Mycenae

I've been fascinated with the neolithic up to and including the bronze age for years, what really appeals to me is there is so little that has been established for sure. The things we read and see are often just assumptions based on scant evidence and in some cases just someones opinion. The fact is that many of the finds from this period are discoloured, so to speak by modern ways of thinking. And when I say modern I'm thinking established pantheons of gods, monotheism and the existing understanding of labour divisions in society.

Basically I like making up my own theories.
More about that later, for now the touristy stuff:

The Plain of Argolis

The citadel on the climb upwards

The site of ancient Mycenae is a good distance from the ancient shore and surrounded by towering peaks and sheer drops on all but one side where the visitor still approaches along the modern road. I'm quite glad I got there slowly on foot because I got a fantastic impression of why the first builders chose this place; it is very easy to defend and very hard to attack.

The road continued on it's uphill gradient for 2km before reaching the first of the monuments. 

looking pleased

Oh no! School trip with 90 uninterested noisy city kids!

Because low season is the best season as well as not sweating half my body-weight out on the climb up, I pretty much had the place to myself. One school trip could be easily avoided though I could here them for miles. Other coach trips came and went with alarming rapidity, the poor souls, what if some of them actually wanted to see the place? I guess that's why I'm doing this whole 'slow travel' thing.

The great walls

The iconic 'Lion gate'- it was incredible

Detail, see where the heads were attached?  

Grave circle A, formerly outside the fortifications but brought inside with the second phase of construction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_Circle_A,_Mycenae

The foundations of the palace area near the summit, the central hearth is under the little roof.

The palace foundation, I think they built in a big window overlooking the plain.

A gorge protects this side.

I must say, I love this picture.

The acropolis and the reverse side of the citadel were incredibly quiet, I could here a little birdsong, the wind moving around the rocks and through the plants and some goat bells from the mountainside across the gorge.

Inside the tunnel to the underground cistern.

The emergency exit 

The beehive grave chamber with the best acoustic properties

In the tomb chamber closest to the lion gate I discovered that in the center of the chamber sound is reflected inwards to a focal point. The sounds my feet made on the gravel were eerily muffled but also concentrated in certain frequencies. This gave me an idea that perhaps the walls were built to reflect a certain kind of sound rather than white noise. Perhaps this was an attempt to re-create and better the acoustic properties of a earlier burial cave. Recent conversations I had with Alex during those long rainy camping nights about the use of sound in meditation and the opening of the human mind to new perceptions mixed together in my mind with my ideas about religious continuity, the worship of earth deities underground, caverns acting as a womb to return the dead and ancestor worship. It's good to think and come up with crazy theories! So here's mine:

The subterranean beehive tombs were constructed to provide a place to intern the heroic dead of a particular dynasty in the womb of mother earth, and most importantly, their essence could be contacted or even joined with in the dark caverns by certain members of the society during meditation that probably involved continuous low pitched humming/singing that focuses very well in the exact center of the tomb.

Sounds crazy but I had fun trying it out.

Me too!

Development of the female deity

Remember the Minoan snake goddess statue?

Friendly Kitten

The 'Cyclopean' walls

A coach trip of Italian tourists trying to get over finding an insane Englishman humming like a maniac in the middle of a dark tomb... 

The 'treasury of Atreus' was not so good acoustically

I had a great time at Mycenae, I'm off to Patras next, then Athens where more shameless tourism may follow...

Hania to Mykines

Today was a good day; I rarely do touristy things but today I visited a place I've wanted to see for years and years and years. That's why I'm the only outsider (tell a lie, there is a German archaeologist staying in another hotel) in the village of Mykines, a village who's economy is entirely based upon visitors to the archaeological site.

Hungry-looking restaurant owners line the single street, standing beside lines upon lines of dining tables, each decked out with immaculate linen flapping in the breeze. Cutlery for two, four, six, napkins, upturned water glasses, salt, pepper. 

No customers.

Hands wringing at the sight of the stranger approaching. Knuckles white, fingernails cutting into palms, anxious looks across the road to the competition, smile nicely. Cook reading the paper in the back, side-whispered angry words across the quiet to him, teeth brown from coffee, old dog lifts his head.

