which said simply that the phone he was ringing was either switched off or didn’t have a signal and to please try again later.  I must confess I played it straight and told him the message.  He thought, still thinks, I speak fluent Italian and I didn’t want to embarrass him, and myself, by saying that had he listened 30 seconds longer he would have got the same message in English.  I felt my reputation, and my self-esteem, needed a boost after confusing Greek computers with Government Departments.

Back to Wednesday.  I stuck to my declared plan and walked to the secluded beach of …..  Why should I tell you that?  Suddenly everyone will want to flock there.  Like the ‘Quiet English Pub with Really Good Food’ which some unemployable upper class prat gets paid by an old college mate to write an article about in the Weekend Paper and ruins it for those of us who like the quiet English pub with really good food just as it is.  Well – find it for yourself like we did.

It was a brilliant walk.  The paths on Tilos are very different from those on Nisyros.  At this times of year, as Dedicated Blog Followers will have appreciated, the paths on Nisyros are strewn with dried grasses and ancient strains of oats and barley.  None of that on Tilos.  The stony paths pick a way through the herbs and the very many spiky plants which bite your ankles.  And, amazingly, there didn’t seem to be the vast numbers of spiders bobbing around in mid air to ensnare your face and hair in web.

Multi-coloured rocky paths

Path through herbs and prickles

I had a violent sneezing fit about 10 minutes after I got onto the main path I was following.  It didn’t take long to work out that it was the aromatics from the wild sage.  It was really powerful.  Not like on Nisyros where, though there are herbs, they are not as dominant as the Gramineae and the cereals.  Less oregano than on Nisyros but far more sage and thyme.

I also noticed that some of the very spiky plants which I had seen on Nisyros with closed flower spokes had started to open on Tilos so it may have been warmer for longer.  I also came across some shrubby trees with flower spikes.  We had seen similar on Symi but with blue rather than pinky-white flowers.  Enfys had said that she thought they were called Vitex.  I checked on the internet, now that I‘ve got a reliable connection in the hotel, and it does seem that they come in different colours.  It also appears that they are very much prized for medical purposes with web sites offering them for sale.

Flower opening on pretty comprehensively prickly thistle

The other main difference is the rocks.  The most common rocks on Tilos seem to be sedimentary, limestone in particular, but in places, including where I was walking there are major outcrops of vividly coloured other rocks.  Some are very shaley and loose, others are iron-hard extrusions and nodules.   The result is a profusion of reds, greens, purples and blacks as well as the whites and greys of the limestone.  I know from other visits to Tilos that there are also deposits of pumice, laid down by ash clouds from volcanic eruptions on other islands.

Encrusted rocks

Multi-coloured cliffs behind the beach

It seemed very much hotter than it had been on Nisyros but I was told that it had only just turned hot as the wind had gone round to the South.  Certainly at times it was very windy indeed and it was like a hairdryer.

I had the entire beach to myself for the entire time.  Then I walked back to the ‘town’ side of the island with its 2-mile beach and had a frappé and a 5th or was it 6thswim of the day.  The water is crystal clear on both sides though there were 2 significant differences.  On the far side of the island the beach was multicoloured pebbles because it is backed by multicoloured cliffs while on the town side it was mostly grey-white limestone pebbles. The water on the town side of the island was also noticeably warmer.

Crystal clear water on the Livadia beach


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Nisyros to Tilos: and featuring The Shortest Me

Posted on June 22, 2011 by BarryH

Last year I spent the whole of June on Tilos, an island with a much smaller population than Nisyros  to the south.  Had a good time here, lots of good walks and met a lot of local people.  But I didn’t manage to meet up with the one guy I really wanted to, especially as he was the one who sorted out the accommodation for me.  So I thought I would try to build in a short visit and look him up.

Checking out the ferry timetables, a difficult task given that the few ferries which are on the internet tend not to publish the information until the day before a new schedule begins, I had sussed out that I could get the high speed catamaran from Nisyros to Tilos on a Tuesday and then back on a Thursday.  I decided to go for it and travel today.

The ferry was at 14.15 and, being the Dodecanese Express, it would likely be dead on time.  No hanging around the harbour waiting for a rust-bucket to stagger along 3 hours late like in the early days when Enfys and I came here first. Which meant that I had the  morning in which to do something productive.

