Yesterday, as we hiked into Paramonas we coudn’t help but notice the huge mountain looming above the town and sloping all the way to the shore. Paramonas exists on this slope. We knew that today’ hike would take us up over that mountain, down the other side, then up another mountain on the other side of the island. Yep, that’s right, we are traversing the island again, this time from west coast to east coast.
Up and out the door by 6:15am, boiled eggs in our bellies. For a short period we walked on roads cut into the slope, but soon the yellow CT marks turned right and started abruptly up the hill. I had noticed when studying the map last night that the trail was perpendicular to the contour lines. Never a good sign. Reality and the map were in sync. The trail was very steep, leading up through terraced olive trees. After a bit, Sally’s exercised induced asthma caught up with her. She used her inhaler to clear up the lungs and I slung her pack on top of mine so lower her aerobic demand. Up we continued. The brush parted now and then to give us a view back down to the water.
The trail began to traverse upward, lessening its attack on the hill. Eventually, the trail turned to road and we were walking up pavement for the last 15-20 minutes of the climb. We crested the top at about 7:30am. We sat for a drink of water and FaceTimed Andy. Our 7:30am is his 9:30pm, so the timing worked.
The trail started abruptly down, first as a road, then we stepped off it and onto a steeply sloping trail. We walked through a hillside town in about 20 minutes and got a soda, cookies chips for the trail from a small grocery owned and operated by a 67 year old man that has lived in this town his whole life. Very helpful and kind.
The trail continued down steeply, kind of cutting the switchbacks of the road. For a time the trail was actually a trail. Sally and I were both in good spirits as we wove our way between houses and orchards on this trail.
Eventually, it hit the bottom and began its ESE traverse of the interior of the island. The route oscillated up and down as it wove through Olive Orchards.
At one point the route made a big loop to the north-what looked like pointless distance to me. I found a road that cut off the bottom of the loop, reducing our distance by about a mile. We sat down for lunch at the beginning of the loop. While Sally ate, I walked my shortcut to be sure the roads I saw on the map were there and unobstructed. It took me 20 minutes to walk out and back to report the route was clear. We picked up and took the shortcut, back on the route in 15 minutes.
The route took us to another town down here on the interior, flat part of the island, Stroggili. A taverna was right on the corner as we entered town. Sally had a beer, I had a Coke and we both had a piece of honey drenched pastry desert.
Three miles and 800 vertical feet lay before us. At the end and top lay our destination, Dafnata and Kostos’ Walkers Inn.
We left the bottom at 11:20am and reached the top at 1:15pm. Along the way we were entertained by butterflies, beautiful views, makeshift goat pens and olive trees.It was getting warm as we reached the top and started weaving between houses on the concrete paths.
As we approached one house a man in the yard said “Water, Water?” I said I had some, but he insisted, ran into his house and came out with a 1.5 liter bottle of very cold water and handed it to us. We thanked him as Sally held the cold bottle to her warm, red face to cool off.
Another 100 yards and we were at Kostos’ place, perched high on the ridge overlooking Corfu Town.
We sat at his restaurant and bantered back and forth with this jovial and joking man. He said we were 2 hours early. Most people coming from Paramonas are don’t arrive until 3:00pm. Our room was not ready.
His house sits right on the ridge line with a magnificent, unobstructed view down to the city. He told us to take our drinks and go sit on his deck and enjoy the view until our room was ready. That’s what we did, for about an hour.
Our room was ready about 2:30pm. He lead us up the outside stairs to the second floor deck and to the apartment he had constructed there. It too, had a great view of Corfu Town, although some poles and wires obstructed it a bit.
The room was gorgeous. Kitchen, tub and shower, couch, bed and a loft with two twin beds. Everything was new and clean. Beautifully done.
We relaxed on the bed, wrote, read, planned and went down to eat dinner about 4:45pm. He had closed up the restaurant and was not to be found. Up here on the ridge there is not another restaurant, or store for that matter for miles. We sat down at one of the tables to wait. About half an hour later he drove up. We asked what he was cooking for dinner and he just stared at us, dumbfounded, “Dinner? Now? Impossible! Way to early!” We were both very hungry as we had not bought groceries for two days and my pack had only a quarter loaf of bread and two slices of cheese we were saving for tomorrow’s lunch. This is one of the problems in traveling during the apocalypse, most store and Taverna’s are closed, making it hard to restock for each day’s hike. He made us bowls of ice cream to tide us over until dinner. We went back up to our room so as not to seem breathing down his neck
About 6:30pm we returned, sat at a table, had just gotten the verbal menu when three retirees entered the outdoor courtyard and struck up a conversation with Kostos showing great familiarity. We deduced that they were regulars. We soon got into the conversation, discussing our mutual disgust of our former president when we learned they were from Holland, Karl, Barbara and a friend. They invited us to sit at the their table which we gladly accepted and spent the better part of an hour comparing lives.
Kostos brought out our food. We moved to another table to eat and Karl and company were just having drinks. In the course of our conversation the topic of finding food while hiking came up. We were a bit low on groceries for tomorrow (a tough hiking day) and there was no place to buy anything. Barbara said she would walk home, grab some bananas and apples and bring them back up while Karl cooked dinner. The Dutch just re-earned their title of nicest people!
We bought 3 1.5 liter bottles of water from Kostos, as well as three eggs as we settled the bill.
Upstairs again, we boiled our eggs for breakfast, put our packs together, wrote and were asleep by 9:30pm. Five in the morning comes too early!
Oh! In yesterday’s installment I forgot to highlight the feral cat population on Corfu. Wild cats are everywhere. We see dozens a day. Scrawny, hungry, living by stealing food or killing birds and mice. We have yet to see a rodent.
No comments:
Post a Comment