Antarctica Blog

It is hot and humid here. This is the rainiest month in SE Asia. I have to say we have been lucky. It has been overcast with upwards of 80% humidity but rain has done little to spoil our plans. After our very smooth flight to Bangkok we stored our Polar luggage at the airport and made our way into the city. We got settled inot our hotel and immediately went out to dinner. We went to this place called Supatra which is a very fancy deal right on the river. They actually pick you up on one side of the river and drop you off in their dining room. We had what seemed like five waiters…apiece. We had a “magniata galatica”; a unrestrained eating session. In the end we spent about $50. Incredibly cheap!

In the morning we left early for the island of Ko Samet, about 3 hrs east of Bangkok. We spent a tranquil few days there on the beach. But, as many of you know, the beach isn’t really my bag. And, considering we are going to have no shortage of tranquility in Antarctica for the next 4 months, we opted for the buzz of Bangkok. We came back to the city for the big weekend market, Chaktuchak, where we spent the day shopping for…stuff. We have been eating like royalty while visiting temples and royal houses. Yesterday, for Luci’s sake, we went to see Roger Ferderer play at the Thailand Open. That’s tennis, by the way, for those of you like me who don’t have a clue. He won.

This is our last day here in Thailand (for the time being). Tonight we have a dinner cruise on the river complete with Thai dancers for our last hoorah. How the dancing on the undulating deck works, I’m not sure but, I guess we’ll find out. Tomorrow morning we fly to Hong Kong. We’ll spend one night there and then take the boat to Macau. That’s five more stamps on my tired old passport; two entries and 3 exits.

The shifting tides are taking us to the other side of the world tomorow. It kind of snuck up on us. We have been in Italy for almost six months. Tomorrow we start our two week journey back to the Ice. Our first stop is in Bangkok for a couple of days of RR. Then we fly to Hong Kong for the weekend to shop for knock-offs.

It will be the last flight on my old passport. I have had it since I was 20. I only have one empty page left. Since we are going to offically be in NZ for about 5 months and my passport expires in February I am going to have to get my entry permit on my shiny new one that I got here in Milan at the consulate back in May. It is going to be sad to put the old passport to rest. It need a rest though. You can’t even read the outside anymore and the lamination has been coming off the cover page for the past five years. My only regret is that I never got a stamp in it from South America which would have been the 7th continent I would have visited.

I’ll try to get some pictures up from Asia.

The end of the season has come and gone. The last two weeks at the hut were incredibly slow. The weather was touch and go and the nice periods never lasted long enough to solidify the conditions on the climb. Massimo stuck around for a few days. We hired him to help us bring supplies up and down. He was going to the valley anyway to get some stuff for himself so we offered him a discount on his stay if he brought up some stuff on our wish list. We also had him bring down some of our things as a precursor to closing.

At the beginning of the season we thought we would take advantage of the helicopter scheduled to fly out at the end of the season. But there was a significant rise in the price of helo minutes this year so we decided to close by making various trips to the valley on foot loaded rather than using the helicopter to fly stuff out. In the last week of August I hiked out the last load of our stuff and drove it all to Milan where I picked up our motorcycle. I rode it back up to the valley and hiked back up to the hut for our last week.

The weather stayed crappy and we had almost no overnight guests. This made closing pretty easy and we started knocking things off our list. Since we were making progress and had no reservations it was looking like we might be able to hike out early; Monday instead of Wednesday. So, on Sunday afternoon we started the push to close up the systems. For water we have a concrete reservoir that collects snow melt-water. Often times by August there is no more seasonal snow-melt to capture so I run 100m or so of hose up to a cascade that flows off the glacier itself. This year I rigged up a harness so I could hang a funnel right over the falling water to captured it and fill the reservoir. It was one of the first systems that needed to come out as part of the closing process.