Zooming back down the path from Evangelistra yesterday, incentivised by the prospect of a refreshing swim, I shot past a terraced field which seemed to be full of brittle-dry plants with large seed pods in clusters.  I didn’t know if they were seeds of wild flowers en masse, Ruth’s blog showed wild lupins with seed pods of similar size, or if they were a crop of some kind of beans.  So I decided to go back and check them out.  I still don’t know what they are but collected a few pods.

Seed pods: crop or wild flowers?

Compared to yesterday, when for some reason I felt tired and dragged myself along, I was full of beans this morning (sorry for the achingly awful pun) so I carried on up to the top of that bit of path and then back down to the town by a different path.

I also took a few photos of tall blue-flowering plants which I think are orchids.  I’m sure someone will let me know.

What I think is an orchid, alongside the path

Close up

Amazingly I did the whole route in an hour and a half.  I half thought to carry on and add in another link but, because I hadn’t expected to do anything energetic, I hadn’t taken any water.  Instead, my water bottle thermal sleeve, usually ensuring chilled water all day, was full of cables and battery chargers ready to take to Tilos.  Last year I got seriously dehydrated on Tilos and picked up a urinary infection.   I certainly didn’t want a repeat of that so I headed down to town and a supermarket chill-cabinet.  Cables would do little to resolve the problem.

I couldn’t believe how full of people the town’s narrow streets were.  The day-trip boats had all come in from Kos.  There were organised groups with tour guides holding forth in French, German, Italian, Russian and other languages I didn’t recognise.  Not an English voice among them.  How times have changed in the last few years.  One group effectively blocked my way from the chill cabinet into the shop to pay and then I couldn’t find anywhere quiet to sit to drink the juice.  I’m really glad most days I’m up in the mountains before the trip boats get here.

Having finally downed the juice I collected my stuff from the hotel and then went to a taverna in ‘Heroes Square’ on the seafront to have a Greek salad for dinner.  I realised that this was also a once-a-year photo opportunity.  The shortest me.  From tomorrow I’ll start getting taller again and if things work out well I’ll be at my tallest exactly 6 months from now.  I’ll be even taller if I go back to Canada.

The shortest me: 13.00 on 21 June 2011, standing up to my full height

The ferry was not on time.  It was 10 minutes early and so had to sit waiting for the scheduled departure time before the Hellenic Coastguard would allow it to leave.  Compared to the normal ferries which I’ve been travelling on up to now, you should see them shift!  Blink and the harbour is a distant blur in the heat haze.  It took significantly less time to get the however-many-miles it is to from Nisyros to Tilos than it takes to get from the end of our street to Cardiff on the X3.  That’s impressive!

I had been undecided which of 2 hotels to stay in on Tilos.  I had looked them both up on the internet, as well as I could with a fractured connection.  I had phoned each of them up  to find out availability and cost.  And had agonised over advantages and disadvantages of each.  Not at all like me.  I still didn’t know which of the two I would go for when I got off the ferry but knew that I would have no problem making a snap decision.  That’s what I always excelled at in work.  I never had a problem making decisions and the greater the pressure the better I was at it.  And so it came to pass.  I got off the ferry and immediately knew which I was going for.  And when I got there the decision was confirmed by a couple of things one of which was that there is internet connection from the room.  I repeat, THERE IS INTERNET CONNECTION FROM THE ROOM.  The signal strength is not brilliant but it has so far been a secure connection.

First thing I did was to e-mail David and family to see if they were up for a Skype chat, impossible on Nisyros.  It eventually transpired when I didn’t get a confirmatory e-mail back and so resorted to a Skype-to-mobile call that David’s home internet has crashed.  Now how unlikely is that!!!!!  First decent WiFi connection I get in 2 weeks and Trevethin, the hub of the IT buzzin world is cut off!!!

Met a lot of the local people I knew from last year, warm reception all round.  Quite nostalgic.  Met the guy I  really came to meet.  Ambled along the seafront and took in the changes.  Had two very good swims.  The sea in Livadia, the main town on Tilos, is amazingly good for swimming.  Beach about 2 miles long.  Photos tomorrow or Thursday.

Restaurant where I ate tonight was much as always.  Very good food.  Very busy.  Almost entirely English voices.  Must be worrying for forward-looking management because the English Voices were exclusively Britannica Geriatrica, mostly Southern Counties eking out their pensions and their dotage.

