Kalymnos

On Wednesday, November 27, I arrived on the Greek island of Kalymnos. My trip comprised of a short flight from Athens to the neighbouring island of Kos, followed by a 20 minute ride on a bumpy express ferry to Kalymnos.

Kalymnos belongs to the Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean sea. It is the fifth largest in this series of islands, with a population of around 17,000. The capital of Kalymnos, Pothia (where I arrived from Kos), is located on the east coast. Many of the smaller villages close to the climbing areas are a 15 minute drive away on the west coast.

Before rock climbing was 'discovered' on the island in the late 1990s, Kalymnos was mostly known for sponge diving and was a sponge trade centre in the Mediterranean until the 1980s.

These days, Kalymnos is internationally known as a rock climbing destination. It is home to 64 climbing sectors and roughly 1,700 routes.

I'm staying in the village of Masouri, which is walking distance to some of the main climbing areas and hosts a large number of studio apartments, hotels and restaurants. At this time of the year, however, most of the businesses have closed for the season. So what would be a vibrant and bustling village in the summer is now a very quiet place with only a few restaurants and shops left open to serve the small number of climbers that are left (and there are only climbers here now).

Upon reaching Masouri, I was greeted by Frank and Anastasia, the couple who own the small studio apartment that I'm renting. They are a super nice couple. Anastasia occasionally leaves me food that she has prepared, takes care of my laundry and ensures that I have fresh towels. Frank is a former electrician and speaks English with a bit of an Italian/Portuguese immigrant drawl ("How-a you-a liking Masouri?"). I'm the only one staying in their three apartments, so they take pretty good care of me.

My studio is very comfortable, with a small kitchen, wi-fi and a beautiful view of Telendos island

After getting settled, I went out to explore a bit and visit one of the climbing shops that is still open. The shop manager, Birgit, is German and very friendly. She set me up with a helmet and gave me a run down of the surrounding area. I then crossed the street to visit the well-known resto-bar, Fatolitis, where I met a Kiwi (Sam), a Canadian (Roger) and a Russian (Andrey) who were travelling together and had recently arrived from Turkey. We chatted for a while and they invited me to climb with them the following day, which I was thankful for. The challenge for me here is not just to meet people to climb with, but ideally find folks who are competent climbers (priority #1) and fun to spend time with (priority #2). With these guys, I quickly found out that I'd found out that I'd found both.

I met Rogers at Fatolitis at 9:00 the following morning. We hooked up with the other guys and another couple from Germany, Lena and Andrey. Together we headed to the famous Grande Grotta sector, which is a massive 50m high grotto a 15 minute hike up the hills behind Masouri. As noted in my climbing guide "Routes from another solar system, on radically overhanging tufa, blobs and enormous stalacites. [Grande Grotta] is definitely an obligatory stop-off point..."

The climbing in the Grotta itself is mostly quite overhanging and difficult, so I spent the day on its outer edge climbing more vertical routes. Having not climbed for several weeks, I found myself getting tired pretty quick, but enjoyed working the unique rock features which do not exist back in Ontario. It sure beat a day at the office.

Andrey being lowered from Aegialis, one of the more famous routes in the Grotta

The next day, Friday, we went to a nearby sector called Iliada, which sports a wide variety of routes and difficulty levels. There we met a nice Kiwi couple, Helen and Rick, who are travelling across Europe by minivan. Later on, we headed further up the hills to another sector called Jurassic Park.

On the way to Jurassic Park, Andrey (the Russian) and I got split up from the group and had a hell of a time finding our destination. The hills can be steep and are very rocky and overgrown with prickly bushes that you absolutely don't want to fall into. The paths are not always obvious and we struggled for about 40 minutes over tough terrain before we reached our destination, exhausted (it should probably have taken us 20 minutes).

At sunset, which occurs at 5:00, we made our way back into town and all had dinner a restaurant where they were serving a local dish called mouri. Mouri is typically served at Easter and consists of a whole lamb stuffed with a mixture of rice, ground meat, chopped lamb liver, tomato, pine nuts, onion and lots of cinnamon. This mixture is then cooked for 12+ hours. The restaurant only serves this on occasion, so we were in luck. It was phenomenal ("nostimo")

 

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