One blog, two days.

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Yesterday was sort of cancelled because I’d had too many ‘metaxas’. With 17 km already walked we thought with only 3 km to go we deserved a quick lemonade and maybe an expresso (read Lipton’s tea for Julie). We got the lemonade, we missed the expresso and we had 6 shots of this metaxa. Fortunately the flavour is pretty good, it’s quite sweet but still scary to be having mid afternoon. The taverna was packed, it was Sunday afternoon, rowdy with banter and people just having a good time but as soon as we were identified as Australian it was on. To compound the situation I drunk one before the compulsory ‘salute/cheers/here’s lookin up your old address’ so I had to pour the next round for everyone. Very convivial and very friendly and absolutely refused to be compensated. One of the drinking boys was a priest and I even tried donating to the church and even that failed! We went back later that evening and the owners were delighted to see us. Received very good treatment (and food) and were even driven back to our accomodation which may have been for the best because raki was served as well.

That’s the end of the day. I’ll drop photos of the day’s walk but it was pretty long, pretty tough, pretty rocky and not that pretty. Circular walks are tough mentally I reckon as you walk 20 km and end up where you started. If anything goes wrong or even slightly astray you question why am I doing this just to end up where I started. There were no major disasters or really no minor ones either but it was not a spectacular day. The weather closed in and prevented us getting the promised views from the high plateau (and it is high) and most of the time we were in the mist. Some long down hill sections and as the weather was poor the ipad went away and as a consequence there are no pictures. Downhills are tough on knees and this was a 2 hour continuous descent.

Today we were taxied from our accomodation. First time we have been disappointed with our accomodation really. The showers were cold from after our first shower. I think the system is solar and they did not have any back up. That’s 3 cold showers and that’s not good enough. Breakfasts were just OK, very local but only grapes as fruit, no cereals etc and really enough for us to have legitimate grumbles. We were taken to Imbros where yesterday we had walked to. The fact that the drive was only 10 minutes or so makes the circular walk even more of a mockery.

From Imbros we walked the Imbros Gorge. Quite a geological marvel, with towering cliffs either side of a dry creek bed. In places the you can touch both sides at once by simply extending your arms. It is not a glacial valley and that makes it even more impressive as the action of running water over millenniums has resulted in this marvel. We walked it downhill and although the gradient is super steep it is continuous and it’s downhill for 6 km. We met some people walking it in the other direction. Why would you do that? After the gorge it’s into the village for a quick drink then up the hill and across the barren hills (except for rocks) to the coast. The wind was fierce, absolutely blowing a gale and not pleasant at all.

But we are here. Another seaside village bustling with tourists. Many are bused in but we also see lots of hire cars here and there are English and Aussie flags flying at the foreshore. I deliberately say foreshore as calling it a beach is a big ask. It’s pebbles and very coarse sand but the water is good. Obviously we had our swim and have recovered from what should have been an easy day but what was a bit longer and a bit tougher than we had expected. When reality and expectations don’t match you feel a little duded!

Evening meal will be interesting as there’s a plethora of restaurants and tavernas here plying for trade. Fish is big here and that is something we have not had on our plates for a while. So my hopes for goat may be fading or really already faded.

Anyway that’s basically yesterday and today rolled together.

It’s caio for now and I’ll probably see you tomorrow from Loutro.

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