Souvenir shops, postcard racks, anachronistic reproduction sculptures and 'This is Sparta' t-shirts part to reveal more smiling faces with pleading eyes.

Please spend some money.

Back to the journey...

I took the bus back over the mountains to Hania in order to meet my next host; Nikolaos. The bus broke down on the way and to my surprise the driver got out to fix it himself, which he did in a little over an hour. It seems the bus drivers here often own their buses and are entirely responsible for their upkeep and repair.

Passengers wondering if the driver left the handbrake on before he got out

Niko and his brother took me along to a Cretan going away party in a mountain village on the first night. This kind of thing is exactly the reason I'm travelling, to see and possibly take part in the customs of the people whose land I'm travelling through. No photos exist of that night. The good traditional food, strong wine,haunting songs,friendly people and shooting randomly into the air are all in my head.

Ferry to the mainland

Out of season is the best season

The ferry ride was uneventful and not at all crowded, which was just as well as I couldn't get to sleep in my seat with all the lights on, noise from the TV sets everywhere and people walking around the ship all night long. So I made a little nest under a row of seats and used my rolled-up hoodie as an improvised pillow and blindfold. By 6.15 am the next morning I was standing on the quayside of Piraeus harbour, and with the help of my smartphone I had navigated Athens and was by 9.30 sitting on a bus bound for Kalamata.

Kalamata bus station, torrential rain.

There's not much for a traveler to do in a rainy city when all the things to see are outside apart from sit in a cafe and wait for the weather to pass. I'm spending a lot of time in cafes at the moment...

Cafe culture, looks like Cuthbert has been talking too much.

Kalamata also has the church where the Greek patriots swore to free the Peloponnese from Turkish rule, as you can see I was wondering how they all got inside at the same time...

Small yellow car shown for scale

My host in Kalamata usually lives with his sister but this week they had their parents down, at first I thought the situation could be a little awkward, but I'm learning to drop that kind of knee-jerk reaction that has stopped me from experiencing many interesting things in the past

so I took the opportunity to stay with a Greek family.

Mixalis and Ioannis taking me on a trip to see the mountains.

Sometimes along the way you are moved by the degree of love and acceptance shown by a host, hospitality is a word to describe a welcome that in some ways we are conditioned by our society to give, and on some level although freely given, hospitality is taken as matter of course. I will remember my stay with Yanni and his family in Kalamata as an experience beyond hospitality; in that the acceptance given to me for the five days I spent in their home, the home cooking, the openness about the politics and problems affecting the country and the way that even with the odd language barrier there was still a friendly dialogue. 

Kalamata from above

The family Manolaudis and the intruder at dinner

Navarino bay

Yanni and his father took me on several day trips during my stay, up into the mountains to see the views, to such a high altitude I could feel the air was colder and thinner. To a beautiful bay village (Kardamyli) with original non-concrete architecture and to Pylos, to visit the Mycenaean palace, the castles and Navarino bay. All three were closed due to Monday. The funny thing is, it didn't matter.

The next leg of the journey meant three bus journeys taking most daylight hours. After a lift to the bus station via the supermarket for some emergency rations, just in case, I headed to Tripolis, then changed to a bus to Argos, and that's where the problems started....

The bus ride over the mountains- epic.

Not actually what I wanted to see; the castle at Navplion

In spite of me stating my destination to the driver clearly,and it's prominent position on my bus ticket, the driver took a short cut along the coast road and skipped my destination! Ten minutes after getting off the bus the penny dropped as I was standing close to a harbour while Argos is a way inland. The old woman in the ticket kiosk insisted the next bus north left at 10am the next morning and it was getting cold and dark. I withdrew some more money at an ATM, just in case, sat in a nearby park and ate some of my emergency rations and had tried to figure out the problem. After half an hour a group of buses pulled up. I put the salami away and walked around them and saw one bus had Αθήνα (Athena) written on the front, so I asked the driver if he went north, then said some names of places, Argos? Yes. To Corinthos? Yes. Stop at Fichtia? YES! It was the right bus! Even the ticket I had bought from the machine before I asked at the ticket counter was valid. It's funny how things just work out.

