Greece

Yassas!

 

Arriving in Athens and meeting up with Gary at the hostel bar at 1am was great! He was already on his way and I soon followed suit with a complimentary couple of Ouzos and a few more cold Mythos (Greek beers). After a quick catch up chat (3 hours) we headed to bed waking up a little hazy and apparently sharing a room with an extremely attractive couple of French girls. It was a pleasant change waking up to such a beautiful sight as opposed to waking up on a boat with two blokes to the sound of Ben’s fart.  However life has since returned to normal as I have been waking up in remote areas of Greece with no girls in sight and more often than not to the sound of Gary’s fart!

 

We departed Athens early that morning to Delphi, a couple of hours north-west, to stay the night in the scenic mountain town and visit the ancient ruins, which included a 100 metre running track and stadium dating back some 2500 years. Quite a sight. After Delphi we embarked on a frustratingly long and hot day of travel, which included 4 bus changes, to Meteora, the sight of the amazing mountaintop monasteries.  We stayed in a hotel owned by an Aussie ex-pat who was a classic character with next to no social skills resulting in a hilarious exchange that evening where he would ask one question, then interrupt the response to his own question to ask another person at the table a different question! Gary could hardly contain himself!

 

The following morning we walked up to the nearby monasteries past a turtle and a massive brown snake (which Gary almost stepped on). What an amazing sight the monasteries are! They are perched precariously on top of enormous spires of sandstone that creates a landscape like nothing I have seen before. It is a little disappointing to see the amount of tourists arriving in chartered busses, however we managed to steer relatively clear of the hordes choosing to visit the most isolated sights – one of which was a location for the James Bond movie For your eyes only.

 

On a slight tangent, I should mention briefly that during our travels to and around Meteora we met two couples who were at the present time sailing around the world. They both independently explained to me how difficult they had found sailing the Med, as opposed to crossing the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. They each told separate stories, which mimicked my experience with the 70 knot winds accompanying the storm on the Isle of Corsica. One had met a couple who out of nowhere were hit by a 90 knot gust which severed their mast in an instant and sent it to the bottom of the sea before they knew what had happened. Another was hit on the side by a rogue wave that completely flipped the boat with the skipper steering in the cockpit! Apparently he was ok but just really shaken. The boat rolled back upright almost instantly with no apparent damage. Goes to show you how misguided the myths are about the sedate Mediterranean.

 

Anyway, back to Greece. After our stay in Meteora we headed up to Metsovo, another picturesque mountain village in NW Greece. It was a remarkable place, relatively untouched by tourism. Snow-capped mountains surrounded us on all sides and we enjoyed simply sitting in the square and watching the countless old men sitting and talking for hours while constantly fondling with their komboloia (worry beads). The following morning we headed off in torrential rain to Ioannina, a university town a few hours away, where we arrived to find it completely flooded. We found a room in a nearby hotel where the owner was mopping up after the lobby was engulfed in over 1 metre of water. To our dissapointment, the pub around the corner was also submerged, but like any good businessman, the owner shuffled us upstairs to enjoy the unbelievably overpriced beer and food. One 250mL Stella sold for 7 Euros! If you wanted to buy beer of a larger volume (for the budget conscious) you could purchase a 3L bottle of Amstel for only 48 Euros! Bargain! At least the food tasted good!

 

Monodendri was our next destination, located in the nearby mountains, where the world’s deepest gorge is located. Vikos Gorge is over 900m deep and only 1km wide. We did two walks while we were there; one along a precarious half-a-metre wide path clinging to the cliff-face with a vertical drop of 800metres, and the other down into the gorge which (although affording spectacular views)

involved the inevitable and exhausting climb 900m back up again! It was worth it though! We had to keep reminding ourselves we were in Greece as the scenery was not something you normally associate with images of the arid Mediterranean country. The gorge was fringed with lush vegetation and the dramatic gorge walls looked like something out of the lost world. Simply stunning! Unfortunately we are unsure whether the photos of our walks have turned out as my camera is broken, and Gary’s, with the help of some poor packing and my notorious clumsiness, was sent flying from his pack off a stone wall to the ground some 10 metres below. It seems ok, besides the cracked screen, so we are living in hope that the images have survived the tumble. 

 

Currently (and randomly) I am writing this post from the balcony of our hotel in Gjirokaster, Albania! We decided on impulse to head up here after Monodendri because we were so close to the border. The decision turned out to be a good one with the crossing being far less eventful and costly than we had expected. That is beside the taxi driver who drove a constant 140km/h in a 40 zone, overtaking trucks around blind corners, and all while Gary, I and a couple of elderly German backpackers clung to the inside of the old Mercades, which conveniently contained no seatbelts (except for the drivers seat of course). Anyway we somehow arrived alive and have since explored the beautiful old Ottoman village and the castle, which towers over the stone houses that cling to the side of the rocky hilltop. We will stay here another night before returning to Greece to make our way south to meet Gary’s parents in Kythera and eventually to Rob’s wedding in Santorini.

 

Cheers (and sorry about the length of this last post!)

 

Matt.