I sit above a taverna in Karavostasi, a small collection of buildings and houses in a bay at a breaking point in the formidable Taygetus just north of Areopolis. The hills flanking the bay drop steep down to the water. I remember the approach: coming down from the attacking peaks of the north, the new folds of mountains and hills running along the coast looked like a row of great sphinxes, lined up and facing out to the Messinian gulf. Their heads barren and scorched by the sun to a pale, dead brown, their legs laid down to the sea.

Four days ago I had arrived to a derelict Kalamata, wondering through the dusty streets in search of anything open. One o’clock in the afternoon on a Sunday was not the best time to arrive; a combination of daily siesta and church day saw to it that most of the shops and establishments were reduced to dented, rusting shutters covered in scribbles of graffiti, giving the impression of many years’ abandonment. I found a small hotel near the station and waited for the town to return to life as the sun released its sweltering grip on the streets.

The view down the main street framed purpling peaks shooting up in ranks to the north. The dusk light softened the jagged points and derelict sides, as if I were an ant on some great, deep purple meringue, the calm tops of sugar walling in this town at the horizon.

I set off early the next day, first down to the shore along an oblong park—once the continuation and eventual end of the railway line from Athens. Five great relics of steam locomotion sat stranded on short stretches of rail amidst the pavement and dirt. The old railway station, now converted to a kiosk and café, still maintained its careful ironwork and wooden slatted roof and spoke of Victorian era architecture. At the beach-front, a row of hotels overlooked the great gulf, with the arms of the Taygetus and the Lykodimo mountains stretching around on either side. Many of the hotels lay gutted; the signs faded, the windows empty, the ground floors boarded and fenced off. The seafront seemed dull and dreary without the sun to brighten its facade—perhaps also an effect of the recent Greek economic crisis, which sent many a business under.

I traipsed east, seeing the peninsular of the Mani stretch in folds and ridges to the south. From afar, the central range seemed tame and inviting, the early-morning light casting a sweet blue-grey light across what looked like quiet shrubbed flanks. The main road curved around the bay, veering south and following the coast through Paralia Vergas and Almiro before reaching up into the foothills and wriggling over gorges through Kambos and Stavropigi to end up at Kardamyli, returning once more to the sea.

Even before the sun had risen above the Taygetus, traffic flowed past, pushing me into the bushes. I escaped up a dirt road, heading through terrace upon terrace of olive groves. Each squat, torn-looking trunk twisted into an explosion of fine spearhead-shaped leaves, collected in bunches and reaching upwards away from stems dotted with tiny hard green olives. The track continued up and sweat began sliding down my arms. Dogs alerted the whole hillside of my presence, following me to the reaches of their leashes or gates and warding me off. A small dip followed the track on its right, infested with a tangle of wild bramble and spiny brush; a winter stream currently hidden underground as a trickle of moisture, safe there from the sun’s rays. It reached a tendril up into the hills beyond, but a metal gate blocked the way ahead for me. Disheartened, I waited a moment, catching my breath, and walked down again. The dogs picked up where they had left off with frantic yelps that sparked conversation with dogs much farther away, as if these dogs were alerting the whole hillside, warning others to keep a watchful eye for this dodgy-looking traveller with his rucksack and foreign smell.

Through Olive Groves

Rather than return to the road, I took a detour across a balcony of olive trees, tramping down the tall tufts of dry grass left to grow amok whilst the olives ripened. I consulted my map and found that nearly every other road or track leading up away from the coast joined into a network, allowing for parallel travel—except the unlucky one I had chosen. I continued across the terraces, passing over a number of low dividing walls.

The sun had risen by now, clearing the soft mist that hung over the mountains to my left in the early morning. Without their veil of grey-blue silk the torturous escarpment presented a barren landscape, untamed by olive terrace or road. The Taygetus had long protected the Mani from all but the most ardent or desperate visitor. Its villages and communities began as escapees from Sparta and Constantinople, driven out by invasion or suppression—at different times—by the Persians and the Turks. They lived in tribe-like hamlets and towns, cordoned off from mainland Greece by the insurmountable peaks, with only a few natural passes and gateways leading down into the Deep Mani.

Even between the years of 1776 and 1821, during the Turkish occupation of the rest of Greece, they were unable to fully subdue and overcome the Maniots, instead resorting to the appointment of Beys—effectively princes—to oversee the territory and its people. These Beys, although feigning allegiance to the Turks, kept the interests of their people at the foremost, and eventually led the way in Grecian revolt against the oppressors and the eventual War of Independence, leading to Greece’s freedom.

With their original migration to the Mani effectively forced upon them, they were left to live and survive in a predominantly desolate landscape, especially towards the south of the peninsula. They became renowned for their aggression and piratic tendencies, though such a façade of fierceness covers nothing but kindness these days.