Strange thing is, coming to Tilos from Nisyros is like having a weekend break, like being on holiday.  It’s good to be back here even though it’s for just a couple of days.

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Nisyros: still walking through everyday ancient life

Posted on June 21, 2011 by BarryH

Never trust a word I say again!!  The Greek word for computer is NOT υπουργείο  as I brashly said in the blog for Saturday.  It is υπολογιστής.  My excuse is that, as the blog says, Greeks use the word ‘computer’ and so the Greek alternative is never refreshed in my mind and has slipped into oblivion to become confused with the Greek for ‘Government Department’, with which I have even less familiarity.  Theo would not be impressed that his years of patient tutoring were so wasted. Alright, and they do both begin with υπο (pronounced eepo)

Putting the embarrassment behind me, if I will ever be allowed to do so, Monday was another good day’s walking.

Another round-trip from the town, the details of which I won’t bore you with save to note that I was walking from sea level to the caldera rim, down to the caldera floor and then back up to the crater rim before dropping back down to sea level and a very refreshing and very welcome swim.  About 5 hour’s walking in all.  For those who haven’t swum in the Aegean it’s very definitely one thing you should do.   Even at this time of the year when the water is colder than at any time during the rest of the summer …. it’s a fantastic experience.  I love it and miss it hugely when I’m not here.

I did spend  a little time at the top of Emborio on the crater rim just because it’s always a good place to be.

The main street in Emborio

The caldera and crater seen through the entrance to the castle

Little remains of the castle but it is being recently excavated

The start of the path to Evangelistra outside the whit- painted approach to the church

And I did spend a bit of time again at the top of the col on the way back to Evangelistra just because the place breathes antiquity.

Neolithic settlement: spot 2 houses, a front garden, 3 fields, and a main road

Stone-arched extension to the original cave dwelling, one reason the ancient houses have survived so long

Vacant property: house and front garden, many careful owners

Perhaps I should mention at this point that I have now been over here for 2 weeks and it seems like forever.  Slipped into the life as comfortably as into an old coat. Or perhaps more appropriately, an old pair of walking sandals.  Though come to think of it my old walking sandals are nearing the end of their natural so it’s perhaps as well that Ruth and Tim brought me a new pair when they came out.  They had to do the same last year as I remember.  Guess I’m pretty heavy on sandals – Teva please note!!!!  Quite happy to accept sponsorship and carry out trials.  If they stand up to what I do in a summer they will stand up to anything the Great American Public can throw at them.  Though on reflection I can’t replicate the weight.

Other photos?  I thought I would just show a few shots of ‘normal’ paths so you can see the bits where I get up a head of steam and fair zoom along.

A bit rough, just avoid the stones

Walled path between fields

Very good path between steep terraces

Note the dried grasses and wild oats and barley which are very much in evidence on all the paths.  It’s great to see the many flowers, as Ruth showed, but life here is not all (rock)roses.  As High Summer approaches pretty much everything dries up and crisps to a ‘barley straw’ colour.

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Nisyros: the bells, the dog , and the case of the disappearing snake

Posted on June 20, 2011 by BarryH

The usual start to the day with breakfast on the terrace was not quite the same on Sunday.  Normally the only issue of any moment is whether to choose to sit in the sun or the shade depending on the amount of breeze.  The only sounds are the chirping of birds in the trees, the occasional squeal from the resident cat which stalks the tables in hope of finding the odd bit of ham or salami being slipped its way and gets trodden on accidentally, and the screaming of scooters and three wheeler pick-ups going past every now and then.

I have got into the habit of going down to breakfast at 07.30 sipping an orange juice and accessing the internet which is possible at this time in the morning.

But this Sunday was very different.  It was apparently the ‘Name Day’ of St Nicholas, who I’m told came from Nisyros and so is a Big Thing here.  The church by the harbour has been having evening services for a week leading up to today.  Sunday there is obviously a church service in the main church in the town.  I can tell this because it is broadcast so that the entire town can hear it.

The usual quiet breakfast on the terrace it was not!  If I had been trying to hold a conversation it would have been difficult.  There were two levels of incantation, the lower register being a kind of chorus chipping in now and again as if in confirmation.  There was also the shaking of small bells, presumably in association with the swinging of incense.  Then, suddenly, there was a frenetic clanging of The Big Bell, presumably in celebratory mode.  That set off a dog on the hill behind the hotel which started barking and then howling as if at the full moon.  And this is not your normal 1 hour service, it lasted about 2 hours.  All part and parcel of life on Nisyros.

