To the Gulf of Corinth
[Yes, I'm finally getting round to catching up with documenting some recent trips. So, only about 18 months too late, here is the final stretch of the Greek Bike Odyssey route, along the length the Pindus mountains. There is more to come from Greece, and Colorado, and Baja... In the meantime, I'm posting more regularly about small trips in the UK, and day to day life, on Instagram. If you're not already following, you can find that here.]
The night after leaving Karpenisi is spent camped next to a river close to the village of Domnista. The wide river bed looks like a construction site, with gravel pushed into banks, partially empty water channels weaving between them like ribbons and tree trunks abandoned like giant matchsticks. There are two bridges across the river: one larger and intact; the original laying in pieces along its side, destroyed in floods a few years ago.
Luckily for me, there is no such rainfall this evening, but the following day I make it only a few miles to the village of Stavli before there is an absolute downpour. I shelter under a tree for a while before finding the main square and causing confusion by presenting myself, asking for coffee and food, at a cafe that may or may not be open. An English speaker is summoned from elsewhere in the village, who then opens up his taverna to cook lunch for me.
Over the next hour or so, brighter spells alternate with torrential rain, and knowing that the next few miles are relatively exposed, I opt to abandon the day’s plans and accept the offer of a cheap room for the night in the village. Of course, ten minutes after I make this decision, the sun comes out again, to question my judgement. But the rest of the afternoon is filled with torrential rain, and would have made for utterly miserable riding as well as potentially being a little dangerous, as I see from evidence of small landslides the following day.
And in any case, I spend a couple of hours in the evening chatting with my host about the village, which has a population of only around 7 people during the winter. Photos apparently exist that show that fifty years ago land close to the village, now taken back by the forest, was a productive vegetable garden supporting the larger population. The soil is good for potatoes here, he tells me. He has spent the last few summers working this tavern for the locals (not many tourists pass through Stavli) and is about to spend his first winter here. I ask if he is nervous, if he thinks it will be hard. He tells me that he’s looking forward to practising snowboarding down the main street…
The rain has stopped by the following morning. Not wanting to disturb my tavern owner host any further, I make coffee and porridge on the balcony outside the door to my room, enjoy the sun, and slowly pack. I am always inexplicably slow to get moving in the mornings and when I do eventually head off, he is already in the midst of car repairs outside the taverna.
I pass by the village of Ampliani, low down in the next valley, and then through the village of Grameni Oxia. At 1,690m on a ridge 8km from the village sits a new, rather garish memorial, commemorating the site of a battle between the Ottomans and the Greeks that took place during the Greek War of Independence, waged by Greek revolutionaries between 1821 and 1832. On 23 September 1828 Greek soldiers defeated a much larger advancing Ottoman force attempting to cross this ridge, apparently helping influence the outcome of the war.
The following night I camp on a patch of flat, groomed land, just above the Monastery of St John the Baptist, close to the village of Artotina. This was where a Greek hero, Athanasios Diakos, was educated from the age of 12. He is thought to have been born in the village of Ano Mousounitsa, then under Ottoman occupation. The village was subsequently renamed after him, in 1958, due to his heroic acts as a military commander during the War of Independence.
Diakos was captured at the Battle of Alamana on 22 April, 1821. He was taken to the commander of the Ottoman army who offered to make him an officer in his army. Diakos refused immediately, responding “I was born a Greek and I will die a Greek”. The Ottoman commander instructed that he be killed by being impaled, and although the battle was ultimately a military defeat for the Greeks, Diakos’s death provided the Greek national cause with a stirring myth of heroic martyrdom.
The view for the evening is dominated by two ridges and three 2000m peaks lying across the valley. A rolling bank of afternoon cloud sits above the ridge, only occasionally allowing the peaks to reveal themselves to me. Just a couple of vehicles pass by on the road below my camp spot all evening and after a quiet night the sun rises from behind the ridge to dapple the sky in orange and pink. Waking to views like this is amazing.
After pausing in Artotina for some coffee, bread and feta, I cross the valley and spend the day working my way westwards on a dirt road following the contours of the lower reaches of the closest ridge, which towers away to my right. Eventually I pass the last spur of the ridge and an alpine valley slowly opens up ahead.
There are shepherds here, remote farm buildings, and two mountain refuges up on the slopes of one side of the valley. Dogs appear from a farm and fan out on the other side of the low river at the base of the valley, letting me know of their presence. As I cross the river, a pick-up waits for me on the other side. I am asked the usual questions, although in English, by a young shepherd : “Where are you going?”, “Are you on your own?”, and warned of dogs further along the track. Shortly after, another shepherd passes on a motorbike, and we share a nod.
The dogs don’t get too close and even let me get some photos, and soon I reach the end of the pass and see the track zigzagging away downhill. From here is is a cruise down to Athanasios Diakos, and then there is just one large climb over the next day or two before it is all downhill towards Nafpaktos, the Gulf of Corinth, and the end of this part of the journey.
