Safe Return Doubtful

I drove north towards Kalamata this morning after two weeks on the Mani peninsula. Its rugged wilderness has etched its place into my memory, there is nowhere quite like it. It does though, offering limited opportunities for hiking, due to the heat in the summer months, but also the thorny bushes which at this time of year, have grown over many of the paths, so as to obscure them all together in some cases. There is hawthorn and gorse, but the main offender is called the Greek Spiny Spurge, sometimes called the chicken wire plant.

In the last couple of days I repeated a couple of the trails we had taken on a week or so ago.

Down at Cape Tenaro, where the ‘entrance to Hades’ is, we had a very sociable day. I met Tam, the Scottish guy in the S reg motorhome with his three rescue dogs. He was just leaving to head up to Gythio, and had spent Christmas on a beach close to where I was, with seven other vans, mostly Germans.

I also met the two young Germans who had been parked up at the end of the rough track out to Cape Tigani, and the Castle of the Mani. When I first met them I said I thought they would struggle to get back up the track; it was rough and stony, as well as being steep. They assured me they would be fine. But they weren’t. After several hours of battling alone, a local fisherman had called his mate, and he had brought his pick-up truck to tow them up the tricky 100 metre section.

I walked the few kilometres to the Cape with a couple of German cyclists, living in Austria, on a 3 week break. They had taken the ferry from Venice to Patras and could fit in 18 days of riding. Other than the shorter hours of daylight, it is a great time of year for such a trip.

Yesterday we walked down to the three beaches and the ancient ruins of Caenepolis. Once again we were joined by the two dogs who had come with us a few days ago. We both got a huge welcome from them when they saw us.

The weather has been cloudless, the only variable feature was the strength of the wind, which generally, gains power in the late afternoon. The warmest part of the day is around midday when it’s up in the early 20s, but even with a clear sky at night, the low is about 15C.

After four days in the apartment I took I was yearning for the van again. The four days had been a break, and the chance to do a few jobs. Though the building was very impressive, a converted stone tower, the furniture and cooking utensils were of a very basic standard; switch the oven on and the electric tripped, the fridge responded to no settings and just froze everything in it.

This morning (29th December) we left Alika and the apartment and headed about 50 kilometres up the west coast, still just about on the Mani. The city of Kalamata at the head on the peninsula is about 10 kilometres to the north. I stocked up on a few things at the supermarket in Areopolis, and then headed inland to the villages around the Viros Gorge. Though only 6 kilometres inland, Tseria, where we headed out for a walk, is at 600 metres above sea level. I had planned to stay up here, but couldn’t find anywhere suitable, so headed back down to the coast after lunch.

I found an ideal place at Kitries marina, a sheltered little bay with a quite a busy tavern when we arrived in the early afternoon, but had emptied out by the time I visited in the evening. There were a couple of guys playing bouzouki, and with the beer I ordered came some excellent octopus tapas.

It’s a bit cooler here, a degree or so, but as I head north, the cooler it will no doubt get. I’m heading next for the Kalavrita villages, up in the north west of the Peloponnese, at about 800 metres above sea level, and a good deal cooler at nights than here.