The cascade is down in a narrow chute that is prone to falling rocks. I try to get in and out as quickly as possible. I managed to undo the harness and free the funnel with no problems. But I still needed to bring in the hose and detach the funnel from the end of it which involved climbing down into the chute. While down in the chute I needed to pull on the upper end of the tube with the funnel on it in order to take it down. In the process I freed a head-sized rock which was lightly perched at the top of the cascade which came whipping down towards me. Having worked down in this trench before I had developed an escape route precisely for incidents like this but I had to act very quickly. On the side of the chute there is a small place with a few footholds that is clear of falling rock. The problem is that it is relatively smooth and far from flat. In my haste to avoid the falling projectile I was not able to get a good footing and went sliding down about ten feet back into the chute farther down. In the meantime the rock went hurling by leaving me unscathed. But, in the process of coming to a stop from my slide, I twisted my ankle. Nothing major, in fact my bleeding hand caused me more immediate pain than my foot. I quickly finished up in the chute and got out ASAP. After pulling in the water line, I went back down to the hut to help Luci take down the railing and the gutters. Since we were planning on hiking out the next day I didn’t want to take any chances so I wrapped my ankle in an ACE bandage and tightened my boot then went back to closing tasks until we only had the point-of-no-return tasks left.

At about 3 in the morning I woke in pain. I thought I was going to get away lightly but I was wrong. I grabbed a steak from the freezer and rubber-banded it to my foot and put it up on a coiled climbing rope and tried to get some more sleep. At first light it became obvious that I was not going to be hiking out. The pain was pretty intense and I had quite a limp. Since we were in no real rush to get out we decided that it would be better to just take care of over the next couple of days and take advantage of the helo flight on Wednesday to fly out. I probably could of taken a bunch of Ibu and toughed out the hike but with our busy September schedule we didn’t want to do more damage to it.

So we flew out of Boccalatte down into Val Ferret on Wednesday morning like rock-stars arriving at the Grammys. We spent the next couple of days visiting friends in the valley and riding the motorcycle. Easier than walking on the ankle, actually. Knowing that I would not be trying to convince them to go for a hike, Luci’s parents decide to take up our offer and come up to the valley for the weekend. We relaxed around our friend’s hotel where we booked them a room and went for rides in the small valleys of the region. We ate well, as usual, and then all went back to Milan together.

Now, back in Milan, we are tying up loose ends and getting ready for our trip to Asia and our season in Antarctica. On the 19th we leave for Thailand. It is going to be a challenge packing for both Antarctica and Thailand.

Buon Feragosto! Today, on the big European holiday of the Assumption, when most Italians try their best to splayed out in the sun on the beach, we woke to 20cm of snow here at the hut. We have had many lonely Feragosti here at Boccalatte but this is the first one when there has actually been snow. Yesterday morning started with nice sunny skies. They were tinted with a bit of haze, though. By midday, the haze was beginning win the battle and by early afternoon it was raining. The first climbers to return from the summit of the Grandes Jorasses, a group from the Swiss Mountaineering Club who had stayed with us the night before, arrived by lunchtime just before the rain started. By the time the whole group of 9 arrived at the hut, it had gone from partly sunny to rainy to snowing. They beat a quick retreat to the valley after a round of beer before the weather got worse. Climbing teams continued to trickle back to the hut, each more bedraggled than the next. The last group to arrive was a pair of Florentines who had summated but managed to get caught in the worst of the storm in the lower part of the glacier. They arrived accumulated with snow and seeking soup. After “a long consultation” they made the unexpected decision to continue to the valley leaving us with only one unlucky soul for the evening.

Massimo is a Sicilian which, in a way is the root of his unluckiness. Unable to satisfy his appetite for climbing on the sunny island of his birth, he came to the Alps in search for action and adventure. Afflicted with a passion for the mountains, he left the sun, beaches and hordes of sand seekers of his native Ragusa to make an attempt on the Grande Jorasses; solo. Unfortunately for him, he also arrived at the hut just as it was beginning to snow. Difficult enough when the conditions are prime, the climb solo after a substantial snowfall is suicide. So instead of lounging on the beach with his friends, he gets to spend his Feragosto with us here at Boccalatte…in the snow.

This has easily been our most busy season so far here at Boccalatte. Every summer we have a few more guests than the year before, but this year we have already exceeded our total from all of last year and August is not even half over. True, that after the 15th of August (the Assumption of Mary), Europe’s big summer holiday, the numbers always drop off. Usually by this time of the season the climbing conditions have past their prime. We have already lost all the snow in our reservoir from which we capture melt-water for the hut. For only the second time in five years, I had to run the long 150m pipe up to the glacier to capture its run-off. Despite the fact that there is very little snow to cover the glacier and a dusting of snow on the rock parts of the climb, the people who go up are satisfied with the conditions. It has also remained cold which is key to good climbing on the Grandes Jorasses. If the conditions stay good we may continue to be busy throughout August. Nonetheless, we plan on closing on the 31st.