I roll down tarmac for about 40km from Athanasios Diakos, initially southwards, then turning eastwards along the shores of the manmade Lake Mornou. As I start the 30km climb towards the village of Ano Chora, I’m chased up the valley by dark clouds, thunder and the sight of distant rain. Crossing into the next valley, I seem to be winning for a while, heading for blue skies in front of me, but just before I arrive in the village of Pentagioi, I catch a soaking.
The cafe in the square is not yet open, but a small store is. I buy some chocolate, a couple of cans of fizzy drink, and fill up my water bottles before pushing on to find a camp spot, which I discover just outside the village. Not far from the road, hidden in scrubland on the edge of the valley, I set up my tent as I am treated to a cloud, rain and light show. First a single, then a double and finally, a full, double ended, rainbow. What a view for the evening! The following morning, I relax in the warmth of the rising sun, under a clear blue sky, taking the time to stretch, enjoy my coffee, dry clothes, take photographs, and appreciate the views. I know that I have already done most of the climb to Ano Chora, and should arrive in the village early in the day.
Predictably, things turn out not to be quite so simple. I had read that some parts of the route dropping down into Ano Chora were technical, but hadn’t anticipated that they follow a mountain bike race route around the forest, built a few years ago but which have since degraded a little. This explains why the GPS track shows the route into the village, and the route for the next stage heading to the coast, looping around each other and overlapping.
When I see it, I opt not to follow the trail as it disappears up into the forest on what looks like a goat track. With an expectation of a simple cruise into the village, I can’t really be bothered. So I stick to the forest track, which looks as if it might shadow the race route around the hill. I keep a close eye on the line on my GPS as it pulls close to, even crossing and then drifting further away from, my actual route. For a while, things look good but eventually our positions diverge significantly and soon I am heading in completely the opposite direction, despite having seen Bike Odyssey trail markings. Eventually I realise that somehow I am now on the route heading out of town that I’m due to take tomorrow morning, going in completely the wrong direction. Retracing my steps, I pick up the point where the route crosses the track, and turn my wheels down into the forest. Some of the trail is fun but large sections are degraded, steep and unrideable. When I hit a forest track again, I cut my losses, turning right and cruising down to a road, finding myself in the village just a few minutes later. Later I realise that I could have avoided about 2 hours lost in the forest if I’d taken a turning onto a road slightly earlier in the day. There’s a lesson there, perhaps, not to expect an easy day on any given day. But there are worse things to be doing than riding aimlessly around the forest for a couple of hours.
The final day of this route starts with a cruise along roads to cross into the valley that will take me down the Gulf of Corinth. Once in the valley, I follow the route off the road onto a double/single track trail skirting the valley side. This alternates between smooth trail, tricky rock sections, and a few completely washed out sections of dirt where the original valley side has slipped away in bad weather, and where the dirt continues to slip away under my feet and wheels as I push gingerly across.
On one smooth section littered with small boulders, I ride right past this guy. I stop further down the trail and walk back, sitting down next to him. It takes about ten minutes before he starts to gingerly poke his head out of his shell and take a look around to see what was making all that noise. I get a little too close with my camera and he goes back into hiding, but after another ten minutes he’s bold enough to emerge fully, look at me curiously with his head on one side, and eventually start to plod carefully off to the side of the trail, at which point I leave him to it.
I continue down the trail, riding mostly but walking some stretches. I’m surprised how technical parts of this section are, after the majority of the past 600 km has been on relatively wide tracks. Some of the narrow rocky sections are akin to a black grading at a trail centre in the UK.
When I’m unable to see the continuation of the trail in all the overgrown bush after it crosses a road, I opt for more sweeping tarmac curves down to the river in the bottom of the valley. I can’t locate the trail that should be running along the river itself and spend the last couple of kilometres bouncing along the smooth, head-sized boulders that form the mostly dry river bed. Reaching a small track crossing the river, I leave the river bed and join the track running alongside, up on the bank…probably where I should have been all along.
And then I’m there. At Nafpaktos, on the Gulf of Corinth, having travelled the length of the Pindos mountains from the north of the Greek mainland (although not quite the Albanian border) to the south, across a series of never ending valleys and passes.
Reflecting over the next few days, this feels like its been a slow ride. Some 625 km of the Bike Odyssey trail, 17 days of riding, plus the initial ride from Grevena to Smixi. The racers cover this route in 8 days, but without carrying any gear, and with accommodation, baggage transfer, food, snacks, refreshments, bike servicing and first aid support provided at pit stops through the day. And, presumably having trained beforehand. While the route has been technically simple, it has more climbing per km than the Colorado Trail. I’ve taken things easy, and have definitely had a ‘journeying’ mindset. So I’m ok with that.
It has also felt slow because I’ve had a lot of days off the bike – a rest day in Metsovo, four days in Pyli due to heavy rain, 4 days in Karpenisi with a friend, and a day in Ano Chora. But the whole point of being here is to experience the places along the way. Most of the villages I’ve passed through have been virtually empty, and it’s been good to spend some time in the busier towns. So, I’m ok with that also.
And those hills across the water in the photograph? That’s the Peloponnese. That’s next.
