Day 54

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Day 54: 26km Walk to Skala

This morning I got up just past 8:30am, washed up and changed, then logged on to skype with my boyfriend before he went to bed and I left for my day-walk. I had breakfast as we spoke so I could digest it properly before the walk. I also boiled an egg, sliced oranges in soccer slices, packed a 1.5L water bottle, granola bars and my camera for the day’s trip.

At 10am I met Jenn and Mae downstairs; Ryan was hungover, Joe was too tired, Steph was too busy and lazy to come out, and Sara bailed because she had scholarship applications to start and due in 2 days. So it was just us 3 girls, it was a nice and small group. We headed out and Penny, our golden retriever, followed. We didn’t quite think it through and should have left her with someone at home because she was the creator of grief all day. We took the same path we did for our run yesterday because it leads to the Skala road, where dogs from all sides come by to protect their properties. They aren’t vicious, but their barks are annoying and they follow us until we’re out of sight. Once we left the familiar grounds, we found ourselves on the only path that leads to Skala. It’s a windy road, that, like in all of Greece, has never heard of sidewalks or pedestrian paths (since no one walks from Poros to Skala). And so throughout our entire walk along the Whistler-like road, there wasn’t a lot of cars or traffic, but when there was, we clung to dear life trying to get Penny off the road and not get hit by the passing cars. To them I’m sure we look like careless owners, but little do they know that we belong to her more than she belongs to us. This trip has really convinced us she needs a collar and leash, and maybe NEVER to let her come on another trip with us.

The weather was beautiful, and luckily I had decided to put on sunscreen this morning because the sun was strong and shade was far and few in between. It was a beautiful day, and our path followed the Ionian coast straight to Skala, so we got a beautiful waterfront view for the full 2.5 hours of walking. We got into the Skala boarder at about 12:30pm, but didn’t get into the actual city center where civilization is, after another 1km walk or so. And while we walked into town, we almost got rammed by a bull thanks to our dog. It was sitting along the narrow main road that is the only road into Skala from Poros. He was just sitting on the opposite side of where we were walking, and we didn’t notice it until we were directly beside it on the narrow, bottle-necked street. Penny, always liking to be ahead of us and leading our group, she turned around after having walked past the bull, and accidentally made eye contact with the bull! Once that happened, the bull freaked out, Penny froze, we started to panic, and the bull started to chase after our dog! We didn’t know what to do, so we just walked as fast as we could out of there, as Penny ran her butt away from the area. Luckily the bull’s chase didn’t last long and we caught up to Penny in no time. It was a horrible and terrifying experience and we started to dredge the walk back, having to cross paths with the bull again 😞

But after that, it got a little less exciting as we walked closer and closer to the Skala city center. We started to see more beachfront hotels and restaurants, and tourists out for a dip at the beach, so we knew we were getting closer. Jenn had been there once, when Jerry drove her and Lisa out there, so she recognized the area and knew we were close. We finally got into town, found the only Chinese restaurant that was closed for the season, to Mae’s disappointments, and so we made our way to Jerry’s pharmacy thanks to Jenn’s leading. His dad, Sprios, was there with Jerry and made us each a coffee. It was delicious and tamed our hunger for a little bit. Spiros was very surprised and impressed that we made it all the way from Poros, which according to them is a 13km distance to the city center and the pharmacy. There was another man in the store just hanging out with Spiros, and he was very impressed as well. Skala seems to be much more fluent in English, and everyone we met there, including this man, all spoke very good English to us. The man left, and apparently spread the word that we had traveled by foot with our dog from Poros to Skala, because when we left Jerry’s and checked out a few more restaurants (Mae had her heart set on Chinese food, so we searched for the only other one that turns out doesn’t serve main dishes until 6pm, and the bagel/cream cheese/smoked salmon place that Jerry and Lisa recommended were charging a whole 9 EU for the little dish! There was no way we were paying all that for something we could get at home for $4 or less at Ikea), we finally stopped at the bakery in town and settled for the delicious and cheap pastries. I had a ham and cheese flute covered in sesame seeds, and a guy came in asking if we were ‘the girls who walked from Poros to Skala’. It turns out that that one man in Jerry’s pharmacy spread the word to, what seemed was, the entire town and we were the famous crazy Canadian girls. He said we were very youthful for having traveled all this way and daring to make the journey back, all with our ‘well-behaved’ (since she knows not to come into stores) dog following us. We were a little embarrassed, but we also felt pretty proud of our accomplishments too. We also bought Penny some dog food at the local super market, since she was starving and Jenn got her some water from her bottle.