Last week we paid for our tickets to New Zealand for our eventual deployment to Antarctica. I think it was the most money I ever dropped at one time outside of paying off my college loans. Lucky for us, it will be reimbursed by [insert name of large government contractor here] after we arrive in Antarctica. This year we were approved for deployment from Italy and allotted X amount of money with which to purchase tickets. The catch is that we had to buy from an American carrier or code-share. Not easy when initiating travel from Italy. We decided to just go to the AA office in Milan and see what would be possible within our financial parameters. It was a tiny un marked office on the 8th floor of a non-descript building in the center of the city. In fact, we never stepped foot in the office; a woman came out and talked to us in the hall. She suggested a Round-the-World ticket which would include flights on other airlines within the One World Alliance but would be ticketed as an American Airlines ticket. But they didn’t do bookings there so they gave us a phone number. This was back in June and we have been trying to sort out the details until last week. Quite a challenge. Differed booking agents kept telling us different things and every time we called, thinking it was all sorted out, we would have to start again from the top. We finally got the itinerary that we liked and then we waited for the euro-dollar exchange to be favorable before making the purchase.

The tickets are really great. You pay by continent and have up to six stops on each continent. You can get a full refund up to the day of travel; date changes are free and adding, removing or changing stops cost only $75. That is, $75 each re-issue which means we could change the whole ticket at once and incur only the flat fee. We were originally planning to go to South America after the Ice but discovered that flying from Europe to Oceania we had an obligatory stop in Asia which, even if only as a stopover, would count as a continent in the price of the ticket. Doing both would have pushed us over our limit. It was obvious that we would have to make a stop in Asia for at least a week to take advantage of the tariff; but where? Luci has always wanted to go to Japan but in the end we decided that staying for a week and not having any friends there to show us around might be shooting ourselves in the foot. In the end we decided spend 10 days on the beach in Thailand followed by a weekend in Hong Kong shopping for knock-off brands like Mouth Face Equipment or Polex watches.

Which brings me to a topic which I would like to take a moment to rant about: the Italian postal system. Being perpetual travelers, Luci and I like to travel light. Which means that we end up mailing a lot of our stuff around the world rather than toting it around with us and waiting for it in the carousel at airports. From and to Antartica it is especially convenient considering the amount and size of clothing that one needs there. At the end of last season we mailed 5 boxes from McMurdo: 1 full of winter gear for snowboarding to Colorado, 2 of odds and ends to Maine, and 2 of books and clothes to Italy (old, used, not for resale clothes). Then, while in Australia, I bought a didgeridoo (an Aboriginal instrument) which included free shipping and had it shipped to Italy. When we arrived in Milan (almost three months later) none of the boxes had arrived. They were insured so I began to look into making a claim. Just when I was about to make a claim they started to arrive. I half-expected to have to pay duty on the didgeridoo, which in fact I did: 20%. But then, we had to pay duty on the boxes of personal items, too; 20% on the amount that we had them insured for. We should have learned our lesson then. But, of course we didn’t.

Because of our work environments, we get pro-deals on outdoor clothing and gear from various companies including P[insert overpriced clothing company here]. Luci’s adores their clothing and we calculated that even paying the 20% tax we would still be getting a bargain. So we placed the order and in a week or so we checked on the USPS website for confirmation that the box had been delivered to Italy; it had. We waited and waited and still no box of goodies. We went to Greece and returned still no box. Luci started to get concerned and began to make phone calls. As it turns out the postal service was no help at all because they sub-contract another company to deliver their packages. The other company said that the box didn’t show up in their system and to talk to Customs. Customs said the box wasn’t in their system and to talk to the courier. A the same time there were all kinds of reports on the news about cargo being stolen from Malpensa; one of Milan’s airports where, of course, our box arrived in the country. When we talked P they told us the box had not been insured. Great! By now it was time to open the hut and we didn’t have the time to mess around on hold with various agencies anymore so we let it rest, assuming that the box had been stolen.

