Peloponese and the Ionian Islands: Part 4 : Kefalonia

After our last night in Peristera we had a very early start as there was a lengthy day's walk ahead of us. We were to start with a drive to Ano Potamia and then trek to Zahloru village via the Profitas Ilias chapel and the Mega Spelaion monastery. Straight after a very brief breakfast we piled into the back of two pick-ups, luggage and all and set off for the start of the trek. This began with a zigzag ascent on a dirt track through beautiful green meadows filled with all manner of flowers in bright reds and blues, violets and yellows. Half way up is the Profitas Ilias (Prophet Elijah) chapel which is a small building on the hillside. Like most Greek chapels it is still in use and is not an especially impressive sight. It does however provide a welcome respite from the heat and a chance to refill water battles from a relatively clean supply.

We continued on up the hillside to reach a saddle beyond which Mt. Petrukhi rises stark and massive against the clear and cloudless skies.
The ascent of this peak was once again optional and I chose to wait with some of the others on the shady ridge. To pace the time I started to read a book which John had lent me, P.J. O'Rourke's book Give War A Chance. This is a collection of journalistic pieces from the foreign correspondent of Rolling Stone magazine. To describe O'Rourke as a fascist is the understatement of the century. I realise that Americans are often regarded as very right wing and that some commentators suggest that the furthest left they get is still to the right of our Conservative party but his opinions make Margaret Thatcher look like Karl Marx. As a sample the opening chapter is titled 'Hunting Nice People, And How to Catch and Skin Them' and is a vicious and uncompromising attack on liberals everywhere. In another chapter he describes his preferred solution to the Gulf war which had just begun when he was writing. This was simply to nuke Baghdad but only if the sudden end to the war didn't mean that the American defence budget got cut. Nevertheless his style is funny and entertaining and providing that you just ignore his actual politics it is an entertaining book.
Whenever I got bored with reading I wandered about taking photographs and enjoying the view or chatting to Ann and Kristine who had also decided to sit this one out. When the returning explorers rejoined us we set off down the hillside. The ground was covered in a thin gossamer layer of spiders web that reflected the bright sunlight in an eerie shimmering way as the slight breeze disturbed the grass. In a tree I saw a ball of web about the size of a bowling ball with a dark round hole in one side. There was no sign of the spider. Before long we entered a path into a forest and in a clearing beside the river we sat having our lunch. As we saw the Feta and Sardines coming out again we were all quietly thankful that today was to be our last lunch on the trail and that tomorrow we might have something else for lunch. The clearing was filled with wildlife. Two brightly coloured butterflies danced above the opposite bank. A half inch long spider with a pale yellow almost spherical body and legs and an elongated dark green abdomen crawled slowly over the rocks. A snake about eighteen inches long and as thick as a toilet roll tube with irregular yellow markings on a black background slithered from the shade of a bush into the water and then behind some rocks. John the birdwatcher went exploring with his binoculars trying to find some of the many different species that filled the day with song. It was an idyllic setting that went a long way toward compensating for the overly familiar lunch.

After lunch we started out along the Ladhopotamos valley which rapidly dried up into a harsh white rocky canyon where the trees started about half way up the sides. Even here though there were splashes of colour from brightly-coloured insects and motion from large brown moths that seemed to be doomed to wander all day in search of suitable shade. We crossed the valley and moved up towards the trees where a steep ascent took us eventually to the top of the Psilos Stavros ridge.. Here a complicated arrangement of cut out wooden pipes carried water into a large wooden box from which a plastic pipe emerged and ran down the hill parallel to the path. The water comes originally from a stream even higher in the mountains and the pipe carries it down to the monastery at Mega Spelaion.
This was the path that we followed down, detouring only briefly to look at a derelict fortress, to the monastery. At frequent intervals we were soaked by leaks from the pipe that sent fountains of water cascading down the hillside. So common were these that we were forced to wonder if any water actually reached the monks at all.

The story of the founding of the monastery is similar to many other religious legends. Two itinerant monks, fathers Symeon and Theodore travelled around Greece on pilgrimages to many of the famous chapels. As they rested they received a vision of Saint Luke and Saint Andrew telling them to go to the banks of the Bouras river. Here they met a young woman tending goats who told them of a cave in which there was a mysterious wax icon of the Virgin Mary. They went to the cave to retrieve the icon but were faced with a huge serpent. A bolt of lightening sprang from the icon striking the serpent dead and they took it and founded the monastery which soon became a centre for pilgrimages from all over Greece as the icon was reputed to work miracles.

