a hike down to the beach

On our last day off, Niki and I were feeling very bored and dependent since we don't have a car and buses do not run from Proastio, our village on the mountain, to the seaside villages of Kartamili and Stoupa. We decided to hike it down a trail. Walking through the village, we took a few pics and ran into this old guy who had a story to tell about the fountains behind him. It's where people used to go to do laundry and the water still runs from natural springs out of the fountains. The story didn't make any sense though. "Do you know the story about the springs?" No, I told him. The turks came here hundreds of years ago, and then they came back a few hundred years later. That's all I got out of him. But I did like his hat.


























Our hike was very steep, but along the way, we'd look up and see the incredible see, the gulf ahead and forge on. At the bottom, where there was a high way, we decided to try to hitch a ride to Stoupa which was too far to walk in the afternoon sun. We found a ride with a youngish guy who worked for the post office. His small car packed with boxes, I sat on Niki's lap as we made the 10 minute drive on windy roads, the wind cooling the sweat on my scalp. In the end, he asked for a number. Fortunately, the language barrier made it easy to pretend not to understand. It was just a ride. But in the end, the last photo is what I saw, from where her dropped us off it was a short 5 minute hike to the beach.