Beside the Seaside

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In Which I Enter The Twilight Zone

September 25, 2008 by Mike

Nafplio

Route: Kotronas - Githio - Skala - Monemvasia - Ag.Dimitrios - Kosmas - Nafplio

One day in the Mani is not enough.

Were it not for Saturday's baptism I'd have stayed a week, a month. I promise myself (publicly) that I'll be back. It is The Most Incredible Stretch Of Coast.

The people are a bunch of pirates. Last night's meal of sausages gave me the runs like you wouldn't believe. (I could see the kitchen where they were prepared. It was straight out of The Young Ones, and the quoteunquote chef was a deadringer for Max Wall, but I ate nevertheless, so it's my own silly fault.

I took a room in a fishermen's hostel last night. Campsites are in short supply round here -- as are any concessions to the concept of 'the tourist.' (Love it.) It cost slightly more than a season ticket at Old Trafford, and when I had a cup of Greek coffee and a single piece of bread with a thimble of peach marmalade, they charged another 5€ on top.

Wait 'til I move to the Mani, set up shop and this hostal asks me to design a website for them. My pleasure. Heh heh.

But I love it. I love it all.

I even rode slowly through Githio -- what passes for a town here, having over 300 inhabitants -- to make sure there were some women I could fall in love with. There were women under 50. Some of them don't look like they have to shave every day. I can't afford to be too picky.

I'd been warned off hugging the coast roads. They aren't roads as much as glorified obstacle courses. So I left the Mani by means of a large arc, swinging clockwise round the head of the Lakonikos Gulf to enter the third 'prong', or peninsula that drops off the tail of the Peloponnese.

There's only one passable road to the southern tip. It runs most of its course inland. I'd have had to ride it both ways, just to 'tick off' the town of Neapoli and a view of the island of Elafonisos. Time's wingèd chariot and all that. I'll leave that for next time, I promised myself unconvincingly, and headed through a thunderstorm for Monemvasia, which looks like a mini-me Gibralter from the mainland:

.. but when you park up and stoop through this magic gate..

.. you enter a whole new world, hidden from the shore.. an ancient village clinging to the rockface. Down by the shore, a pleasing jumble of red-tiled roofs, fishermen's houses and workshops and churches and a small museum. Up the slope.. mind yr footing.. to the ruins of the upper town, a castle and the homes of the upper classes. They got the best views:

A cafe owner mapped out the road north for me. We pored over my map. "Go here.. then right for Agios Dimitrios," he explained. "No way through on this road for your motorbike.. inland to Alepochori.. no.. no, here.. to the right." I was missing a chunk of coast, but to make up for it his route took me up a high and giddy mountain pass to the lost world of Kosmas, a town which seems impossibly remote. I rode through the clouds, upwards and upwards, utterly alone, and when at last the town loomed ahead I thought I'd reached Shangri-La.

All the women there are ancient crones dressed in black from head to toe -- which isn't much distance at all. They've all shrunk in the wash. All the men sit in cafes all day sipping a single coffee and several ouzos. And all the young people ride tractors like they were bicycles; I saw one 12 year old reverse deftly reverse park his tractor in a space barely big enough for the Bonnie, leap nimbly to the ground and scamper across to the kiosk in the town square to buy a packet of sweets.

Downhill to the coast. You must ride this road, ladies and gentlemen.

A moment of slack-jawed wonder at the high peaks around me and the precarious, no the precipitous road that zigzags down this plunging valley. Looking at the sheer wall ahead, it seems impossible that a road might exist; then, a brave glance ventured out over the edge and I can see the road jagging back and forth in a series of implausible switchbacks.

I put the bike in neutral, pushed off and freewheeled down the mountain. For the next eight miles. Yes! [Note: this is not something you can regularly do in Norfolk.] Bloomin' fantastic.

And then a run up the coast, making as many miles as I could before darkness fell. (Darkness is not the motorcyclist's friend on strange roads when the one thing you know about them is that they're going to have some *seriously* big potholes. And my headlights are still pointing off to the left in the standard UK format.)

But the strangest thing happened. As I headed north up the coast, the road close to the sea, rich farmland to my left in a narrow strip before the hills became mountains, the evening sun disappearing periodically behind the rack of peaks, precious little traffic on the road, the air so clean and fresh, the warmth tinged with a hint of evening, scents of pine and cow, the asphalt inviting, the bike purring, yes, the strangest thing happened. Only 42,000-or-so miles into the trip, I entered The Zone.

I thought it was just the beer talking when old bikers get together. But it happened to me. My riding became *brilliant*. Perfect. I entered every turn at the precise speed, angle of approach and angle of lean. I accelerated smoothly and quickly. I rode fast but with absolutely no danger - to myself or others. Instead of fearing potholes, I simply floated over them. I lost any sense of 'riding' the bike. I *was* the bike. I wasn't thinking the way ahead, I was living it. Not only was I the bike, I had now become the road itself. It was a transcendent feeling; golden; it lasted and lasted until.. well, until I snapped myself out of it.

Much as I loved the feeling, I didn't want to glow and gleam myself into a rock face, or the sea, or.. so much worse.. into someone else. I've been there, in The Zone. Lovely. But I wanted to survive long enough to tell my grandchildren about it. That's Mike the Realist bludgeoning Mike The Romantic to a bloody pulp with a sledgehammer.. because Mike The Realist doesn't like the thought of blood and mutilation. Over to you, Mr Freud.

I rolled in to Nafplio, much slower than I had been but still much further north than I had expected to get, as twilight became black night.

Beside the Seaside

In Which I Enter The Twilight Zone

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