Walking the road from Fichti to Mykines

After several hours on buses, even more hanging around bus stations and a few moments wondering where the hell I was going next later I arrived.

Mykines is the closest settlement to the site of the ancient citadel of Mycenae, the reason I made this detour. Super-touristy pictures of the ruins to follow.

"There is a crisis here"

1.32pm Thursday afternoon leisure
the bars have been full for hours
smoking, chatting, drinking beer and coffee
spending the money
that was
never
yours.

I sit here too, rainy Thursday
watching, wet, wondering
what you're all doing for this economy.
The next bail out
that will
never
come.

Beach bums

I have enjoyed the past week camping beside the sea, there are just a handful of guests, (three including myself as I write this) occasionally someone passes through, but they're on their way somewhere and only stay for a night. The two more permanent residents have something in common with me, both have left their regular jobs and come south to where you can still go sunbathing in November. Both are older than me and this lifestyle is part of the 'final plan' so to speak, they've figured out that in one case migrating south for the winter is good for all sorts of health reasons and can work enough via the internet to keep earning just enough. The other case involves a desire to make distance between lives here and at home in order to bring quiet to the soul. 
The animal inhabitants of the site are far more lively, especially two little characters who I have grown very fond of in the past seven days...

The puppies.

I'm not sure how old they are, where exactly they are from or for that matter who actually owns them but these two little troublemakers have made my stay here quite special. Over the week I've learned that (something that sounds like) 'Lookie' and 'Bookie' were found as abandoned puppies living in the closed beachside kantina by some campers over the summer and brought back to the site. These campers subsequently left and the puppies were 'adopted' by the owners, the workers and the campers on a communal basis. In short everyone feeds these dogs. The picture above is the typical turnout when anyone is eating.

I'm sooooo huuuuuunnnggrryyyyyyy, feed me plz?

The funny thing is, in spite of finding the neediness irritating and being kind of allergic to them, the puppies have really grown on me, the larger one has even adopted me and comes for long walks along the nearby peninsula. Last night she even tried to follow me along the 3km dark and dangerous main road to the supermarket and whimpered when I took her back.
So aside from the hungry pleadingly desperate countenance every time I as much as think about food and they way they try to break through the fabric into my tent in the night to make a puppy cuddle-pile with me I've grown really rather fond of them and them of me.

 They are either eating, playing or sleeping. Most games involve chasing after each other to gain possession of an object that is invariably some decomposing matter they found along the beach or under a bush. There are several stages to this game: the presentation of the object by one party, the acknowledgement of its value by the other, this is done by a series of nods. Finally the chase is initiated by the holder of the item waving the item and beginning to run. Wrestling and barking at strangers is also popular.

Then there's the gifts, in the past few days I have been presented with a rotting fish, an old sponge, a dead toad, two apparently drowned rats and the skin of a hedgehog. Usually these are presented outside my tent or on the kitchen step when I'm cooking.

I will be sad to leave these two behind tomorrow, the affection they show in exchange for the odd pat, kind word or a morsel of food is astounding. In a world that seems very daunting and unforgiving right now, the companionship of the puppies has been most therapeutic and no doubt has changed me a little.

Goodnight!

The first week.

It is one week to the day that I set out on my travels, though it feels like a month of normal time. I've experienced this shift in perceived time before and I've always been sceptical of the 'time dilation' phenomenon outside of a few set circumstances such as having an immediate threat to one's existence. I've always felt that the apparent lengthening of travelling days was due to some kind of heightened emotional/hormonal state or simply doing more with each day.

Looking at the photographs I took a week ago time seems to have stretched considerably.

For a start, when I landed it was summer, now it is definitely winter; as I write this a storm is raging across the beach from me, cold spray whipped into the air and made into a temporary sea mist that scatters light from the failing sun. 

Has time stretched or has the memory of the week's events taken more than it's regularly allotted space in my mind? Is this normal? It feels normal, and if it is indeed the norm and I assume it is as I can tell you what I was doing on Saturday morning for instance, then what is state of mind that I have left behind where I couldn't remember what I was doing yesterday of even what I had for lunch?

