Another very ordinary breakfast consisting of a fried egg, yogurt (very good), cheese slices, processed ham, bread and cake. I expect the offering will remain exactly the same throughout our stay.
When Maggi and I returned to our room She bent over and suddenly realised she had done her back in. I had images of staying all day in the horrible bedroom. Fortunately her condition was not so bad that she couldn’t board the coach that took us up to the start of the walk.
Maggi moved gingerly on the route to the viewpoint overlooking the Vigos Gorge. According to Jonathan this is the deepest gorge in Europe, but Wikipedia claims it is the deepest in the world relative to its width .
The drive to the the starting point took more than 1 hour. We descended from the bus and headed along a dirt track until the path veered off. On either side lay fields of wild flowers decorating the ground. Patches of a single colour in some places while elsewhere you’d find mixtures of red, crimson, pale blue and white. Beautiful sights with many butterflies skipping from plant to plant dodging the bees on the same track.
Some of our party are keen gardeners so spent lots of time checking out the flora.
We had been walking for about 20 mins on the small track when Maggi announced that she didn’t want to push things with her back any more. She stopped and found a shady place. I thought I would get to the end as quickly as possible take a photo of the gorge and return post haste to keep her company. Accordingly I overtook everyone and arrived at the viewpoint first snapped away and then headed back as quickly as possible.
I arrived back where I had left her only to find she had left. Eventually I discovered her at the cafe where the coach had dropped us. I had walked as fast as I could and I was sweating buckets. Maggi remained as cool as a cucumber.
It was a good 40 mins before the rest of the party arrived back. According to Jonathan we were seriously behind schedule.
The next stage of the day’s trip involved a steep descent and a fairly sharp rise. Maggi decided not to take the chance that her back might not take the strain.
The path down is pretty well maintained and was contstructed over 200 years ago. It takes you down to a small bridge crossing the remains of a river and then you have a fairly steep climb up again.
We arrived back to the main road and the bus arrived with all the people who hadn’t made the descent.
Our very excitable driver drove us for lunch but not before stopping at a local land mark, Palikadas Bridge, named after the family that maintains it. A very odd looking bridge with 3 round, almost like sewer pipes joined together with a walkway on the top. Maggi and I decided not to walk down into the valley to obtain a better view. We just sat at the roadside.
Eventually we headed off to our lunch stop. A little taverna in a village called Koukouli. As usual the bistro was run by a family. The mother was definitely in charge. She was the chef. We had a Greek salad, fresh shredded beetroot, butter beans with spinach and a type of pancake of which she was very secretive. She refused to tell Myriam the recipe or what was in it except goats cheese.
After our meal we were given special permission to enter the local Orthodox Church. One of the guys from the restaurant showed us around. The place was very damp and many of the frescos on the walls were beginning to crumble. Icons covered the walls with gold leaf to represent the halos of these saints. Our church guide said that when this church was first built in the 1600s more than 800 people lived in the village. Now, during the winter the population is down to 10.
We didn’t return to our hotel Dios until after 6, still sweaty after our earlier exercises I jumped in the shower and had a very pleasant time cooling off and getting refreshed.
We joined the others around 7:30. The brothers who own the hotel cleaned the outside seating after the torrential rain that had hit the area when we drove back from Kipos. Jonathan insisted we have another quiz.
Reluctantly we sat down for a meal, but didn’t eat a lot. We had only eaten at 3:30 and normally most of the people in the party wouldn’t eat twice in a day.
Turned the lights out around 11. Maggi had already fallen asleep and I dropped off very quickly.
About 1 am I awoke to the sound of Maggi retching in the bathroom. During the night she needed to return to the toilet and go through the same several times. I’m surprised that anything remained inside her in the morning. Fortunately I seemed to have escaped.