So much for the legend. The monastery itself is a good deal less impressive than might be expected. From the outside it resembles nothing quite as much as a block of Blackpool holiday flatls and inside there is a commercial aspect that seems at odds with the function of the building. As in many monasteries women entering it are required to wear long skirts, even if they are already wearing trousers or jeans. It is not the sight of female flesh that the monks object to, it is the very knowledge that women have legs at all. When you pay your entrance fee you find that inside there is a small but quite interesting museum displaying the history of the monastery, a reliquary filled with bits of dead saint (as reliquaries always are), the chapel in which the icon is housed and in which the few people who are genuine religious pilgrims make their prayers, and a room recreating the legend of the founding. This room, crowded to overflowing with people visiting is a strange affair. Life size cardboard cut outs of the main cast are assembled unconvincingly in a polystyrene cavern and garishly illuminated with coloured lights. If not for the endearing ineptitude of the display it would all be rather tacky.

After the monastery we made our way down a short walk to our hotel for the night where we found a new problem. All of the rooms that had been reserved for us were doubles rather than twins. Nobody was particularly keen on that idea so alternate arrangements were hastily devised. This was easier conceived than accomplished. The idea was that as some of the double rooms also contained folding chair beds we should move these around until the requisite number of twin rooms had been achieved. Tonight I was to share a room with Andy. His bed was currently in the room being occupied by Ann and Caroline. We moved it out into the corridor and then along to the door to our room. Then we hit a snag. No matter how we twisted and turned it, it simply could not be manoeuvred in through the door. Opposite the door was a window which we opened and then twisted the chair bed outside intending to use the extra space to give us a way into the room. Still no luck. After much pondering we went back to the room it had come from and with a lot of struggling and pushing took it through that room and out onto the balcony. This had pipes and cables and washing lines along it as an additional hazard but somehow we managed to get it along the balcony to the other door to our room. With one last effort and several pieces of broken bed we hauled it in through the door. I collapsed in a heap on my normal bed while Andy set about the additional task of unfolding his chair bed. Several bits seemed to be missing but after a hunt along the corridor and the balcony and in Ann and Caroline's room we located most of them and finally he had assembled what looked more like an instrument of torture than a bed. I was glad that I didn't have to sleep in it.

The last day of our walking dawned. Simon had been up at four thirty to take a photograph of the local train that went through the village at five. The rest of us arose at a more sensible hour and ate breakfast. Our luggage was going through on the train and we were walking along the track. The theory was that we would flag down a later train for the last five kilometres of the walk into Diakofto. We started out at about nine thirty, following the narrow gauge track as it plunged through spectacular ravines. There were several bridges and tunnels to be negotiated all of which was accomplished without problems. We had been warned that today the walk might be more boring than we were used to but in the event the scenery was spectacular and the walk pleasantly cool as the sun did not penetrate this area until mid afternoon. Enormous aggressive spiders ran from the shade of the tracks at our approach. Birds of prey rode the thermals high above the mountains. In places the river plummeted down short but fast waterfalls gaining momentum as its channel narrowed to final force itself out incredible pressure into a natural water cannon. Bright red blooms as large as a fist covered the slopes.

At the point where we had intended to flag down the train we waited. After a few minutes we heard the sound of it descending but to our surprise it ignored us completely and we were left to continue on down the final five kilometres on foot. This was, apart from the last kilometre not as uninteresting as we had feared. The path continued down through much the same kind of scenery as before and eventually turned into a proper road leading into Diakofto.
Here we sat in a cafe opposite the railway station and had our first lunch in a week that did not include Feta. I had a plate of sausage and chips. As is often the case in Greece it was served lukewarm and would in other circumstances not have been especially appetising. However the change was sufficient to make it more than palatable.
Andy's train back to Athens left about half an hour before our train to Petras. We said our goodbyes to him and watched as he sprinted away to his train.

Another concept that seems alien to the Greeks is that of material upholstery. The bus we had taken from Athens to Bouzi had had awful stick plastic seats and this was now also true of our train. We sat on the bouncing and rickety train, occasional peeling ourselves from the seats and reading and chatting. At Petras we had a short hike down the road to the bus station carrying all of our luggage and there Jenni went in and bought our tickets. The bus, miraculously, not only had real upholstery but also had darkened windows and air conditioning. The half an hour ride to Kilini was the most comfortable journey we had made all week. At Kilini the bus drives onto a ferry although we had to leave it on the shore and walk on. There is none of the complicated embarkation/disembarkation that English or northern European ferries have here. We walked up the same rickety ramp that the vehicles drove over and carefully picked our way around a woman unloading boxes of chickens from the hold before making our way upstairs to the lounge. Above decks it was a ferry like any other and once we were on our way the crossing was surprisingly ordinary.