About the end of July we remembered that this stupid box hadn’t arrived yet and figured that if we didn’t get to the bottom of it we wouldn’t know anything until September (anything bureaucratic ceases to function in August on account of the beach). So Luci started all over with the phone calls. She eventually found someone who hadn’t gone on vacation yet and was willing to do the foot work to find the box. He said he’d call us back with in the week. A week and a half later he still hadn’t called back so we made the afternoon long round of phone calls to find him and discovered that the box was being held by Customs.

We had been hearing in the news about new European tariffs on clothing from China. We didn’t think about it because our order originated from the States. But, as it turns out, it was this tariff that was causing us grief. To get our box, Customs sends out an announcement that said box is being held by them (in our case, after more than two months of sitting in their warehouse). Upon receipt of this announcement, one is supposed to fill out a form and send an invoice of the exact contents of the package. Because we were at the hut, this was impossible if we wanted our winter clothes before the snows start blowing. The nice man on the other end of the phone was nice enough to offer to fill out the form, forge Luci’s signature and bring the invoice we had e-mailed to him to customs (downstairs) personally. It was looking like we might finally get our goods. The only sticky point was the duty to be paid. The nice guy on the other end of the phone line could only guess at the amount.

Luci’s parent’s live in a condominium with a door keeper. Because they were leaving on vacation, we asked them to leave a little more than 20% of the cost of the box’s content with the door keeper so he could pay when the package eventually arrived. Another week passes. Luci’s parents are in Greece so we call the door man to see if the package has arrived. Finally! The goods are in our hands (or at least those of our representative)! The problem…the duty was a good 70 Euros, almost $100, more than expected. This deserved a call from us to the Customs Office. As it turns out, the nice lady on the other end of the line informed us, in addition to the to 20% sales tax there is the 12.5% “anti-dumping” tariff tacked on: picking our pockets with a smile.

Did we learn our lesson? Of course not! You see, I have this great little laptop. It is a Sony PictureBook. A tiny little thing that can fit in the side pocket of a pair of cargo pants. Perfect for us. It is terribly slow, though. But it has a slot to expand its RAM making it work faster. The cards to fit in the expansion slot are relatively expensive hard to find…in Europe. But, I got on line and found it in two minutes and in two more it was in the mail to my parents in Maine. Owing to my previous experience, I wanted to sit on it for a bit and figure out the best strategy for getting it to Europe. My father suggested sending it to Antractica APO or with my brother who is going down in August (which in retrospect would have been the best way). But, because there is potential for complications while installing this card and I wanted to have a fast internet connection to troubleshoot or download patches which I will not have at Siple. So, I decided to have it sent to Italy. The sooner the better, that way I would have it before leaving for the Ice. My father sent it DHL and insured which assured that it arrived in a timely manner even though it cost a sizable fraction of the chip’s price to mail it. Well, as it turns out this “anti dumping” tariff applies to computer components, too because, BOOM, 32.5% Tax upon delivery. But, it doesn’t stop there: last week my father received a bill for the same amount the doorman had already paid making the tax, insurance and shipping more costly than the item itself.

Lesson to be learned here: don’t send ANYTHING to Italy!

Well, than “moment” went on a little longer than expected. Back to Antarctica. After stocking up on cheap knock-of goods in Hong Kong to sell in Antarctica (to try to make back some of what we lost in tariffs) we fly to Christchurch, NZ. We arrive 3 days before we are scheduled to be there for training and various safety based brainwashing activities. Usually, [the company] tries to get people in and out of Christchurch as quickly as possible so they don’t have enough time to realized what they’ll be missing on the Ice for the next 4 months or so. Plus, more time in NZ, adventure tourism capital of the world, means more time to engage in potentially un-safe activities which is highly frowned upon by [the company]. In past seasons, I have tried to cram a quick snowboard trip up to nearby Mt Hutt between safety lectures and clothing fittings. This year there will be no need to cram. We should be able to fit in a trip up to the mountain to snowboard as well as various other safe recreation options in Christchurch in the three days we have to ourselves.

On the 8th of October we fly to McMurdo from Christchurch. We’ll be in McMurdo for about two weeks getting more training on how to be a safe [company] employee (OK, I’ll stop now) and putting our camp into boxes to be loaded onto a C130 Hercules. Siple Dome is about 2 ½ hrs fly time from McMurdo. There has been a camp of varying size at Siple for many years. More recently it has been quite small. We will be only three camp staff this year and I am not sure how many scientists. I am not going to go into what we will be doing there because I am sure I’ll have a much better idea once we get there. We will have very limited internet access if at all. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this updated with text at least.