The answer is probably something to do with levels of consciousness and perceptions of external stimuli, I'm not sure what, yet.

From Heraklion I took the bus to Chania were I stayed for a few days with some couchsurfers. I was pleasantly surprised that I only had to send six requests to find some CSers willing to host me. I have been to Chania before, but a few years ago and only for a few hours so it was nice to explore and find I recognised a few places.

Chania harbour

I spent a lot of time wandering and exploring by accident, but also a lot of time resting my ankle which still resists if I walk for too long. Happily there was an excellent cafe in the park near my host's house. It made fantastic waffles and even better had free WiFi...

Waffle of the yoghurt and honey variety

Chania old town is a very picturesque city, having a history going back to the Minoan period but in it's current form displaying Venetian and Ottoman heritage in its architecture. I look for parallels and perhaps cultural continuity and saw some interesting glimpses of earlier times. Mostly however I saw a tourist economy in operation with large numbers of cafes and tavernas (has anyone worked out how many Chanians there are for each taverna/restaurant? Could the native population of the city all go out at once and get a table?) together with the time of my visit being very much at the end of the season gave the city a melancholic feel much like an amusement park at the end of the day when most people have gone home and all the rides are shutting down.

(nearly) Deserted streets

So after a few days of this I felt done with Chania and decided to head to the south coast of Crete to try camping. Wild camping (without permission) is illegal in Greece and a quick look around on Google Earth showed that most of the coast has some kind of settlement whose inhabitants could report me to the police. I decided that a good coastal campsite was the way to go (and to be honest, I'm enjoying the showers and electricity) and found one pretty quickly. The bus ride south through the mountain passes was breathtaking, I walked to the campsite with my two packs weighing around 25kg which sounds like a bad idea but is was good to soak up the scenery along the way.

The bus ride south

The temperature on the day was about 25 degrees Celsius which meant lots of breaks and lots of water over the 7km and luckily for you lots of photographs.

It was a nice feeling to arrive! The campsite is beautiful and located in a spectacular part of the world. The layout allows me to feel as if I'm living on the beach somewhere but with electricity and sanitation.
I have always wanted to do this part of the trip. There was a romantic notion of pitching a tent near the sea, going swimming twice a day, eating the local fresh produce and generally enjoying myself.

My camp before the calamity 

Breakfast view

This situation lasted approximately two days. See that little concrete wall on the last picture? Well, in exceptionally heavy rain water runs off the surrounding hills and through the campsite, this isn't a problem in the summer due to there being no rain, in the autumn however...
I was having my evening swim (in the rain) and having a lot of fun too as it happens, when the storm got much more intense, so much so that the splashes from the rain on the sea surface made it impossible for me to see. I ran back to the campsite (think 6 foot man running across 400m of open beach in a lightning storm covered in lots of lovely conductive salty water) to find the tent standing in a small lake held in by that cute little concrete wall. I made it just in time, the water was just below the join between the waterproof ground sheet and the water permeable fly sheet.  After carrying my backpack and front-pack to a dry place I pulled up the tent pegs and pulled the tent to higher ground saving my sleeping bag and other loose possessions in the process.
Disaster averted.
There has been a storm here for the past two days, the sound of the waves is terrific and has even drowned out an earthquake! 

The calm

The storm

So, not exactly what I had in mind for this week, but fun and definitely an experience! Soon I will head north and to the Peloponnese by ferry, before then I will post again about my new friends here.

The Plan

Ha-ha, got you!

The plan is there is no plan!

Here is a rough idea of where I want to go on the 1st leg of the trip:

Red Line
I only have one flight booked, so all the dates are very flexible. On the 30th of October I fly to Crete to start my travels where I'll stay for a few weeks before moving off to the mainland where I'll work my way place-to-place or island-to-island towards Istanbul where I'll spend.. well, however long I feel like, then I want to do a backpacking month around Turkey doing my thing. 

Orange Line
From Istanbul I'll fly to India as the route through Iran is still not quite possible for a person of my nationality. After a while in Mumbai I'll zig-zag across the country mostly by rail trying to avoid tourist hot-spots to Kolkata.