Breakfast over I decided to do a repeat of an earlier walk, the one via the Siones monastery and the ‘hidden valley’.  From time to time, while picking my down up and then down the massive terraces and fighting through impenetrable undergrowth (yes, I know that’s a non sequiteur), I had seen the occasional fading blue dot painted on rocks, indicating that at some time someone had marked a route if not a path.  So I thought | would try to put them all together.

It took time and perseverance, casting around to join up the dots, but they did mark a route through the jumble of rocks and terraces and thick, very prickly holly-oak vegetation.  Not what could be described as a ‘path’ in any meaning of that word, but definitely a route through the maze.

I didn’t take many photos but did photograph the massive spiders which seemed to be hanging in the air in large numbers at the top of the col.  I suppose they were taking advantage of the rising air bringing food their way so this was obviously prime feeding territory.  Seemed opportune to photograph them seeing as Ruth mentioned them in her Guest Blog and these were such fine specimens.

One of many waiting for somethings to turn up

Part of the reason for choosing this walk was to return via the spot where I had seen the snake-in-the-wall on Saturday.  Today there was not a sign of it nor of it ever having been there.  A number of possibilities spring to mind.  First, it could have eventually swallowed whatever it had in its mouth thereby crushing it and reducing its head to normal size so it could extricate itself. Second, predators, possibly an eagle, more probably hooded crows, had seized their chance and noshed it.  Third, someone had come along and pulled it out, alive or dead and disposed of it over a wall.  There was no sign whatever of where it had been so my guess is that the crow option is unlikely. The first option is the one I like the best.  I like to think it’s now slithering around somewhere with a full belly and resolved not to ever again bite off more than it can chew with its head inside a wall.

Evening meal was outstanding.  Main course was good as always but there was complimentary and very delicious freshly home-made goats’ cheese and large fresh figs.  Monumental!

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Nisyros: the eagle and the snake

Posted on June 20, 2011 by BarryH

Saturday I thought I would have an easy day but, when it came to the crunch (whatever ‘coming to the crunch’ is), I decided not to.  I have been conscious of the fact that by this time, and therefore this heat, last year, I had been walking for 6 weeks and was thoroughly acclimatised and very fit.  I’m not as unfit this year as I thought  might be but there is still a long way to go to get to the level of stamina and fitness of mid-June last year.  So, to use a phrase very in-vogue many years ago, I decided to ‘go for the burn’.

What a lot of total twaddle ‘fashion’ is and in particular fashion in language idioms.  We pick them up because they are trendy, or rather, we think we are trendy if we use them, dropped casually into conversation.  Language is dynamic and rightly so. The French lose out by trying to insist that new words and concepts should always be derived from the French and even have (or used to have, I don’t know if it still exists) an Institute to vet new words coming into the language.  Greek isn’t like that.  They have the word υπουργείο but the vast majority of Greeks would say and write ‘computer’.  The strength of English too is that it has always been happy to borrow words from other languages.  But ‘go for the burn’,  what does that really mean??

Anyway, I decided to do another moderately hard walk in order to push myself a bit more physically and move closer to ‘fitness’, however that is measured.  Because of the very limited public bus service at the moment I’m working on options for walking out-and-back from the town.  Longer, harder walks than using the bus to the villages on the crater rim and then walking downhill to get back and so more challenging.  So I walked over the col and down into the caldera, and then up to the caldera-rim village of Emborio and back from there.

I decided to concentrate on the walking rather than talking photos but a couple of things presented themselves as photo opportunities not to miss.

First off I again saw and got long shots of an eagle while at the Balcony Taverna having a frappé. Seems it regularly flies from one crag to another towards the end of the morning.  Straight-line fast glide to thwart attacks by the hooded crows which try, completely unsuccessfully, to mob it.  Anyway, I rattled off a couple of long shots.  May not amount to much in photographic terms but I’m please with them given the difficulty of focusing on a pinprick travelling at some speed way out from where I’m standing.