Almost full tonight at Boccalatte. It has been steady enough that we haven’t had too much free time. I have to go put the bread in the oven.

It doesn’t quite seem like a month since I posted last. To catch up quickly: the bike trip with Andy was fun but kind of rushed. The weather was not great, in fact, who am I kidding: it was crappy. It rained most of the 24hrs. The ride there was nice but the ride back to Milan was rainy and uneventful.

The helo training was OK. I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know but I did get to meet up with some friends who manage other huts in the valley. Since the next day was a re-supply day for the huts that were already open I offered a hand to the guys who run Rifugio Gonella on the standard route up the Italian face of Mt. Blanc. We met up in the morning to make the sling loads and then flew up to their hut which is situated on a spur of rock much like ours to unload the supplies as they were flown up. We shoveled snow and ice and then spent the afternoon grilling kebabs.

We had our first reservations on the 17th of June so Luci and I hiked up and spent Wednesday and Thursday opening the our hut. That weekend, two friends from Antarctica came up to visit while visiting Europe on their vacation. It is always fun to have friends come to visit. Sometime during the weekend Luci and I both came down with serious colds that we caught in the valley. We had our own re-supply flight in the middle of the week. I stayed up at the hut recovering until the last minute when I got pumped up on vitamins and asprin for the hike down. The shopping for the month was rough but it all went off without a hitch. Nor were there any dramas the next day at our helo pad.

The weather was nice and then got very hot after opening. We had a pretty steady flow of guests up until Saturday. On Saturday we were full. We even had to inflate our inflatable beach mat. Once again, no dramas, and it hardly even felt like we were full. Our Fourth of July celebration was grim. It was snowing and cold. We did grill ribs though which sort of made me feel like being at home on the Fourth. Even though I am beginning do doubt whether I remember what the Fourth in the States is like considering it has been eight years since I have been home for one.

Since Saturday the weather has been terrible. At the beginning of the week there were thunderstorms and as the week goes on it has turned to sub freezing temps and snow. Almost all our reservations for this Saturday have called and canceled. We have still been grilling as often as possible. I try to keep it serious but it really is a lot of fun.

I am sitting at my friend Gio’s house in Courmayeur. Luci is in Egypt with her parents on the Sinai celebrating their birthday (they were both born on the 31st of May). I can’t deal with resort culture so I stayed in Italy to mess around on my motorcycle and start opening the hut.

Day-before-yesterday Gio and I hiked up to Boccalatte to assess winter damage and to see if anyone has attempted to climb the Grandes Jorasses. We found the place in surprisingly good order after the winter. No major damage other than the railing that comes down every winter. We just put up an old climbing rope now and even that gets torn down when the snow on the roof slides. The biggest problem, though, is that the radio-phone is having a power problem. I found the battery warning light on and the battery dead. It is solar powered and I suspect a problem with either the battery or the charge controller. It is our problem but not our hardware so we will have wait for a technician from the phone company to come and have a look. A potentially damaging issue that we will just have to take in stride. Unfortunately, my camera was giving me grief so I didn’t get any pictures.

Today I have a helicopter tech training session with the Hut Keepers Association down at the helo pad in Aosta. I have no idea what to expect. It is something Luci set up for me. I also have some random shopping to do for the hut and I have to bring a water sample I took from the hut to be analyzed. I will be around in the valley for the week do stuff for the hut and maybe go for a hike or two.

Next week, a friend from Antarctica is coming to Europe for a motorcycle gathering in Slovenia. He’ll be passing through Italy so he offered to let me join their ride for a bit. It will be pretty tight with our first reservations at the hut next Friday but I think I try to fit in a day or two with them.

Day 15: We still had the southwest of the Peloponnesus to see, which is supposed to have some great beaches and the two old Venetian forts of Methoni and Koroni. We decided it would just be too miserable to have to see it all in the rain and leaving now would give us incentive to return on another trip. We began our retreat back to Patra. From Sparta we rode up valleys so green that if one was to see them out of context, they could never guess they were in Greece. The whole time we were riding under a hole in the sky. We had a charmed ride all the way to Olympia, home of the Olympic Games.

