Christian, Hana, Ali and I set off last Thursday with the eventual destination of Vikos Gorge in the Epirus region of Northwestern Greece. We left Argostoli on foot and caught a ride with a lady to Assos (in Northern Kefalonia) in her miniature car. We barely fit with our bags and her little dog but we piled out and headed up toward the castle on the peninsula. We watched the sunset and swam in a spectacular rocky outcropping below the castle. After camping out on top of the castle wall overlooking the sea we set out to explore the rest of the castle/fortress. Our feet were sore (at least mine were ;) from playing ultimate frisbee the day before but we bushwacked around for a while and eventually made our way back down to the village for some ice-cream - this would become a reoccurring theme - and a nap and a swim on the beach. In the evening we set out for Fiskardo. We had hiked nearly the entire winding road out of Assos before we were finally picked up by a man and a boy (his son?) in a van with a cage in the back - where we rode.
He dropped us off in Fiskardo and we decided to wait another day to take the ferry and explore the area. We wandered around and stocked up on some food, beer and wine admiring the giant sailboats docked in the harbor. That evening we walked out of town a kilometer or so to a nice beach and scrambled around the rock to watch yet another spectacular sunset then fixed dinner and fell asleep on the beach under a spectacular show of stars around the nearly new moon.
We awoke with the sun and wandered back into Fiskardo just in time to catch the ferry to Vassilliki on the Island of Lefkada - north of Kefalonia. The ferry ride was pleasant and we stopped in Ithaka. The view from the boat ensured that this is somewhere I will explore before leaving the Ionian Islands. By the time we landed on Lefkada the girls had made friends with the crew of the ferry and Ali was driving the boat and honking the horn - this befriending turned out to be very fortunate by the end of the trip.
In Lefkada we picked up a rental car and headed to look for a beach to sleep and watch the sunset. We stumbled upon a spectacular beach surrounded by cliffs at the end of a small winding road. With not a soul in sight we scrambled down a set of impossible stairs to find that the last 30 foot drop to the beach consisted of makeshift wooden stairs leading to a crooked platform with a wooden ladder leading down. The beach was completely still besides the crashing waves and the sun was putting on yet another fine performance. The beach was made up of white pebbles the size of sesame seeds, the water was crystal blue and the surrounding cliffs were a bright grey/white. After the sun set we fixed a greek salad in our trusty frisbee and ate dinner on a bamboo mat we had snagged from the parking lot under the light of candles we stuck in the sand.
Whew - that is enough for one post - still another week of traveling to update though....
