Saturday, May 3, 2008

BUFFONE!!!!!

So I guess it's been a while since I've had a chance to sign on and a whole helluva lot has happened. For starters I ended up meeting up with the Italian paddlers I had been in contact with. I called them at 8 in the morning and agreed to meet them at the ferry terminal in Igoumenitsa. I hopped in the car and sped off to the north. What I didn't realize was that by "group" of Italian paddlers, they meant 20 members of the Alpi Kayak club from Torino. As I rounded the headland and came down into the port I could see them immediately. 2 large silver VW style vans, two white station wagons, one yellow van, and one gigantically top-heavy, beat-up, white camper van. 6 cars total, all with at least 4 boats tied on top and at least that many paddles. The two station wagons were so overloaded with gear/food/people that their tires were almost rubbing against the wheel wells...
I pulled into the gas station where they were parked to be met by a 20 Italians who wanted to introduce themselves. Finally, one of the two Andrea's in the group, and the one I had been in contact with, came forward and explained to me the plan. We were going to drive to the Acheron river near Gliki, get dressed, and go paddle. At least he made it sound simple...Two cafe's, one gas station, and multiple directional difficulty stops later, we arrived at our take-out. The group decided to leave one car there and the rest would drive to the put-in. Upon our arrival at the put-in, I realized how large our group really was...there were people everywhere. Somewhere along the river, the group split into two smaller groups. As it was put to me in garbled english and italian by the oldest paddler there named Gino, "there are two kinds of paddlers here. The quick fast kind, and the ones that are like donkeys." That about summed it up...
I'll spare most of the glorious details, but in short, the river was lacking on the volume end of things, but it made up for it in it's gorgeous surroundings. The water itself was a blue-green that made it look like someone had used photoshop on it. The rock was all white limestone, with moss dripping from ledges. The canyon was probably 500 meters deep most of the time, and every hundred meters or so, there were springs coming straight out of cracks in the rocks. Pictures don't even do it justice.
Having apparently chosen to paddle with the "quick fast kind of paddlers," we arrived at our takeout only to realize that the none of the paddlers in our group had a key to the shuttle vehicle with all of our dry clothes in it...and when your with a group of Italians and you can't change out of your wet clothes, what better thing to do than to eat. Apres-Paddling eating begins first with a lot of noise, a prerequisite to any Italian outing, then you strip down to your speedo, and walk into said restaurant, and act like everything is normal...as you yell Italian at a man who only speaks Greek...ahhh the life...
Finally, 4 courses later, the "donkey" group arrives with the key to the van, and soon we are dry, warm, very well fed, and I am trying to regain my hearing.
Most days were like this...wake up late, eat breakfast, lay out wet gear to dry, slowly put said wet gear on, drive shuttle, paddle river, eat while mostly naked, drive to our next campsite, usually late into the night, eat again, sleep...and repeat. 5 or 6 days of this later, I have seen the Italians off on their ferry and I'm sitting looking out at a dark Ionian Sea looking forward to a 6 hour drive back to Athens tomorrow for my flight the next day.
More later,
West

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