Trek from Monodendri to Dilofo and Return
By Helen Grubner. Filed in Uncategorized |
The mountain village of Dilofo
Saturday, I spent quietly around and about Monodendri and catching up on my computer work. Checked out a place I thought I could walk to yesterday – the mountain village of Dilofo at an altitude of 860m. No cars allowed – 100 mansions, however, only 10 permanently inhabited – sounded interesting. At 0900 hours I set off, having calculated it would take me about 1 1/2 hours to walk there.
30 minutes later I was in Vitsa at the top end of Vitsa Steps and at this point, a happy trekker. A sign indicated a path to the right would take me to Dilofo – time required approximately 60 minutes. Great! A little further on I was to meet with my first direction dilemma of the day – red arrows on rocks indicating perhaps that I should take this other path off to the left, which I did, only to find out before too long, I had walked in a circle around to a point part way down the Vitsa Steps. Oh well, these things happen, I would change plans and go to the Kokoris Bridge and on to the village of Kipi.
From the bottom of Vitsa Steps, the walk from Misiou Bridge to Kokoris Bridge was a beautiful one. On reaching the Kokoris Bridge, there were no signs to indicate which way a traveller should walk to Kipi, I took the road which turned out to be the wrong way – now I was an unhappy trekker! I walked and walked thinking that eventually there would be something to indicate to me my whereabouts and eventually, much to my delight and surprise, a road sign on the right, Dilofo 1km – the village I had in mind to visit when I first set out.
I have learnt not to take too much notice of the distances and/or times stated on signs, there seem to be many inconsistencies. In this case, 1km to Dilofo was bullshit, it was further. Never mind, 3 hours walking so far but I had reached Dilofo and it was truly beautiful. I looked around a little before taking my place in the Square for a cold orange drink. Anxious about how I would get all the way back to Monodendri in the afternoon heat, I asked for directions to the kalderimi or old path, the one which supposedly only takes 60 minutes to Vitsa. A nice, kindly Greek guy then walked with me to the edge of the village where the sign said Vitsa 60 minutes. Vitsa and Monodendri could be seen far away in the distance and the Greek guy said, keep going and Vitsa will be in your sight all the way, however, I would come to realise that quite obviously he has never walked the path or he would have known differently. It was soon after that a momentary highlight in my day occurred – there sitting sunbathing in the grass were two tortoises which I managed to photograph, when the flies and other forms of airborne creatures left me alone long enough.
Once again, I was a happy trekker, believing I was now on the right road and in an hour or so, I would be back in Vitsa. Not long, however, and all that changed when I came to a place where the road went in two directions, left and right and no signage. First I took the road to the right – not feeling comfortable with my decision I returned up the hill and took the left road, a steep up and down washed out path which lead me in another big loop and a long way back to Vitsa – in fact, 2 hours and still another 30 minutes walk to Monodendri. Finally made it back to Monodendri 6 hours after leaving, bought an ice cream and a bottle of water then retired to my room, tired but with a certain level of satisfaction.
Any wonder that today I am resting!