Coming to an End

While I've enjoyed my time here in Greece, I'm definitely looking forward to arriving home Tuesday morning. The drive was more or less what I had expected...long and mostly uneventful, thoroughly solidifying my opinion that navigating the roads is a much more difficult (and definitely more dangerous) task than paddling any of the rivers here. Having called home and almost finished packing my bags I am off to bed.

Good Night

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

Fun Meter...Maximum!!

It's been a very busy past couple of days. After getting out of Athens and into Kalavryta, I spent the night up on a hill overlooking the Selinous River valley and continued on to a small town called Dimritsana the next morning. The morning turned into early afternoon as I managed to get completely turned around and heading back toward Kalavryta. Needless to say I finally made it to Dimritsana and upon further inspection, I found an office belonging to none other than Trekking Hellas; Greece's premier outdoor adventure company. After stopping in, I was invited back to their base in Maratha for the evening and hopefully some paddling the next day. WOOHOO!!! continued driving on down toward Maratha and arrived without incident and without getting lost again...(woohoo.) As I have travelled around through the US and now in Greece, I've come to the realization that river guides are the same everywhere. They all sleep either outside or on the floor, are welcoming to anyone and everyone, have at least one dog, and almost constantly smell of wet neoprene. It almost felt like home...

So from their base in Maratha we ended up paddling the Lousios River the next day (Monday.) First we got on the upper section...definitely class IV with steep boulder gardens, small waterfalls, and almost-vertical canyon walls. The water comes from a bunch of streams  up the valley a good ways near Dimritsana, and is therefore crystal clear, aqua blue and is surprisingly cold. The guides drink it as is...however I wasn't so sure. After the upper section, we continued down the middle/lower Lousios where Trekking Hellas does most of their guiding. This section is bouncy class two for the most part with three class III drops near the end. While the whitewater isn't as spectacular as the upper section, the scenery more than makes up for it. Most of the time the river is completely shadowed by trees with vertical limestone walls plunging straight to the bottom. When the canyon does open up, the views of the surrounding mountains are amazing. Every now and then an ancient arched bridge spans the canyon...something you'll never get in the US. Definitely a good start to Greek whitewater

Tuesday morning dawned much like the day before, with the only difference being a commercial raft trip down the middle section. As the guides started getting ready a horde of high school students arrived. They were all fitted out with wetsuits, pfds, and helmets and shepherded into the three shuttle vehicles. Two of these vehicles, however, are rather special. They're old Land Rovers...with open backs and racks on the top. Customers sit in the back, and the guides sit on top, legs dangling down...sometimes over hundreds of feet as they make their way down into the valley along roads that are barely wide enough for the truck and trailer at points. The trip went well, with no real issues, and again at the takeout were the crazy trucks and trailer. We all piled in and on the vehicles and made it up to the base where an amazing spaghetti dinner awaited us. A perfect end to a good trip down the river. The only imperfection however, was that upon inspection of what looked only like a gouge in my paddle blade, turned out to be a rather hefty crack through the spine. With only raft glue or aquaseal to fix it with, I opted for the aquaseal and duct tape. I think that it happened on it's way over on the plane not while I was paddling. I definitely don't remember hitting anything that hard, and I didn't notice any difference in the paddle from when I started to when I finished. If it did happen on the plane, the water from the day of paddling must have swolen the wood and caused the crack to show...otherwise I may never have noticed it. Anyway...we'll see how the repairs turned out when I get on the river next...good thing I brought a spare.

Anyway, right now I'm sitting in a smoky internet cafe in Kaprenisi, half an hour away from one of Trekking Hellas other bases up in Evrytana, north and west of Athens. It was a lot of driving today, but I made it up here without much of a problem. That's about all for now...trying to get pictures up...but Greek internet is being slightly tricky.

Cheers,

West

Out of Athens

So I walked into one of the Avis offices this morning to see about picking up a rental car that I had reserved, and not only did they upgrade my car for free, but the car they gave me was brand new. The stokage level was very high as I tossed my boat and gear on and in it, and headed south...then west...then east and north...then south again...all without ever leaving Athens. Finally, I found someone who could actually point me to the main highway that runs north-south through the city and I was off. It's harder to find than you'd think...

Anyway, I made it out of Athens and out past Corinthos and all of a sudden the scenery began to change. Things went from dull brown rolling hills to lush gree mountinsides interspersed with cliff bands. Vineyards and olive groves were everywhere, and each little valley had water flowing through it. Not enough to paddle...but water none the less. 