Against blue sky

Against mountainside

The second photo opportunity probably ranks as The Most Bizarre Of All Time.  You may remember me bleating that I would like to, though had so far failed to, photograph a snake in the wild but was hopeful of seeing one along a particular section of path.  I walked that path at the end of the Saturday route and had camera in hand as I approached it.

Slight digression.  I would not consider walking in any footwear other than sandals over here.  One of the arguments I muster to the many who attack me for such foolhardiness is that one of the several advantages is that it makes you more aware of what is at your feet.  It is essential to monitor foot placement more carefully so you see lizards and a lot more ground-level stuff.  On disadvantage, which I somehow forget to mention, is that you can’t always monitor head-height stuff like overhanging thorny branches and spiders’ webs.

Anyway, zooming along the last section of path on Saturday my thoughts were on a refreshing swim and so I was more focused on my feet while keeping half an eye open (how on earth can you keep half an eye open?!)  for a snake on the high stone wall up on my left.  I was walking so fast I went past it and had to back-track a few feet. The rear portion of a snake with its head and who knows how much else firmly wedged into a hole in the bottom of the wall of an EU-funded renovated ancient stone-built house!!!!!!!  It was knotted up and mostly upside down (the snake not the house).  I took a photo and then tentatively, very tentatively, took hold of it and straightened it out.  It was warm and very flexible so clearly hadn’t been there for long.  The bit outside the wall was over a metre long.  What I didn’t know was if it was alive or just-dead so I didn’t give it a tug to see if it would come out from the wall.  The other end was probably a bit sharp and even more probably a bit cross at being disturbed at whatever it was doing.

Head in the wall attitude

Straightening things out a bit

87My theory is that it had got a mouthful of rat which increased the size of its jaw (they unhinge you know and can get about 4 times the diameter of the snake) and so it couldn’t back out and couldn’t go further into the hole.  It was clearly heating up a lot as it was now in full sun.

Having done as much as I could to record and retrieve the situation I headed back to the hotel and then a swim but resolved to return to that section of path on Sunday to monitor the outcome.

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Nisyros: going to the top

Posted on June 20, 2011 by BarryH

On Friday I decided after breakfast to go to the top of the island.  The highest mountain on Nisyros, Oros (Mount) Diavatis, is 700 metres and with a generally very good path because there is a chapel on top, as is often the case, dedicated to the Prophet Elijah.  Enfys and I found our way there by accident many years ago.  We had been doing a walk and decided it was too early to go back to the hotel so we saw a footpath and just followed it.  We have been back every year since though it became increasingly challenging for Enfys in recent years and so more of an achievement.

I decided to go via the ancient settlement of Nifios which is a longer way round but gives additional interest.

Nifios is reckoned to date back to the Minoans from Crete and it certainly has an air of great antiquity.  The entrance to the settlement is marked by ‘Horns of Consecration’ carved out of the rock and beneath it is a cave which at some stage was probably occupied.

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

There are a great many things to capture the interest in the high-level caldera but I didn’t spend much time there this time, just enough to have my banana and nutbar and take a few more photos of the settlement built onto the rocks to add to the vast numbers I already have.  Incredible to think that 3 millennia or more ago someone could well have been sitting on the very spot where I’m nibbling my nutbar.  I intend to go back specifically to spend more time exploring the valley.

Community of houses and church built into the rocks

Looking across the top of the settlement to Oros Diavatis, my goal for the day

Then I went over the col beyond the ancient village, amazing in itself with signs of early settlement including a threshing circle bisected by the path. This then joins the main paved path up the mountain at a point well marked by a towering finger of rock.

Threshing circle right at the top of the col

Stone pillar marking the junction of the paths

It is an unremitting pull to the top with no let-up in the gradient and the last section is very loose underfoot.  But it is certainly worth it when you get there with views to the South of Nikia, the crater-rim village on the opposite side of the caldera, to the North views over the ‘pumice island’ of Yiali to Kos, and to the East views of thunderclouds over Turkey.

It always strikes me that just across the water Turkey is a different continent, completely different religion and culture, a different world.  Yet in the times of the New Testament this was counted as Greek and places which St Paul visited, such as Ephesus, are in what is now Turkey.  He sailed up and down the bit of sea I’m looking across a couple of times.  In fact Western Turkey was Greek by culture and language until Attaturk issued an ultimatum in the early part of the 20th century (1921 I think)which I think boiled down to ‘get out or get killed’ and the Greeks had no choice but to leave, some going to other parts of Greece but many going to America, Australia and Russia.  I keep intending to brush up on that part of Greek history …. along with more or less all of Greek history actually.

