Day 16-Wednesday, June 9, 2021 - Hiking the Corfu Trail - Day 4 - Agios Georgios to Paramonas - 10.3 miles - Sharing the Apocalypse

Before we start the “we did this and then we did this” portion of this diatribe, let’s discuss some of the finer points of Greek life. Many things that we take for granted in the US as being standard worldwide just aren’t. So, below is a list in no order what-so-ever of some observations we have made:

1. If you own property that is beach front, you cannot impede people’s access to the beach. If you gate your entrance, then you need to provide some other access method. This goes for private residences as well as businesses. As the owner of the Ananias Hotel said, “I cannot put up a gate. Why would I. To stop peoples from getting to the beach would be crazy.”
2. The pool at any restaurant or hotel is open to the public, no charge. Come in, lounge by it, sun bath, swim all day. However, it would be poor etiquette not to buy something at the bar or restaurant during your stay. At least a Coke or something.
3. The lines on a two lane highway that define those lanes are merely suggestions of where you might drive. In our tour by car of the Pelopenesian Pennisula in which we drove about 500 miles I spent most of the time driving with the fog line directly under the middle of my car and my right wheels way off on what we would call the shoulder. The oncoming traffic drives the same way. This way, if you want to pass you just straddle the center line and . . . pass. You don’t have to worry about on coming traffic as they are all over on the shoulder. The only time it gets dicey is if oncoming traffic both try to pass at the same time. Then, the cars half on the shoulders just widen the gap a little more and let the passing cars pass. It took about 15 minutes to get use to this mode of driving, but then it seemed natural. You can’t doze off or zone out when driving, you have to stay alert because the traffic is much more fluid with cars passing cars at widely different speeds. In a stretch of road posted 100Km/hr I tried to stay within 10-15 Km/hr of the limit. I spent most of my time with a tire on the shoulder as most of the traffic passed me going 120-140Km/hr. Like I said, stay alert and be fluid.
4. Speed limits are like the lane lines, a suggestion.
5. Everyone we have met has been overtly kind and generous. They offer help in an instant. The guy on the scooter that does vacation experience setups told us to call him if we needed help with anything, travel related or not. As we hiked into a little town today in the warm afternoon a man saw us coming, ran into his house and handed us an ice cold 1.5 liter bottle of water. The Greeks are super friendly and kind.
6. Greek food is the best of anywhere we have been, hands down. I have become hooked on the Greek Salad-Big chucks of tomato and cucumbers, raw onions, peppers and maybe a little lettuce thrown in, lightly sprinkled in olive oil with a good sized slab of Feta Cheese on top. Amazing!! And, believe or not, I don’t really care for tomatoes or cucumbers or peppers! How do they make them so good? The moussaka is amazing. The seafood fantastic. Makes me hungry just writing about it, and I am not a foodie.
7. The Greek economy is very dependent on travel. You don’t notice the number of restaurants and shops in a town until they are all empty and the owners are standing in the streets talking to each other. Then you notice how many empty chairs there are. When we first arrived nearly everything was closed, and those that were open had only been open a few days. In the all the hotels we have stayed at (we are moving around quite a bit, so five hotels and 4 Air B&Bs) we are their only guests, and we have been their first guests. It is a little eerie to go into a lobby and never see anyone. Same with the hotel’s restaurant. Every hotel we have stayed in has messaged us a day ahead to find what time we will check in so they don’t have to sit in the lobby waiting for us, as no other guests will be arriving. Travel during the apocalypse.
8. We have no idea how popular the Corfu Trail is. We have met a total of three people walking it. Some of the businesses along the route that we stop in at to get a bite to eat or some needed thing don’t know of it. Some businesses do and recognize us as such due to the backpacks we carry. Houses along the route are the same way. Sometimes people give us that strange look that says, “why are you walking in my neighborhood, and why are you wearing a pack.” Other times people along the route will give us directions and cheer us on. 
9. Many of the Greeks we have met know far more about American politics than many of the Americans we know. Often, we have been startled to have someone that can barely speak any English discuss in detail American politics.
10. Corfu is amazingly beautiful. Of course, it has a Mediterranean climate-warm, moist and no frosts. The diversity of plants is spectacular. The butterflies are everywhere. We have been lucky. The weather, temperatures in particular, have been more like April than June. All our days have been in the low to mid 70’s, nights about 64. Wonderful. 

Now to the events of the day. 

We were loath to leave our sea shore lodgings. We had searched long and hard for this place and now we had to leave.

We were out the door at 6:15am after our usual breakfast of hard boiled eggs and bread. The route paralleled the sea shore for the next five miles, the first half mile on the beach road until we reached the big resort. The next 2.5 was in the dunes one hundred yards from the water’s edge. Then the trail turned inland a bit and wove along the shore of the huge lake Korrision. At the far north end of the lake only 50 yards separates the lake and the sea. The trail runs up the middle of the isthmus. 

Those 2.5 miles in the dunes were a killer. This was trudging through the desert sands, Lawrence of Arabia style.

