Day 13 … and back again.

As we descend the hill we crisscross the road time and again, ensuring that motorists have fighting chance of avoiding us as they hurtle down the winding road.

There is no way I can persuade Nicholas off the beach road in search of a 3rd century Roman Villa. I have no idea how far away it is and with the bilingual information in Greek and Italian I comfort myself by snapping a pic and promising myself a little time in Google to find it.

Skala is much bigger than Katelios. It has a town centre set back from the beach, the beach is far too long for weary walkers, 4km. It seems we have arrived at the ‘wrong end’ and at some point we are going to have to trek down in search of the ‘bus-boat’. For now we take shade beneath the canopy of the “Mios traverna”. We decide that these are the two most well deserved ice-creams of the holidays.

Clare has been working the sunbed screen for nearly three years now. She moved from Birmingham in search of some fun and a relaxed lifestyle. After hopscotching around the Med she has settled in Skala.

Sun bedding is a cash business. She makes the rounds every 20 minutes or so. Her most recent skip along the scolding sands coincides nicely with our exhausted collapse onto two of her sunbeds beside the Bus-boat landing area.

I count two rows of 20 sunbeds. She charges 6 euros for the loan. Each one is full. That’s 120 euros right there. If each is only hired out just once each day that’s $180NZ right there. But people are coming and going quite regularly. Not a bad little earner, if you can get it.

Angelo is the happiest Greek we’ve come across so far and to be honest they are not known to be a particularly sullen nation. He wears a bright yellow bandana that matches his “bus-boat”. With a broad grin and a sharp salute to Nicholas he hails, “Welcome aboard, Captain.”

He is completely taken by Nicholas in his captain’s hat and refuses to take no for a answer when offering Nicholas the opportunity to ‘drive’.

Angelo has converted his paragliding speedboat into a ‘bus-boat’ – at 22mph it’s a quick ride.

I am kind of wishing we could have booked the bus-boat for tomorrow’s commute to the airport. It’ll definitely be more entertaining than the 45-minute bus ride, inarguably quicker if not cheaper than the 100 euros we’ll spend on the bus.

Day 13 Katelios to Skala …

ready for the great adventure

 To say we’re up and out at the crack of dawnis something of an overstatement especially as dawn is around 5.30am. But its an early start none the less. Nicholas and I are off to Skala today. We’re going to be walking along the beach for awhile before we cut across the main road and follow it into the town.

We’ll have to leave early, it’ll take us a while and the temperature has been up around 30 degrees this week. We have hats, 3 litres of water each, a book, an ipad, a map, a towel each, sunglassesand our diariesfor note-taking.

We head down to the front with Jeannie, she’s delivered a great selection from the bakery this morning and Nicholas and I are playing ‘first-come-first-served’ with the pain-au-chocolate. Yum!

Initially the beach is easy going and I figure if it was all like this all the way everything would be sweet. We’d easily do it in the hour and half Dad has said it would take us, but then the beach turns to rocks and rocks turn to cliffs and suddenly its all a little bit harder. Before we know it we’re both scambling through the rocks and scrubland. There were a few occasions when we looked back, to take some pics before moving on. But most of it, at least for the next 15 minutes, my attention is focused on:

1.    picking my way between brush

2.    Avoiding tripping

3.    Avoiding falling

4.    Avoiding either of us sliding down the scree slope or plummeting to our deaths.

Looking relaxed and ready for the day

There’s a small traverna servicing Mounda beach, there are six seats outside, we’re looking for cool drinks and Mars ice-creams.  I had the distinct impression we were interrupting some family reunion as the proprietor excused herself to serve us.

She spoke no English at all except ‘yes’ and ‘thank you’, she even had to show me the calculator screen so I could pay her the right number of Euros. But then, who am I to talk? I speak NO Greek, not even ‘yes’ or ‘thank you’ and all I can do is nod enthusiastically at the screen and say ‘ok’ in some weird accent I’ve never heard come out of my mouth before.

Our next stroke of good news comes some 5 minutes later beside what I hope is the junction with the main Skala road. We spend a few minutes out of the sun, rehydrating and make our way to the junction. But it turns out not to be the junction at all, but rather the entrance to the local primary school.

Oh good grief! It’s a lot further than I thought.

In the shade of a tree there sits a good natured gentleman, a coach driver,  a little older than myself, but not by much. With him, sits his daughter.

With my single syllable words, lots of pointing and his secondary school English from 20 years backwe determine the following facts.

1.    This indeed is the road to Skala

2.    The road ahead is ridiculously steep

3.    Skala is only 10 minutes from the junction at the end of the road

4.    And yes he offers us a lift to the next junction if we don’t mind waiting 10 minutes for his coach party to arrive.

Over shared bottles of water Pa’lo tells us how he is driving a school gymnastics squad around the island. They are from Athens and arrived by ferry three days ago. He’s taken his daughter out of school for the week, “seeing this side of the country is an education itself” he tells me.

Pa'lo and his daughter

Elizabeth, same age as Nicholas, has been riding shotgun with her dad. The English is broken but she understands well enough. She spends a few minutes showing Nicholas how to play TETRUS on her Dad’s phone.

Pa’lo owns three buses and spends most of his time on the mainland. He tells me his other buses are much too new to drive in Kephalonia. Its too dusty and dirty, the roads too narrow to risk the insurance premium on his newer vehicles.

When we reach the junction with the Katelios-Skala road there is some good news and some bad.

It appears that we are to leave the bus on the crest of the hill and it’s all downhill from here to the sea. On the other hand it seems the promised ’10 minutes to Skala’ Pa’lo alluded to is closer to 25 minutes.  This is confirmed as we pass a couple of Brits coming the other way. Nicholas is crest fallen and I have to confess I’m a little over things now too. The heat is getting worse and our engery levels depleting fast.