The church of the Prophet Elijah and thundercloud over Turkey

The village of Nikia on the opposite rim of the caldera

Back to the top of Oros Diavatis.  It’s so worthwhile climbing up there and has such rich memories I’ll probably do it again before I leave Nisyros.

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Nisyros: Guest blog by Ruth

Posted on June 19, 2011 by BarryH

I am currently sitting by the pool outside our hotel on the last evening we have here on Nisyros and realising that I am running out of time to write my Guest Blog…

The week has shot past at an alarming rate with lots of walking in the sun, cooling off in the shade, very nice meals and discovering that it is possible to have cake for breakfast, afternoon tea and evening tea!

Nisyros is a very beautiful island and the range of plants we have seen is far greater than when we were on Symi last year, probably because there is more water around. Around the hotel you would expect there to be some colourful plants to make it feel nice, but there are amazing red hibiscuses (should that be hibisci?), vivid pink geraniums, agaves, huge pink oleanders and some very vigorous climbing thing  with tons of orange trumpets, all looking lush and green.

Hibiscus

Out in the hills, in addition to the various herbs we saw on Symi and the plants I expected to see, such as olive trees, figs and prickly pears …..

Olive tree

….there are lots of very colourful wild flowers, some of which are cousins of what we grow in UK gardens (pale blue scabious,  bright blue cornflowers, pale lilac convolvulus, crazy wild lupins, happy daisies in various shades of yellow, purple wallflowers  and giant verbascum)

Scabious

Yellow daisy

Another daisy

Cornflower

Convolvulous

Lupin

battered poppies

as well as things I have no idea what they are (little yellow flowers…)

Little yellow flowers

Up at the Paleocastro (described in greater detail by the resident blogger) there is kind of a halfway house of a garden (ooh, sorry about that metaphor). There are no big showy flowers, but by using a more formal structure the herbs, olives and agaves take on a more gardeny feel.

Thyme

Agaves

Scarce Swallowtail on lavendar

There is one downside of having the extra water and extra plants and that is of an eight legged variety…fat juicy spiders weave webs right across the narrow paths between walls and trees. Intrepid explorers from the UK fight their way through the webs one day and next day the spiders have built them back again – why don’t they learn??? Tim thinks the spiders have a slightly different view on it – they go to all the trouble of building webs and someone comes and breaks them down every day. And it’s always the same tall bloke in shorts and sandals – you’d think he’d learn.

Pot of flowers on church courtyard

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Nisyros: pushing along in ancient landscapes

Posted on June 18, 2011 by BarryH

Thursday and on my own again.  I felt the need to do something a bit more extreme than usual, push the limits a bit, prove I’m still alive and not just vegetating.  One of the effects of being on my own has been to make me push myself harder physically, I suppose as a distraction.  Some people lose themselves in their work, I lose myself in the mountains.  Not literally of course, I like to know where I’m going and where I am.

But sometimes it’s good to get off the beaten path, not that paths around here are that well beaten but at least with most of them I know where they are.

Or so I thought.  I decided to walk up to the ancient, abandoned monastery of Siones in a ‘hidden valley’ and then back to the Evangelistra monastery via that and another hidden valley.

I started out following a thin path which I have walked a number of times but always in the opposite direction and with increasing confidence about being able to distinguish it from the myriad of other thin paths on the terraces of the mountainside.

Time for another confession.  I use the pedometer which Ruth and Tim gave me for Christmas every day and as a means of pushing myself physically.  It records steps very accurately and also records what it terms ‘aerobic’ steps.  The aerobic steps recording is triggered by walking at more than 60 paces a minute for 10 minutes and then continues to record them unless you slow down for 60 seconds or more.  Triggering the aerobic steps has become a challenge over here because the paths are so uneven and rough.  But I managed it at the start of the walk and set about yomping along what was a clearer path than I remembered it being.  Fair zipping along I was.