When we arrived at Kefalonia there was another forty minute bus ride to be endured before we reached the town of Argostoli where we were to stay on the island. There was barely time to register and shower before going into the main square to eat our first meal in a proper restaurant for some time. The restaurant was called 'The Captain's Table' and featured an extensive menu and an eccentric waiter. When I asked him what the difference was between Tuna Salad 550DR and Tuna Salad 750DR he shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes and said
"There is no difference, one of them is Potato Salad."
After a delicious meal we went in search of somewhere to drink and, after rejecting the Paradise Pub as its prices were approximately ten times anywhere else, we settled on a waterfront cafe where we sat sipping Metaxa and listening to a guitar and bazouki duo in the warm calm night until it was time for bed.

On Monday everything was optional. There were various possible things to do, a walk around Argostoli or a taxi to a secluded beach for sunbathing or a trip to see the Drongorati Caves and the Mellisani Cave at Sami were among the options. Early in the morning I went to the bank to change some money and then had a stroll around the town intending to buy some T-Shirts and a guide book. The guide book was easy but the T-Shirts were all of the 'ALL MY FRIENDS WENT TO GREECE BUT ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT' variety so I didn't bother. The group for the caves were meeting at lunch time and I decided to go with them. I sat in the hotel bar with a long cold drink and waited as the group arrived. Those going were Jenni, Roy and Louise, Caroline, Kate, Ann, John and Angela, Keith and Kristine. We walked together the few hundred yards to the bus stop and boarded the bus. At that moment I realised that I had left my camera on the bar. I sprinted back along the quay through ninety degree heat praying that I could make it to the hotel, find the camera and then back to the bus in the four minutes before it departed. Somehow I managed it but I was so drained that for the first half an hour of the bus ride I just sat next to Ann trying to get my breath back while she kept up a very one sided conversation.

We left the bus at a bend in the road that looked like every other bend in the road. A group of very bored looking goats ignored us completely as we followed the small sign that pointed off along a side road to the Drongorati Caves. At the caves we found a cafe and a gift shop as well as the caves themselves which are smaller than they had appeared on the map but nonetheless quite impressive. Once they must have been even more impressive because the approach down steps through a canyon was once the outer part of the cave system which has collapsed some time in the past. The caves have been imaginatively lit to show them to their best advantage although the most remarkable feature is a series of translucent stalactites near the entrance which resemble enormous rashers of bacon hanging from the ceiling.
Back outside we had some cold drinks at the cafe and then set out for the walk to the other cave that we were to visit, the Melissani cave. This walk turned out to be rather longer than anyone had expected taking us the best part of an hour in ninety degree heat through some fairly dull urban scenery. After a while the frequent half built houses and grey concrete start to get a bit depressing and it was with considerable relief that we eventually reached the cave. Here there is the inevitable gift shop and then a very brief boat ride round an admittedly beautiful cave. The water is a deep clear turquoise and filled with small fish while the uncollapsed half of the cave forms a high dark dome but bearing in mind the price of admission and the walk to get there it is a little disappointing. Afterwards we bought ice-creams and debated what to do. Somewhere along the line we had lost Roy and Louise but the rest of us were still together. We decided to walk down to the shore, about twenty minutes away, and then follow this round to Sami which is the main resort on Kefalonia where we would spend the afternoon swimming and sunbathing and then take taxis back to Argostoli. At Sami Keith and I found a convenient bar and had a couple of cold beers and then headed back to join Ann, Caroline, Jenni and Kristine on the beach. John and Angela had found themselves a more private spot further along. The water was not particularly clear but it was deep and calm and warm and very suitable for swimming. I swam out about a hundred yards and trod water for a while looking back at the shore. Sami I decided was a much nicer place to be than Argostoli. Later I asked Jenni why we weren't staying there. The problem with Sami, it seems, is that none of the Hotels are willing to let rooms for less than a full week so that our two night stay was forced to look elsewhere. I swam back to the beach and lay in the sun until it was time to meet up and go back.