When we finally arrived at the campsite, it looked like whatever was holding back the rain was about to let go. We asked if they had a place undercover and they gave us a glass gazebo that was being used as a tool shed. Perfetto! It worked like a charm; we set up out of the rain and it didn’t rain. That night after dinner we called to reserve a spot on the midnight boat from Patra to Venice the next day.

Day 16: In the morning when we went to see the site of Olympia we were repulsed by the sight of masses of tourists. Incredible! And in the off-season! We discovered that you could see most of the sight from the road and we rode up and down taking pictures. When we got to the gate we found out you had to pay for the sight and the museum separately AND they were each more expensive than any other site we had been to. It was Luci who said we should bail and, as my Expert Archeological Advisor, I was inclined to oblige.

Instead we went to Kalyvrita, the sight of the beginning of the revolution. It began to rain just as we arrived in town and sat down to lunch. It seemed like our luck was bound to crack. The rain passed, the sun came out and we went on our way. I chose a road that, at a certain point, looked like it was going to slide off the mountainside. In places, you couldn’t see the valley bottom and the road was strewn with rocks fallen from above. Once again, we were happy to be on a bike and not in a car. When we got to Agio, about 50km outside of Patra, it began to rain on us. We stopped under an underpass to assess. The cars coming from the direction of Corinth had their wipers on and those coming from Patra didn’t. We hopped back on the moto for the last 50k to Patra. It rained lightly most of the way but had let up almost completely by the time we arrive at the ferry terminal. We picked up our tickets and parked the bike. We trudged up the 200 steps to the Kastro (Fort) overlooking the city to kill time before dinner. For dinner we found a TGI Fridays which is something I have never seen in Europe before. I feasted on the best burger I have ever eaten in Europe, too. At 10pm we boarded our boat for the uneventful and never ending trip back to Venice.

Day 12: A long driving day on challenging roads on the Mani Peninsula. The people of the Mani claim to be the descendants of the Spartans. This area was notorious for its vicious family feuds up until the 19th century. In the harsh landscape, you can see why people held onto any bit of arable land with their lives. Nice cycling, though tiring. Somehow I managed to drop the bike 3 times. There were several compounding factors that contributed to it. Each time we fell I was stopped perpendicular to a slope. Once was coming onto a paved road after being in the dirt; another was after coming to quick stop while trying to read a Greek road sign; and the last time was at a blind intersection with traffic coming in either direction. No damage to either the bike or us, though.

I needed a rest so we stopped and ate ice cream on the beach in Stoupa; the home of Zorba the Greek. Here, for once, the English outnumbered the Germans. At the campground I discovered that the bag on the side where I kept falling was heavier than the other one. I resigned to lighten our already overload bike. I got rid of some tools, a deck of cards, our rain ponchos, and some other junk I knew we wouldn’t need. The stuff I knew we wouldn’t need but couldn’t bring ourselves to get rid of, we planned to mail the next day.

Day 13: At the post office in Kardamili they told us we could only ship 2kg at a time and it would have to be at noon after he delivered the mail. Unfazed by this we continued to Kalamata where we sat in line to discover they didn’t have boxes for sale at that post office. I got a box from a hardware store, packed our stuff and got back in line. When we saw that it was going to cost us 40E (about $50) to mail the 5 kg (12 lb) box to Italy we balked. The stuff in the box wasn’t worth that much. The very kind woman at the window suggested we try an independent shipping company and gave us directions to where we might find one. When it was obvious that we wouldn’t find the place, I stopped at a dumpster and threw half the stuff away and repacked the rest on the bike.

On our way, a few kg lighter and feeling better, we began the climb up the pass over the Taygetos Mountains. At the pass we had lunch at a restaurant which served homemade sausages with dill seed and orange peel in it. Tasty! On our descent into Sparta we passed the cliff where the Spartans threw babies to weak to survive the rigors of Spartan life. Once in Sparta, we set about doing some laundry and making plans for the next day. Luci wanted to go to Mystras, the ruins of a medieval town, and I, being overloaded with archaeological sites, bought a map of the Taygetos Mountains with the intention of climbing the highest peak which is, subsequently, the highest point in the Peloponnesus.