Until I realised that the terrain I was passing through at high speed and to which I wasn’t paying that close attention was not familiar.  The path was still very clear but going where I didn’t want to go, downhill and not up toward the col.  I decided to follow it and see where it ended up.  My guess was that it was going to a smallholding of which an increasing number are being renovated and cultivated.  This was confirmed by the occasional tyre track from a  scooter and the odd bit of new wire fencing.  That indeed turned out to be the case so I turned round and yomped back again to a point which I recognised …. and found the right path going off very faintly uphill to the left.  The thinner path of course slowed my progress significantly but at least it was going where I wanted to get to.

Moral?  Even in this landscape which reeks of timelessness things change.   You can’t afford to switch off mentally and just walk.

I reached Siones in good time.  The place always seems lost in the past.  Farmers still use it to dump the odd sack of something and there is modern agricultural detritus scattered about but that doesn’t detract from the impact of it.  The approach to it is through terraced fields still filled with ancient strains of barley and oats, nowadays cut by hand as straw, winter fodder for animals.

Thistles 6-8 feet high with giant flower/seed heads barred the way close to the complex itself.  Closer inspection showed many very large beetles of varying types were on the tops, some evidently chewing their way downwards and consuming the flower heads.  Others I guess just having fun.  Walking over here I carry my small Canon S95 in my hand the whole time so I can photograph things without having to take off the rucksack and get the big SLR out but with small things swaying in the breeze I stopped and used the SLR.  Much better shots.

Giant thistles on the approach to Siones

Some beetles seem to munch their way through the flower heads: these ones over a centrmetre wide

Others a re more colourful and just seem to be having fun: these ones a centimtre long

…. though sometimes life is harder than you would like

The monastery complex seems to deteriorate more every year.  In particular it is sad to see the 18th Century frescos in the tiny chapel being more damaged after every winter. What was even sadder was to see clear evidence of extensive rat activity in the chapel.  For the first time it didn’t excite me at all and I didn’t take any photos of the interior.  I sat in the ‘avli’, the inner courtyard, and had my banana and nutbar

The ‘avli’, or inner courtyard, of the ancient Siones monastery

There is no path from the monastery onwards.  This was what excited me on Thursday, the prospect of once again finding a way up through the vegetation-choked to the col and then down onto the floor of the other hidden’ valley’.  In truth neither of them are valleys but really extinct calderas once used for farming but now just home to a wide variety ‘crop’ trees: olives, figs, walnuts, capers, almonds and who knows what else that I didn’t recognise as food.

As mentioned, I carry the small camera in my hand the whole time.  Some years ago, walking along the path leading back to Mandraki we had seen a big rat snake on the high stone wall at the side of the path and I have kept an eye open for it ever since.  I have not yet succeeded in photographing a snake in the wild but live in hope.  Eyes peeled today in hope if not expectation.  No rat snake but a very large lizard shot off and only partly managed to hide itself in the holly oak.

Big Liz not quite well hidden enough: scale shown by the leaves of the holly oak which are about 1 cm across

A tiring walk more because of the difficulty of the terrain than the distance covered but very satisfying.  And very glad to get back to the hotel, grab my swimming things and head for the beach for a swim.  Very refreshing.

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From hot rocks to old rocks

Posted on June 17, 2011 by BarryH

Wednesday is the major change-over day for hotels round here, with charter flights between Kos, Rhodes and Athens (and probably other Greek airports) and the UK.  And so it was for me: Ruth and Tim were going home.

The 07.30 ferry on Wednesday is to Kos Town rather than Kardamena, necessitating a much longer journey to the airport and being a much more complex town to find your way round.  It would be much simpler if the ferry went to Karamena which is only 5 minutes from the airport but hey ho, that’s how it goes.

The staff in the hotel organised us coffee and cake for breakfast at 07.00 and then we legged it down to the harbour and the ferry left right on time for the 2 hour trip.  The time seemed to pass surprisingly quickly, I suppose partly due to the fact that we hadn’t woken up properly. The bustle on the harbour-side in Kos was quite a contrast with the  peace and quiet of Nisyros but we coped.

The bus to the airport continued on to Kardamena so the plan was that we would all catch that, Ruth and Tim getting off at the airport and me continuing to the harbour to catch a ferry back to Nisyros.  For once the timings were brilliant.  There are only 5 buses a day but one left at 13.00 getting Ruth and Tim to the airport in time for check-in and me to the harbour in time for the 14.00 ferry.  Just!

