Ascending Mount Ipsarion
Collected behind the hotel at 9.00am for our jeep safari. When Lorraine and I had blithely decided the week before to do an off-road jeep trip to the top of a mountain, it all seemed fine. But when the day came, we were both a bit wary.
We were driven in a jeep for about half an hour around to the other side of the island, collecting two young Austrian couples as we went. On the other side there were two more jeeps and lots more Austrians. We had an English speaking guide and driver called Dimitri, with whom Lorraine and I had some interesting conversations as we were the only native English speakers. He had been a successful photographer in Athens, but his business had gone down with the recent economic crises, and had returned to Thassos, the island where his father had been born and he had spent lots of time as a child. He also had, rather dramatically, decided not to take any more photos. As we descended the mountain, hurtling down a rock strewn path with a sheer drop on one side, he mentioned that he had felt suicidal after his business went down and he had lost everything.
The first part of the journey was to little one-man monastery with a friendly monk, low on the mountainside. Dimitri told us that the monk had three PhDs, philosophy, psychology and one in comparative religion. Dimitri told me he preferred Christopher Hitchens to religion. I told him I'd studied philosophy, and we also discussed Greek poetry a bit, after Lorraine had told him I read it, and from that moment we got on very well.
We soon left the olive trees behind, which were all cropped neatly like umbrellas from below by the wild goats. Then we were driven to a lake whose banks had been ruptured by a recent avalanche and flood. There were trout there, which we were told a team of scientists have been studying as the appear to be reacting instantly to their new running water conditions by building different kind of muscle fibres to cope with the current.
Then we pressed on uphill, the road increasingly stony with big chunks of rock brought down by the last flood, and places where entire pine trunks lined the road. Up and up, despite the hairpin corners and precipitous drops, wild goats on the track and the alarmed squeaks of the young Austrians in the car we were all fine.
Lorraine had been dreading this bit but came through brilliantly. There had been an enormous fire on Thassos in the eighties, which had burned lots of the ancient forest, but this is growing back now. Also there is still a fair amount of the original black pine forest left, which is haunted by the Thassian black hawk, "with its distinctive F15 flight" as Dimitri described it. We did't see one.
At last at the top the mountain, the jeeps parked and there was a short walk to the summit along a track. A roughly one kilometre sheer drop on the north east side, and a slightly less sheer drop to the south west. I made it, with Lorraine's help just short of the summit, where I cringed down by a thunder-struck wizened pine and a boulder. Felt like Frodo on Mount Doom for a bit. I took a snap or two from there, and then decided to walk the last 10 or 20 metres to the top where they had one of those triangulation posts, where Lorraine, Dimitri and the Austrians (naturally all relaxed) were gathered. I managed to get to the top, have a quick look around, have my hand shaken by Dimitri and squeezed by Lorraine before I decided the existential swirling voids all around me where too much to cope with, and I sidled back to my original cringing post. One of the guides told me that he used to be scared of heights till he was literally kicked out of an aircraft to do parachuting while in the Greek army.
Felt reasonably pleased with myself. Although I must have looked odd to the Austrians, but I suppose half of them are born clinging to the sides of mountains.
Down, and to a slightly lower area where the mountaineers gather, and where we were given a nice barbecue. Here, wandering about, I found a large oatmeal coloured caterpillar with sky blue spots. The creature that is responsible for wrapping pine cones up in silky balls. A bit of a pest apparently.
Then we all clambered back into the jeeps and down to a little village for a drink in a leaf dappled, cat haunted village square, where Lorraine and I sipped soft drinks.
Eventually back to the hotel, after fond farewells with Dimitri, who I had really liked, for a cold beer after a long and rather excellent day.
Below, olive trees looking silvery in the morning light; trout in a stream; a bit of the dry floor of the lake with a sign; me and Lorraine by the side of the road; a random bit of rocky road; shots I took while cringing at the top, before making my burst for the summit where I was a bit too rattled to take any shots. The bottom two panoramas from our lower barbecue spot; the famous caterpillar on the brim of my hat; and finally a leafy village square.
