Tag: rosinante

Visiting Mystras and living on an olive farm

It’s about the mid of April 2022 and I’m driving Rosinante through an olive farm right next to the famous ancient site of Mytras in Greece. These olive farms can become pretty tricky to drive through from time to time. They tend to narrow down and passing the sometimes low-hanging branches of the trees can be tricky as well. I’m always wondering how the farmers are making it up and down the steep slopes on tracks full of loose stones and sometimes pretty big stone steps.

Right next to the little track I took and on the foot of Mystras, I’m happy to find my new home in the center of the olive farm. Hesitation arises in me as I think about if it’s ok for the owner of the farm that I’m staying here for a couple of days. I lay this thought away by coaxing myself. Just at this moment, I hear some low sounds of people working on the farm and I’m pretty sure that they will come along sometime and so I’ll be able to ask them.

I’m exploring my home in between beautiful nature with all its fresh green, olive trees, a meadow, and a nice small stream. The small area I call home now seems to be the dump of the farm because there are some small piles of rubble. It’s funny how different perceptions can be: for me this dump zone is so beautiful that I want to stay here for some days. For the farmer, it might be the most unproductive and worthless area of his whole farm.

A couple of hours later, I’m hearing a tractor approaching and meet it on the small road. I’m waving and smiling and the driver seems to be a nice guy. It’s the farmer and I’m asking him if I can stay for some days. He is absolutely fine with this. We have a short chat about a lot of things and he gives me tips about what to visit in the area. Once more I see one of my beliefs confirmed: if I’m meeting people friendly and open, they do the same to me. It’s like a principle of friendliness attracting more friendliness.

The next morning I start my way to the ancient site of Mystras. After a couple of meters, I’m deciding to try going barefoot for the whole day. As a fallback, I’m tieing my flip-flops to my backpack.

The ancient site of Mystras with its ruins and reconstructed buildings in the rising spring is very beautiful. But the most beautiful part of it is the view from the top of the fortress on top of it. I’m hanging around there for quite some time and thinking about what side of the view I like more: the nature side with its mountains or the valley side with the roads and little settlements? For me, it’s an easy choice and I decide to climb up one of the mountains tomorrow.

After about eight hours I’m arriving back at Rosinante and my barefoot experiment went pretty well. After the first hour of getting used to especially sharp gravel laying on flat concrete, it felt super good and slowed me down a bit. But after having my soles backed on a dark tarmac road it’s super intense to walk on these little, sharp stones.

First days of real beach life in vanlife paradise Greece

In the next blog posts I’ll cover what my journey was like until now. Right now this stuff is only on Instagram and as I described in my last post, I’m going to change that.

After my time on Corfu, I moved onwards to the mainland of Greece and I was very excited how living in a car will work out in Greece. I had no big worries and heard a lot of positive voices about it.

After two years of living in cars in Germany living in a car in Greece is totally different! In Germany you have to search for places where you have a lot of nature and not so many other people around. What is more, you can’t just park on a beach. You certainly won’t find much places where you can even get close to a beach with your mobile home. And in contrast to that, I just found this spot at the Gianiskari Beach in Greece. I was totally amazed and flashed.

For the most part, Rosinante and I were completely alone. The weather were just starting getting warmer and spring really started. The beach is pretty big and there are sand dunes were you can try some offroading skills. It has been the first time in real sand for me and Rosinante and we had a lot of fun.

I think, I wouldn’t risk it again

On that day in March 2022, it was on the edge of what Rosinante and I are capable of on our own.

At that time, I’ve been seeking situations like this. But that has been changed now. I wouldn’t risk damaging Rosinante so hard anymore. Maybe today, I wouldn’t go on that soap-like muddy road. I’m not sure. I think today, saving the money and enabling myself to live this free life for longer, would be more important for me than the kick of a recovery like this. But I don’t regret what happened and every time I remember this day, I have a smile on my face.

On that day passing the ditch Rosinante got stuck in later, has been no problem. But when I was maneuvering for a good position to go for the second one I needed every centimeter I could get on this soap like mud and took just one too many. Without the pretty distant tree as an anchor point, I would have had to dig the whole track or get some help. For the second ditch, there was no anchor point and so I did everything I could to prevent sliding into this one as well. And it worked out 🎉

Thanks @RonnyDahl for your offroad and recovery videos on YouTube, they are really good.

In situations like this, I don’t get mad or crazy but I get excited and kind of under pressure. But for me, it doesn’t feel like there is no hope left. It feels more like being afraid of doing something wrong.

Realizing feelings like that at the moment they occur helps me a lot to enjoy situations like that.