 At the All-Inclusive resort where we saw all the people yesterday they rent 4WD ATVs. Their tracks were apparent in the loose sand, and their action made the sand that much looser, deeper and more difficult to walk in. I tried to stay to the fringes where a few plants and roots still held the sand together, but for the most part we just trudged ahead ankle deep, taking little steps to make headway. The big question is why we didn’t just go to the waterline and walk in the wet sand that is firm and easy walking? Adapt or die.

Once we got inland a ways where the four wheelers did not, the sand firmed up and the walking got easier.

We soon reached Lake Korrision’s shore. It is interesting that the level of the lake is the same as the sea. 

About 3.5 miles along, we crossed over the outlet(?) on a rickety bridge.

 It was here that we noticed there was no difference in water level. Towards the north end we found people camping in their trucks and vans on the narrow isthmus.

At the 5 mile mark we stopped on the shoreline for a quick bite, then on we went. The shoreline changed to bluffs and we soon found ourselves 100 feet above the water weaving between houses and olive orchards. At one point I noticed a label on the map that said the road had washed away. The trail turned uphill on a side road about 50 yards before the washout. I missed the turn and we soon were headed down toward “where the sidewalk ends”. 

We considered retracing our steps, but I thought since we had come this far we ought to continue to the washout and see what it looked like. Maybe cars couldn’t pass, but surely we could walk through it.

Oops. Not quite what I was expecting. There was a netting blocking the road and a small foot path worn in the grass going around it. When I got to the edge of the washout I found we were about 100 vertical feet above the waterline on a vertical crumbling cliff of unstable dirt and rock. Only 1/4 of the road was still on top and it was undercut at least half way. At first I thought “we can’t chance this”. But, then I saw the path turned a little away from the precipitous edge. Only about 10 dicey feet and then we would be back on fairly stable ground. It took a little coaxing to get Sally to traverse it. Once past the cliff, the walking was on a road and easy going. 

We continued through olive orchards and residential housing for another mile or so. 

We had just sat down to enjoy a soda on the side of the road when a young man walking in the same direction we had been began to pass. We struck up a conversation with him and soon 15 minutes had passed. Adam was from Romania, although he was Hungarian by birth. To avoid the pandemic and get a vacation he rented a house on the seashore from AirB&B for a month and moved his son, Aaron and his partner, Gabriella to Corfu where they both worked remotely.

We started walking again, and as he was going the same way we were we kept the conversation going. He did not realize there was a Corfu Trail and was amazed to notice all the yellow marks on the rocks and trees we passed that had been there all this time but he had never noticed. When we reached his driveway down to the house on the shore he invited us to come meet Gabriella and Aaron. Of course we said yes.

A little side note here. Adam was the spitting image of Ross Abplanalp, Andy’s good friend. He looked like him, talked like him and laughed like him. It was eerie.  He described their experience as “Vacationing during an Apocalypse”. Sound familiar?

The house they found was amazing, with lots of acres of room to move and for Aaron, aged 2.5, to play.And a private beach. Gabriella was a sweetheart. She didn’t act surprised that Adam had brought in a couple of strays and was warm and welcoming. She is a lawyer in Romania and is 40 years old. We stayed and chatted for 20 minutes, then got on our way after exchanging emails.

With two miles left, we were in Paramonas in a little over an hour and were able to walk right to our place, thanks to the GPS coordinates we got from Booking.com.

Originally, we had an AirB&B for this night, but the owner cancelled about a week after we booked it, hoping to get people that would stay more than one night. Choices of places to stay were slim in this low density housing beach side area and we settled on a $36 a night apartment that advertised a mountain view, a sea view, a garden view, and on and on. We thought they must have checked every box on the form on Booking.com, maybe hoping to attract customers.

We entered the closed gate at the apartment complex and in a few moments a man appeared and led us up a flight of outside stairs to an apartment. It was perfect, and just as advertised. A magnificent view of the Ionian Sea. A gorgeous view of the mountains. An apricot tree encroaching on the balcony with ripe fruit for the picking. Clean, hot plate and fridge. Perfect. The balcony was almost as big as the studio apartment. The bathroom was tiny, but all the necessaries were there.

We kicked off our shoes, had a few apricots, I took a shower and we headed down to the “town” on the shoreline, about half a mile below us to find a lunch to buy and groceries for tomorrow’s hike. 

We found only one outdoor cafe and no groceries. We had seafood for lunch at the cafe and bought 3 - 1.5 liter bottles of water, 4 eggs and three cans of pop for tomorrow. We walked back to our apartment via the only other road, the loop down to and from the beach.

I was feeling quite fatigued on our climb back to our room and was happy to lay down on the bed. I slept for about an hour and a half. We cooked some noodles for dinner, ate on the deck, wrote, read and studied the route for tomorrow. I fell asleep at 9:30pm. Sally half an hour later. What a wonderful place to stay. We left the window facing the sea open and listened to the waves all night long. It was cool, comfortable and quiet. Just what we needed. Another amazing day.