A Footpath to Tristomo

 

Anna, the proprietress of the taverna at Avlona, is wearing what looks like a flowery nightgown over her dress and bulky frame, and tells me to take off my glasses as she didn’t recognise me with them on. ‘How long have you been here? How long are you staying?’

Having lived in the north of Karpathos for a year and a half, I know people and it’s one good reason to go back. But the other reason this time was to walk from Diafani to Tristomo, in the very north of the island, then back via Avlona to Diafani. We’re carrying backpacks as I’d planned to camp, though it didn’t quite work out like that. We met some of Anna’s cousins instead. They almost made us bring a goat with us this morning, all five hundred metres up to Avlona. It was already hard enough. Greetings complete, we sit down to order drinks and food. I feel a huge sense of satisfaction after the walk.

Tristomo is a natural harbour, a long protected inlet almost cut off from the open sea (with three mouths, hence the name: treis-stoma), and was therefore always an important place when people got around mostly by boat. The area has been virtually deserted for decades, only reached by private boat or on foot, though threatened recently by the possibility of a road. I knew it would be safer not to go alone, and luckily Ian – who hadn’t been to Karpathos for years – was keen to join me and Lisa.

From the ferry, Ian agreed it looked impossible that there could be a decent path along that sheer mountain that seems to fall into the sea. We took a lazy recovery day, wary after the experience on Halki, the day after the corned beef and mosquitoes camping extravaganza; the day where the sketchy path turned into no path at all, and we ran short of water on a hot afternoon with a long way still to go, and were saved by a cistern. A story for another time, that one. In Diafani, I asked around about the condition of the path from Diafani to Tristomo, knowing that roads were severely damaged in the rains this winter. An old lady said, in a Greek variation of the Irish joke, ‘Don’t go from here, go from Avlona!’ 

I called Minas, and he called another Minas, who confirmed the path had been cleared and marked recently. We set out this time with vast amounts of water, drinking lots of it the night before. And we were blessed: the path was excellent, a gentle breeze mitigated the late May heat, and the landscape was magnificent, with mountains to one side and deep blue sea to the other, and pine trees for shade. 

As we approached Tristomo, it was clear that this was a special place, the whole area peaceful and wildly beautiful, a piece of the world where time stopped. 

Around the bay itself, a few houses have been restored by the owners, while others are crumbling into the sea. I knew this, and know some of the owners. What I didn’t expect was to be welcomed like guests and invited to eat fresh calamari by a newly married local couple called Marina and Andreas who had a house there. They gave us as much cold water as we could drink from their tank, saying they liked to help people who had walked there, offered us a place stay in a house with the waves lapping around, and regaled us with stories into the night.

Marina was consumed with laughter as she told us about a couple who came to stay once. Tristomo is a fairly rugged and remote place, needless to say, and her husband Andreas was hesitant but at last agreed. The man was a colleague of Andreas’, and he worked with him on ships. The man’s wife also worked on ships, so it came as a surprise when she got seasick during the crossing from Diafani and refused to go back by boat. It wasn’t quite clear how she expected to leave otherwise, because they also had their toddler with them. By donkey, perhaps?

The husband, meanwhile, had brought every gadget known to man – he arrived wearing an action camera strapped around his head – and was frustrated that there was no phone signal and, moreover, nowhere to charge his devices, given that Tristomo has no electricity. Their visit had got off to a good start, clearly, but it would get worse when they somehow made it back to Olympos and found the rabbit.

A huge rabbit had been making its home around their buildings for some time, and an opportunity arose for Andreas to finish it off and put it in the pot. But he needed something to use as a weapon, and he needed it fast. He asked his friend if he could use his spear gun. The guy hesitated and said he had to ask his wife for permission – but he was scared to ask because his wife was against hunting animals. So Andreas had to call the guy’s wife and ask her on behalf of his friend for permission to use the spear gun. The wife replied that he could use it, but only if her husband didn’t watch.

At this point in the story, which Andreas and Marina told very well while topping up the wine, we were all falling about giggling. Marina, in tears of laughter as she lit another cigarette, summed up the only possible cause for such uptight behaviour. ‘I think no sex. Or shitty sex.’

Andreas and Marina insisted we join them for breakfast the next day – cheese preserved in olive oil, made by his mother, and local bread rusks – then we explored the old settlement at Kilios before making our way up the mountain on a solid old stone footpath.

We’d almost reached the top when we were astonished to meet two more people: one Cypriot, one Spanish, cheerful guys carrying just a daypack between them, tripping down the path fresh as daisies. They planned to go down to Tristomo in twenty minutes or so and be back in Avlona to join their friend for a late lunch. Thinking perhaps they were extremely fit and young and that maybe we were walking excessively slowly to take photographs and notes, we wished them well.

Now, our lunch has arrived. I’m a little sad to see bottled water. But the heaped Avlona salad and artichokes with eggs go down well. There’s a rather rotund tourist letting a cat lick his plate clean, making phone calls to friends and ordering more food. As we finish and prepare to leave, the guys appear looking a little less fresh than last time, and stagger over to join their friend. Apparently Anna had told them it was only a couple of hours there and back.

‘She lied!’ whispers the Cypriot.

A few days later, we are leaving Karpathos after an extraordinary week of walks and seeing friends, and will walk from Olympos down to Diafani for the ferry. When we took the main footpath up, it had been badly damaged by the winter rain, and still had a waterfall even in late May. In any case I’d like to try the alternative path via Ayios Konstantinos, another one I’ve never done before.

We get directions from friends in Olympos, but there isn’t much in the way of landmarks around here – it’s all mastic bushes and pine trees and rocks – and the day is hot and our backpacks heavy as I have stuff to take back to Tilos. However, we find a path and it’s a beautiful one through unspoiled green hills. 

The chapel is lovely, and a mouse lives in a hole in the wall. In the valley, the stream still flows. It doesn’t seem a long walk. We arrive back at Diafani, aim straight for the beach and jump into the sea to cool off.

There’s the sound of a big engine. I’ve just got out of the water when Ian shouts that the ferry is approaching. I throw my clothes on over my bikini and half-run all the way to the dock, laughing. We’re soon up on deck, passing the cliffs and wondering how there could possibly be a path to Tristomo that way.