Once we got our food, we went back one last time to Jerry’s close to 2:15pm, said our goodbyes (till tonight) and used his washroom before our treck back. He offered to drive us home, but since we had the dog with us, we had to walk home. It felt like a shorter walk, but we caught up to the bull again close to the same area. The first clues were when we started seeing big poo pies on the road and side walks (yeah, there’s sidewalks in Skala, but only occasionally), then we heard the big bell around his neck ring and knew he saw us. This time we were unfortunately on the same side of the road as him, so we quickly scurried to the other side, which barely made a difference because it’s such a narrow street! Jenn carried the dog like a baby, holding her head the opposite direction of the bull, and we walked quickly past him. He had his eyes on us, and there were 3 cars that passed between us, so with each car we walked faster and faster, hoping that the cars would distract the bull, but no such luck. Instead, Jenn, in her attempt to distract the dog from the bull’s eyes, accidentally stepped right into one of the bull’s fresh poo pies, slipped a little, and caught the bull’s attention. He stood up, shook his head, and started to follow us walking. We walked faster and faster, not making it look like a run, constantly checking behind us, but eventually the bull sank back into his shade and left us alone. Thankfully that entire debacle was over and we had escaped the bull untouched and safe! Never AGAIN will I walk to Skala or underestimate the scariness of a bull :S

We had a good laugh, at Jenn carrying the dog, and cleaned off her shoe, some of her sock and part of her ankle once we were fully clear of the bull and at a good long stretch of road (so we could be visibly seen on the road by cars from all around), I passed her some tissues and sanitizer I had packed in my bag. She cleaned herself off a bit, then we continued to walk. Penny started chasing female goats, as we came to them along the road, and the male goats were about to charge at her and us, when our calling out to her finally sunk into her head. She was getting tired and for some reason started walking fearlessly and stupidly in front of oncoming vehicles. One even had to swerve around her, and could have resulted in a bad accident if there was an oncoming car, or if we were standing at that spot, side of the road. Luckily no one was hurt, but Jenn decided to put her bandana on the dog like a collar and try to lead her that way. Penny would have none of it, so Jenn started to carry the dog at about 4km away from Poros. Mae grabbed her backpack, and I tried to look out for cars and possibly a truck headed to Poros willing to drive the dog back. Unfortunately there weren’t any trucks that passed, only cars and trucks going the other way that probably had a good time watching Jenn carry the dog home. But the good thing is that we finally made it home, all our feet aching, Jenn covered in dog hair and Mae finally realizing she should invest in shoes that aren’t just Converse.

We got to our apartment, did some stretching and ran into Wim, who we told the whole story to and he was impressed. He agreed to take Penny for the rest of the day and help feed her the food Jenn bought. Sore, tired and a little sunburned, we all headed back to our rooms; I showered, unpacked all my stuff for the day and sat down to catch up on my blog. It was a long day and I’m exhausted! It’s a nice feeling to be tired from a full day’s workout and being outside doing it! But I definitely have to remember to stretch before bed tonight.

Around 8pm Jenn and I headed over to Neil and Gioria’s for the pork barbeque Jerry was preparing for us for the past 3 days, marinating the pork. When we got there, they had all eaten already, apparently today was the first and only day that Jerry decided to serve dinner on Canadian time and be digested BEFORE we get to bed. So when we arrived, Neil heated up 3 kabob pieces of pork for us each, took out the leftover vegetable rice mix, Greek salad, tzatziki and bread for us. We chowed down as everyone asked us questions about our adventure. Neil got me my usual hot water, which apparently is VERY usual in Greece, and most other European countries, and had a few cookies for dessert. We finished close to 9pm, and Jenn and I walked home full, tired and achy. Everyone understood that we were tired and just aching to get to bed, so we said our good nights, walked back to our apartments and got to bed pretty fast. Luckily we found out it was daylight savings time, and we gained another hour of sleep the next morning!

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