Erwin and a wonderful view at Corinth

It’s the end of April 2022 and for the first time in months, I’m getting close to a bigger settlement. After visiting Monemvasia, I got the feeling that visiting human-made sightseeing sites is not my favorite thing to do, but still, I thought that passing Corinth without visiting its famous sites, would be kind of stupid.

Half an hour before it closes down, I entered the ancient site of Corinth. I’m walking in between the old stones and especially the temple of Apollo impresses me. I’m enjoying visiting this place but I’m not sad that I have not much time left to check out all the ruins of this place. In my head, I notice something like a sense of duty. It’s weird. Like I have to be here. But of course, I know that I don’t. At one point I’m noticing that the mountain of Corinth with the ancient fortress of Corint on top of it, fascinates me the most. More than the ruins and by far more than the tourist restaurants and shops right next to the ancient site.

Before I have to leave the ancient site, I leave it and start driving Rosinante up the mountain. I take some offroad tracks and try different directions and in the end, I find an awesome spot to stay. After just a few minutes a young, cute stray dog approaches my little home area. He’s shy but looks very interested in what I’m doing. He looks hungry and so I’m taking a bit of the dog food I’m having with me and after a few minutes, he’s convinced that I’m a friend and I call him Erwin. From this moment on he stays at my little camp and follows me everywhere I go. When I’m sitting outside, Erwin lays beside me. We play around and take a walk. In the evening Erwin chooses a place under Rosinante as his sleeping spot. The next morning we take a morning run together and it turns out, that Erwin is a very good climber.

I’m thinking about what it would be like to have a permanent dog friend and travel companion with me.

Getting lost while hiking near Kyparissi

It’s the end of April 2022 and I’m driving Rosinante on the last nipple of the Peleponnese in Greece. A nice German couple, I met at the dream cove and the Hippie Camp, told me, that the area around Kyparissi is really nice for hiking and so I picked that area as my next home.

After I arrived in the little town, I’m quickly realizing, that not all of the people here seem to be very camper friendly. At the parking of the beach is a sign that informs about the fact that camping is not allowed and will be fined. It’s the first time that I’m seeing a sign like this in Greece. I’m deciding to drive Rosinante up a very steep and pretty heavy offroad track to reach a spot, that I got recommended by a friendly farmer. The spot is super nice and quiet. In the evening it’s covered with clouds and the next morning there is pure sunlight.

I’m driving Rosinante to the place where I want to start my hike through another olive farm. The hike starts super beautiful and after my little hike at the Geopark, I’m hyped at this one. At the first little chapel, I take a pause to meditate. These chapels are so nice to meditate in them.

I continue my hike, pick some wild thyme and after some time, when the sun started burning on my head, I’m realizing that I forgot my hat at the chapel. Having forgotten my hat doesn’t make me crazy and so I take it as it is and do some trail running back to the chapel. Once I got my hat, I trail run back to where I’ve been before again.

After two hours, I’ve reached the other side of the mountain and the hiking track is getting more and more difficult to follow. The markers are getting fewer and soon I can’t find any of them anymore. This hiking path is in none of my apps and I’m happy of taking a photo of a map showing the hiking paths in this area, yesterday. The terrain gets more and more difficult and soon I’m starting to feel very lost. I decide to take the effort of climbing up a hill with lots of scrubs, stones, and cliffs. I’m crawling most of the time because either the scrubs are too dense and tight or the rocks are too dangerously slippy and steep to just walk them. Standing on top of one hill, I get an overview but I’m thinking about aborting my hike and going back because the terrain has been so difficult to go through and there will be much more of this to go through. I’ve no good clue where the normal path is. For a short moment even going back feels to be very difficult. I take some time to compare the photo of the map with two of my hiking apps. I’m getting more and more confident that I got a good direction and a plan to find the path again if there still is one. I’m fighting my way back from the hill and enter a small valley. The terrain changes and gets easier. And there, after crawling through the last scrub and after two hours of searching, I see the bright red of one of the markers indicating the hiking path. I’m happy and relieved and continue my way feeling a lot lighter and lighthearted.

The hike leads me through different sceneries and I love them all. Hyped about the beauty I decided to advance my hike and after seven hours I see Rosinante down where I left here. Although the hike has awesome, I still feel happy to see her again. The straight path shown on the map I took a photo of, leads to a big cliff and I’m searching for the way I’m supposed to take around it. I can’t find it and so I take the longer way long way and reach Rosinante after another hour.

Monemvasia: All this stuff just to protect from someone

It’s around mid of April 2022 and I’m doing some sightseeing in Monemvasia.

Essentially it’s a big rock and humans built a town in it. Yes, it’s more in than on it, I would say. It’s the first time on my journey, that I’m at a place where a lot of other people are around. Real, classic sightseeing at a pretty commercialized place. I’m walking through the small alleys, passing the souvenir shops and restaurants. They are cute but quickly I’m leaving the lower part and start climbing to the upper part of the big rock. From the above, I have a good overview and I’m thinking about how much effort it takes to build all this. And has there been a plan on how to build it or did they just start and over the centuries it came all together? And what had been their primary motivation? Did they build all this just to protect from someone?