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Kalamata/Kardamili
Entry 6 of 9 | show all | print this entry |
Hey Guys.
So the Police turned out to be of no help in Nafplio, but I now have everything planned out which is good. Now I just have to hope my passport arrives...
Now I think I talked about Epidauros in my last entry, so the next day, I went to Mycenae. Mycenae was pretty sweet. My favorite parts were a secret cistern in the very back of the place, that went into the fortress wall, underground, and then to the water supply a couple of metres outside of the city walls. Unfortunately you need a flashlight to go in which I didnt have, because as you hit the first corner, everything goes pitch black. But I still went in a good 10-15 metres, flashing my camera the whole way down so I could at least see a little. My other favorite was the Tholos of Atreus. A tholos is basically a beehive shaped grave. It was still in near perfect condition, with no holes or anything in the roof. Being a grave, its buried under a hill (or more like it is the hill), and you walk in from the bottom of it. Its kinda hard to explain... anyways, its prolly about 5 metres in diameter (maybe more) and a good 10 high. So quite a large grave. Btw, Epidauros and Mycenae were day trips from Nafplio, where I stayed for 4 nights. On my 3rd day in Nafplio I went to see Tiryns, which is an ancient Mycenaean fortress, but other than massive and excessively thick walls, theres not much left. The walls are so thick that there are passageways and storage rooms inside them (doesnt that kinda defeat the purpose of defensive walls), but unfortunately I wasnt allowed to go into them. Being really close to Nafplio, that only took the morning, so for the rest of the day I did some R and R and went to the beach, which was sweet except that I managed to burn nicely.....
Then from Nafplio I traveled to Kardamili, which is a town of 330 ppl right on the coast, squished between the meditteranean and the Taygetos mountains. When I got there I tried to find the place in my guide book I wanted to stay at, but couldnt find it. Then some lady came up to me and said she had cheap rooms (happens everywhere all the time :D). Kinda reluctantly I went with her (reluctantly only because the place in my book had a communal kitchen, and I felt like a hearty meal of pasta). She took me up this path just above town and showed me the room. I had 2 beds, my own bathroom, tv, my own kitchen, and a sweet view of the town and ocean! Sweet I thought, this is better than whats in the guidebook, and the same price. The first thing the lady told me when I said I'd stay was not to tell anyone how much I was paying her (20 a night), because that was technically illegal. Illegal because in Greece there is an organization (EOT) that controls how much hotels, hostels, etc can charge for a room (the minimum). And room owners always have to have a sheet on the back of the door with that price on there. Now the minimum was 60 euros for that room, and I was paying 20, which is why I couldnt tell anyone. After I had made her understand I didnt drink coffee (she was offering me coffee, with the little english she spoke) and had begun to settle in, she came back with a platter of soup, bread, fresh kalamata olives, pretzl thingies, coke and beer. That was the best thing ever, since free food is hard to come by when your traveling (the included breakfast in hostels consists of 1 bun, 1 butter, 1 jam, and 1 hot chocolate or coffee, and no more. Kinda meager...). The next day I went for a 4 hour hike in the morning, up the gorge directly behind the village. The gorge itself was really sweet, and the views from the upper villages was as well, but all the paths outside of the gorge were unfortunately really overgrown. And normally that doesnt bother me, but they were full of cobwebs, bugs, snakes, and the bushes all had thorns. On my way down one of these trails I ran into a snake (my 5th one this trip). It wasnt moving at all, and most snakes had scuried off when I came close. So I dropped a rock beside it to see if it was alive, and it didnt move. When I jumped over it, it pulled its head back in a striking pose. But it didnt do anything, so I kept on going. Apparently it was poisonous, which is one of the reasons I really didnt like those overgrown paths. Cause there full of snakes and hornets...
The next day (yesterday), I basically hung out in town, and in my room, because it rained all day long. The lady who owned the place invited me and this british guy who was staying in the other room up for coffee ( i had freshly squeezed orange juice, oh so good!) in the afternoon but that was basically the highlight of the day. Last night there was lightning all night long, and the power kept on flickering on and off, which was kinda funny. The lightning definitely looked pretty sweet over the ocean.
Anyways, now I'm off to Olympia. I'm in Kalamata right now waiting for my bus, and the weather is still pretty gloomy, but i'm sure it'll get better in the next few days. And even though its gloomy, it's still 28 degrees, which is basically chilly here :D.
Hope everythings good back home.
I'll talk to y'all later.
Cheers
Gabe
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