Day 14: Thunderstorms in the night and light rain in the morning was not conducive to hiking so, in a break in the weather, we went to Mystras together. More tourists than we expected for such a crappy day in the off-season. The ruins are on a steep hill with the fortress at the top. We hiked up to the fortress and saw most of the upper city before the rain began again. Everyone went ducking for cover and we ended up under an arched roof with a German family and a German couple. Walking around amongst crumbling walls and surprisingly well preserved frescoes, we found a pit full of human femur bones. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were taking cover in a crypt so we move shelter to an old chapel. We hung around looking at the frescoes until we found ourselves trying to read the old Greek script and knew it was time to make a dash. We were only about 10kms from the campsite, what could go wrong? When we started out it was drizzling lightly; halfway into the ride it was pouring. At the campsite our tent was in the open and dripping. It is a tough tent though and was dry inside. We moved our camp under cover and put stuff out to dry. Of course, we chose the worse part of the day to make our dash and it got better to the point that everything got dry.

We went into town to recover our day and go see the ruins of Sparta. They are miniscule and deserted and we saw most of it from the seat of the motorcycle. We checked on the long term forecast and it was grim. Ten days of rain they were calling for. That night Milan played Liverpool in the Champions League Finals. Milan scored in the first minute and was leading 3-0 at the end of the first half. Luci called her father to celebrate their almost certain victory. To our envy, they said it was sunny and warm in Milan. Then, by some miracle, Liverpool came back with three goals in twenty minutes and won in overtime.

Day 9: This was to be one of the longest days of the trip. We were planning on taking the ferry from Neapoli to the farthest flung of the Ionian Islands, Kithira. The guy at the campground said there were three boats a day but he wasn’t sure of the times. We figured we could get there around ten and catch the first afternoon boat. We arrived in town and sat down in a café and had a frappe. At about 12 we decide it couldn’t hurt to ask the waitress if she knew when the boat leaves. She said she thought the next one left at about 1pm but we should go ask at the Coast Guard. We finished our drinks and sauntered down to the Coast Guard post to get the exact times. They said there is one boat a day at 10am. Lesson learned: local knowledge is overrated.

Having failed in our attempt to take the boat from Neapoli we decided to ride the hour or so to the town of Gythio where the ferry leaving for Crete passes Kithira. Upon arrival we discovered that there was a boat that leaving at 6pm. This would put us on Kithira at about dark which would mean driving in the dark in unknown territory. We were up for the challenge and bought our tickets. We arrived at Kithira at dark as predicted and got on some windy and windy mountain road to the southern town of Kapsali. Upon our arrival at the campground we discovered that it had not yet opened for the season yet. Distraught, we went into a local taverna to inquire about lodging. What we found was a domatia (a private residence with spare rooms for lodgers) for a little more than the price of the campground. It was a really nice room too, with a kitchenette and TV. We really struck gold. Nice end to a long day.

Day 10: Happy Birthday Luci! The morning started with rain and we spent it in a café on the waterfront of Kapsali, eating crepes and playing backgammon. As the day began to clear up we mounted our “cavallo d’aciaio” and went in search of unspoiled beaches. The search was not in vain and we spent a good part of the day beach hopping on our bike; paradise.

Upon returning to our room, the matron in formed us that there was a problem; there was no water. She said that it should be back in a couple of hours. So instead of showers we walked around the old fort in Kithira Town before going to dinner. After perusing the uninspiring waterfront menus we decided instead to go back up to Kithira Town and try our luck at a restaurant recommended for its grilled food. Immediately upon entering, it was obvious that “Zorba’s” was not geared for tourists. They had no menu and rather than having to try to explain what they had available, the waiter just brought us into the kitchen where we chose what we wanted from the grill. Luci had grilled lamb; I the pork. We had Greek salads, tzaziki, and some kind of eggplant something or other. Wine, Metaxa the whole deal; it was Luci’s birthday after all. Grande! And the whole thing cost what we would have paid for a bottle of wine in Italy. Back at the room there was still no water.

Day 11: Slept in late; still no water. We had planned to stay at least another night on Kithira before going back to the mainland but we knew it would be difficult without any water and it would be a hassle to find another place for one night. We resolved to go to the beach and enjoy our morning and if there was no water when we got back at 2, we would catch the ferry back to Gythio. We had a great morning lounging in the sun on a pebbly beach (I hate the sand) and by 2 we were back at the room. And there was no water. The woman understood that it didn’t make much sense to stay without water so we bid out thanks and farewell and loaded bike. We toured the northern part of the island fully loaded, caught the ferry and were on the mainland by nightfall, camped south of Gythio.