Blue Line
I'll get to New Zealand via one or two stops in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and/or Australia. To be honest I'll make my mind up along the way and buy the transportation a little in advance.

So that's it! Now you know as much as me!

Today I tried a variety of load configurations on my backpack, filled it up and walked around a bit. I'm trying to go as light as possible, however that looks like being 16-18kg on my back including a tent and 4kg on the front/carry-on luggage. I will send my first couch requests after finishing this post and I will try to get an idea of where I'll be spending a night about 4 days in advance of arriving there. I will research places in depth as I go and generally be my own guide. I will do my best to meet and befriend as many local people as possible and avoid tourists, fancy hotels and gap year backpackers, I will sometimes stay in one place far too long, skipping other 'must see' places altogether. Sadly I will be flying a bit, in my opinion too much but I'll be doing a lot of 'slow travel' between these. Which reminds me of a book that was a present from an amazing former student of mine:

I loved reading this because I had already come to many of the same conclusions as the author on the nature of travelling, he just put them in a kind of 'slow travel' manifesto/guide.
Do read it if you can, just don't ask to borrow mine, it's in a box somewhere....

Letting Go

If you are depressed, you are living in the Past. If you are anxious, living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the moment. - Lao Tzu

So far this has not exactly been a travel blog, that is about to change.

Which is just as well as I'm running late. Well, I would be if I had a schedule, or even a plan.

Some vague 'plans' that I had (more like ideas, see below) may have to change due to the weather being different or the campsites for tourists closing at the end of the season. Or maybe some ferries have stopped for the stormy Mediterranean autumn. It doesn't really matter. I'm still going travelling, I will still go on my own way, seeing all I want to and staying in a place as long as it feels apt. Meeting strangers as friends along the way and drinking in life as I go.

You see, I'm already on a kind of journey, part of this journey involves changing the way that I perceive the external circumstances of life and dealing with the rough times in a way to sidestep the negativity that arises. Travelling is great for this as the highs and lows come frequently, seemingly arriving as waves upon a beach and ever so vivid. Basically I expect to be tested.

I didn't quite expect to be tested quite so soon, especially before leaving the country. As I have said not-so eloquently to some; The Plan is there is no plan. The organisation is in that there is none. Except there is. I aimed to be prepared. Preparation>Plans by a thousandfold. Plans fall apart at the slightest disruption. Preparation allows for countless possibilities and so makes for flexibility.

 Problem 1. Physical preparation: Sprained ankle badly on second run in London, followed by re-spraining the same ankle on a rabbit hole hidden in some grass eight days later. Basically I've done very little exercise in the last three weeks.

Problem 2. Financial preparation: I was all set to sell my car to a private buyer and get a decent sum of money as a return for all of the time and money spent keeping the car in an excellent condition. It was going well albeit slowly until this happened last Saturday night:

Obviously someone doesn't like nice shiny cars parked in their neighbourhood.

So bit the bullet and started looking for dealers to sell the car quickly to before somebody broke the windows, slashed the tyres and poured paint stripper over the bonnet.  Eventually I found a couple of VW dealers who were prepared to look at the car and I wasn't surprised when they offered me thousands below my asking price. So I later that day I sold her to an independent car trader for a little more than VW were offering but still over a thousand less than my asking price. 

All of this has the potential for causing a lot of resentment and bitterness that I'd carry with me on my travels. Part of the purpose my journey is to leave a lot of the emotional and behavioural baggage behind somewhere on the way. The negative thought and behaviour patterns learned long ago that are very familiar to some. The feelings of bitterness and resentment from the last year of work and the end of my teaching career. The fear of loss, both of material things and of love. The anger at the unknown car scratcher and the money-grabbing car dealer for giving me such a raw deal. The melancholy that comes from change. The worry of the future.

It all needs to be let go, that is the ultimate preparation.
That's why I'm on this journey; to let go.
To lose myself, not to find myself.*
John gets lost.

Departure date set: Wednesday 30th October I fly to Crete

*I'm too old for that.