Enfys and I had sussed out the bus terminus in Kos about 5 years ago so I knew roughly where it was, well away from the main hub of the town and the harbourside and up various winding alleys. My memory of it was very hazy but we found it in the end and deposited ourselves in a cafe in the small square and had a bite to eat, juice and coffees. Very pleasant, chilled out place.

We had a fair bit of time to kill so Ruth and I wandered down to the archaeological site of the ancient agora.  Fascinating.  Vast numbers of carved pillars and the like just lying around, all numbered so presumably catalogued somewhere.

We wandered around there for a bit to take photos and that was when I discovered that the battery in my small camera had expired and because I was travelling light I didn’t have the spare.  Ruth’s camera had the same battery so we wandered around sharing it whenever we wanted to take a photo. A little slow and inconvenient but not at all bad. Another advantage to not travelling alone.

Ancient columns lying around

Simple but very effective carved faces, to my mind sculpture at its best

Dating back to the second century BC it is not surprising there is some sign of deterioration.

But the carving on some is still very sharp

… and butterflies flitting around everywhere.

One part of the ancient agora has been restored, giving an indication of the scale of the place.

Then onto the bus, costing the princely sum of €3.20 for the 45 minute journey, a sharp contrast with the €15 for a 5-minute taxi ride from the airport to Kardamena.

Very sorry to say goodbye to Ruth and Tim but it had been great to have them to share Nisyros with for a week.

The ferry back was interesting.  It as not one of the usual ones but a much smaller boat, the main purpose of which is to pick up quarry workers on the ‘Pumice Island’ of Yiali and to deliver supplies of fruit and veg and other foods.  There were 2 of us on the ferry leaving Kardamena but we picked up another dozen or so at Yiali before continuing to Nisyros.

As a minerals officer dealing with planning control of quarries in a former life it was fascinating to see the workings at Yiali close up.  Blog readers will be relieved to know that as the battery in my camera was flat there are no photos to regale.  Essentially the island is being quarried away, the scale of the workings so great that they can be seen from aircraft flying overhead.

Back at Nisyros it wasn’t good being suddenly on my own again so I walked up to the Paleocastro, a special place in the memory, and then down to Hochlaki beach for a swim.

In the evening the internet connections were again very poor, hence the fact that this is the third blog posted in 12 hours in an attempt to catch up.

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Nisyros: even hotter rocks

Posted on June 17, 2011 by BarryH

Tuesday was to be a Big Day, the day that we went into the caldera and onto the crater floor.  Nisyros is classed as a ‘potentially active volcano’ and is much visited as  such by tourists from nearby Kos.  No visit to Nisyros is complete without visiting the caldera and the craters within it.

We took the volcano trip bus, one-way only as the time allowed before the return is at most an hour, nowhere near long enough to visit and properly appreciate both craters.

We went to the ‘minor’ crater first so as to avoid the general rush to the main crater.  In the event we were returning from that as the trip buses were leaving so we had the main crater more or less to ourselves.

As always it was very hot, particularly on the floor of the main crater because  of a combination of overhead sun, reflection from the white rocks of the curved crater walls and floor, absence of any breeze, the heat of the volcano coming through the crater floor, and the sulphurous gases emanating from the many fumaroles (fissures).  I know I can’t take more than half an hour of the heat and sulphur fumes and so it prove with Ruth and Tim.

The place has to be visited to be appreciated.  The rest of this blog is taken up with pictures of it which might capture something of the impact.  Yet another bout of Repetitive Photo Syndrome.

Looking along the smaller of the craters from the rim

Water-eroded landforms in the smaller crater, a bit like the Hoodoos in the Rockies

A sulphur-encrusted, gas-emitting fissure in the smaller crater

Looking across the main crater from the rim, the scale shown by the size of the people standing on the crater floor

Sulphur deposits on the way down to the crater floor

The crater wall from the floor, more than 20 metres high

Close-up of the needle-like sulphur crystals around one of the fissures

A more complex fissure

Looking across the crater to its rim and the rim of the caldera beyond

On the caldera floor looking towards the smaller crater

From the crater we crossed the caldera floor, a hazardous enterprise according to one local tourist guide, and then climbed the kalderimi (part-paved donkey path) steeply up to the crater rim village of Nikia from where we caught one of the two daily buses back to the town.

The peaceful and picturesque main square in Nikia

Impressive day

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