We were driven in a jeep for about half an hour around to the other side of the island, collecting two young Austrian couples as we went. On the other side there were two more jeeps and lots more Austrians. We had an English speaking guide and driver called Dimitri, with whom Lorraine and I had some interesting conversations as we were the only native English speakers. He had been a successful photographer in Athens, but his business had gone down with the recent economic crises, and had returned to Thassos, the island where his father had been born and he had spent lots of time as a child. He also had, rather dramatically, decided not to take any more photos. As we descended the mountain, hurtling down a rock strewn path with a sheer drop on one side, he mentioned that he had felt suicidal after his business went down and he had lost everything.
The first part of the journey was to little one-man monastery with a friendly monk, low on the mountainside. Dimitri told us that the monk had three PhDs, philosophy, psychology and one in comparative religion. Dimitri told me he preferred Christopher Hitchens to religion. I told him I'd studied philosophy, and we also discussed Greek poetry a bit, after Lorraine had told him I read it, and from that moment we got on very well.
We soon left the olive trees behind, which were all cropped neatly like umbrellas from below by the wild goats. Then we were driven to a lake whose banks had been ruptured by a recent avalanche and flood. There were trout there, which we were told a team of scientists have been studying as the appear to be reacting instantly to their new running water conditions by building different kind of muscle fibres to cope with the current.
Then we pressed on uphill, the road increasingly stony with big chunks of rock brought down by the last flood, and places where entire pine trunks lined the road. Up and up, despite the hairpin corners and precipitous drops, wild goats on the track and the alarmed squeaks of the young Austrians in the car we were all fine.
Lorraine had been dreading this bit but came through brilliantly. There had been an enormous fire on Thassos in the eighties, which had burned lots of the ancient forest, but this is growing back now. Also there is still a fair amount of the original black pine forest left, which is haunted by the Thassian black hawk, "with its distinctive F15 flight" as Dimitri described it. We did't see one.
At last at the top the mountain, the jeeps parked and there was a short walk to the summit along a track. A roughly one kilometre sheer drop on the north east side, and a slightly less sheer drop to the south west. I made it, with Lorraine's help just short of the summit, where I cringed down by a thunder-struck wizened pine and a boulder. Felt like Frodo on Mount Doom for a bit. I took a snap or two from there, and then decided to walk the last 10 or 20 metres to the top where they had one of those triangulation posts, where Lorraine, Dimitri and the Austrians (naturally all relaxed) were gathered. I managed to get to the top, have a quick look around, have my hand shaken by Dimitri and squeezed by Lorraine before I decided the existential swirling voids all around me where too much to cope with, and I sidled back to my original cringing post. One of the guides told me that he used to be scared of heights till he was literally kicked out of an aircraft to do parachuting while in the Greek army.
Felt reasonably pleased with myself. Although I must have looked odd to the Austrians, but I suppose half of them are born clinging to the sides of mountains.
Down, and to a slightly lower area where the mountaineers gather, and where we were given a nice barbecue. Here, wandering about, I found a large oatmeal coloured caterpillar with sky blue spots. The creature that is responsible for wrapping pine cones up in silky balls. A bit of a pest apparently.
Then we all clambered back into the jeeps and down to a little village for a drink in a leaf dappled, cat haunted village square, where Lorraine and I sipped soft drinks.
Eventually back to the hotel, after fond farewells with Dimitri, who I had really liked, for a cold beer after a long and rather excellent day.
Below, olive trees looking silvery in the morning light; trout in a stream; a bit of the dry floor of the lake with a sign; me and Lorraine by the side of the road; a random bit of rocky road; shots I took while cringing at the top, before making my burst for the summit where I was a bit too rattled to take any shots. The bottom two panoramas from our lower barbecue spot; the famous caterpillar on the brim of my hat; and finally a leafy village square.
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