I am now in Kalavrita, a beautiful little mountain town that supposedly is home to one of Greece's few ski mountains. As I look around I don't see any ski slopes or chairlifts but some of the mountaintops in the distance still have snow on them...mind you I'm sitting in shorts and a t-shirt with flowers blooming and birds chirping...almost alps-esque. I think I'm off to go find someplace to spend the night and continue to read up on my guidebook stuff, and maybe some more driving tomorrow.

Cheers,

West

Whew!!

Alright...it's been a long week full of sun, ocean, gyros, and a sore throat. Having gotten through the airport and onto my plane without hassle for my boat, I was rather excited...no I was ecstatic. Upon my arrival in Athens however, the boat turned into a six foot long, red, bagged anchor. I managed to squeeze it onto a city bus which took me to the center of the city, however they wouldn't let me go the next step onto the metro (subway.) So I took off walking in the direction that I thought my hostel was, and ended up being mostly right...after getting six different answers from five different people. The hostel was tucked away in a quiet little neighborhood within walking distance from the Acropolis, the Gardens of Zeus, and Adrians Gate. A three hour nap left me ready to go down to meet people for happy hour where I ended up meeting a group of students from the US studying for the semester in London. To make a long story short, I ended up travelling with them for a couple of days around Athens, and then down for a short stay in Santorini.

Unfortunately, there is no whitewater in Santorini, so the hostel keepers were nice enough to let me keep my boat there until I got back. The weather was slightly foggy, but still sunny enough to give me a pretty decent sunburn. If there are two things that Santorini is known for, it's probably the scenery and the sunsets. The combination of the two can be amazing...or so I hear...every time the sun dipped below the horizon, there was no real horizon to see...oh well.

From Santorini we sat on deck for a 9 hour ferry back to Athens where I was awaiting an email from Nikos of TEAMadara to possibly see about paddling this weekend. Lo and behold there was an email, but unfortunately, Nikos was too busy to paddle this week. He got me in contact with a couple of different paddlers and one of them may work out, but it will be a stretch.

On a side note, while I haven't gotten a chance to go paddling yet, I did hook up with two climbers from Toronto last night and we were able to get the first ascent (more of a traverse) of Adrians Wall...probably 2-300 feet of limestone blocks running adjacent to a main road. There may be a video coming soon...Anyway, I think tomorrow I will be renting a car and getting out of Athens...possibly some paddling...who knows.

Pictures are proving to be obnoxious on my sketchy internet connection...so if you can get to facebook use that, and if not I'm working on another venue...

More later,

West

3, 2, 1, Lift-Off

A bit of an introduction is probably in order here...For starters my name is West, and for the past couple of months, I've been planning a whitewater kayakinge expedition to Greece. Originally the plan was to travel with a high school friend and paddling partner, Josh, but unfortunately he torqued his back out a week or so before our departure and won't be coming. So that leaves me travelling solo. It is definitely going to prove to be an adventure. Right now I'm bouncing off the walls like a chicken with its head cut off...really excited, but also really nervous/anxious hoping that things work out as well as I want them to. 

My boat is packed and weighs in at 49 lbs exactly...erring on the safe side in case my scale isn't quite right compared to the airline scales. My backpack is getting full, but not as close to the weight limit. (And I know you are wondering about the sexy red boat bag. Yes, it is my own design, 100% all natural cordura nylon, stitched completely by hand...OK fine, the nylon isn't 100% natural...but it was all stitched by hand.)

Anyway, you're probably wondering, "Why Greece?" And my answer to that is "Why not?" Greece is definitely not known as a whitewater destination, however from the research that I've done, it appears to have some absolutely spectacular rivers, nevermind the fact that the country itself is, righfully, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world for its scenery, history, and culture. Greece is not the wettest nor the most mountainous of countries and both of those attributes are generally what makes a region good for whitewater. However, during the late spring, Greece's mountains lose whatever snowpacks they had acquired throughout the winter, and rains combine with that runoff to fill the river basins and gorges that flow throughout the country.

For more information on paddling in Greece, check out www.teamadara.com this is the site that I have done most of my river/paddling research on...very helpful and some good photos too.

Time to get back to packing. More later...tomorrow perhaps?

Cheers,

West