Even now, in a world devoid of barriers from travel, the Mani presents a feeling of traditional quality. Sure, tourist visit the historical sites and ruins that scatter the hills and shore, but it is an elder bunch; couples in search of a true break from the outside world, or the adventurous type, more interested in a cultural experience than an ice cream and a cold beer on the beach. I would later see the exception to this apparent trend, in Stoupa, where swathes of German and Northern Greek families swelled onto the beach there, icy beers in one hand and ice creams in the other. At least for now, though, my small idyllic world was safe.

Ruins in the Hills

My road bumped over rock and hillock, venturing out beyond the scatter of houses of the far reaches of rural Kalamata and into plots of olive trees that expanded from sea up to mountain, confined only by the cliffs to the west and the steep, sharp edges of the Taygetus to the east. I passed a few high-walled properties enclosing fine-kept lawns and stately buildings, obviously new but build of old rough stone, as if a thousand years old.

The road escaped even these few settlements and wove across more barren land, before joining up with the main road as it snaked towards Kouris. Wanting to stay closer to the coast—and away from the steep, ribboning main road—I took a dirt track south and down the side of the valley that the road continued to follow. As my track dropped around a fold, I saw a cluster of crumbling buildings on a rise beyond. I hiked up and explored what turned out to be an extensive ruin of a number of old buildings. Most were not much more than piles of loose stones, but some maintained the idea of a wall or foundation square. A number of sagging archways still held up against their own weight, leading through to roofless enclosures or down into a now-filled cellar. It was hard for me to tell if the buildings had survived since ancient times, seeing occasional use until a recent abandonment, or if they were constructed perhaps during the Venetian rule as outposts and guard towers against numerous pirates. Now all that attacked these ruins was the tangle of spiked bushes, thorns, and thistles and the splitting roots of a few wild olive trees. Scrambling over the stones left my hands and legs scarred and dotted with a hundred splinters.

After returning to the main road for a hundred metres, another dirt road veered towards a small house in the middle of a huge property of olive trees lined in great rings and layered down the sides of the small hill upon which the house stood like a speck of salt resting on the whirls of a finger-print. The approach seemed far more like a driveway to me, with empty barrels and piles of firewood lining the path and three dogs yapping at my feet as I neared. I checked the map; sure enough, the track continued past the house, down into the far valley, and back up the other side. Upon reaching the metal gate of their garage, I saw a barely-worn path leading around the house and followed that down into the ranks of olive terraces. The track vanished amongst the trunks. There was no trace of a way through, only small tracks leading down to the lower levels that looked more like minor landslides than anything else.

I cut a course down the balconies of hard earth, headed in what I hoped was the right direction; the track on the other side of the dip, if it existed, was hidden amongst tall bushes and wild trees. As I trampled through the long grass at the bottom of the small fold, I stumbled onto a well-worn path. It could have been nothing more than a frequented animal trail, but I followed it, if only to save my legs from more scratches. Path turned into track turned into turned into dirt road turned into crumbling concrete road, and I was back on track. The road led out of the whorl of olive lines and onto the scrubland that dominates all uncultivated land: low bushes and wild fig and citrus trees in scraggly clumps amongst dry strands of wild wheat and crispy thorn shoots amassing to tangled webs of spikes.

The houses here nestled into the hill and I passed a cluster large enough to need a tavern and a small kiosk; enough for me to refill water and buy a tomato to add to the rest of my ingredients for dinner. The Kalamatas-Areopolis highway led through this small village, Megali Mantineia, and just out of the collection of buildings I could see down into a steep-sided gorge. On the far side, wild shrub and brush clung to the roc and I decided to follow the road down to the coast rather than try a bush-bash straight across, as I had planned to do before seeing it in person. The road splintered close to the sea, splitting into thin, tight alleyways and dropping almost vertical through the cluster of houses jutting out from the inclines that stretched back up the gorge. I stopped in this latest village, Akrogiali, for a few hours, resting on a bench under a palm-frond umbrella.

Behind me, the high-street ran along the beach, holding numerous small cafés and tavernas, sometimes topped by apartments and studio flats. Further along, the buildings were modern blocks of cuboid concrete painted white or fresh green and housing holiday rents and more apartments. To the south, one side of the gorge I had followed earlier protruded out into the sea, cracked halfway out by the coastal road cutting its path south. Towards its sheer end, four kids stood on a small ledge some five metres above the water. They were peering over, goading and daring each other to jump. I turned away, distracted by a sudden wind picking up over the sea. Above and behind me the sky had turned dirty dark grey as heavy clouds rolled over the Taygetus, rising over its sharp peaks like the foreboding smoke of a forest fire. Dropping a few specks of water, it swept across the Messenian gulf towards the northwest, halting over Kalamata and dropping its payload there. The heavy greyness merged down to the ground, confined to an area some five kilometres wide and centred over Kalamata. Behind me, the Taygetus Mountains were already releasing softer white clouds and patches of blue sky. The wind calmed as far off rumbles of thunder echoed off the wall of rock behind me.

A splash to my left made me look back to the promontory of rock to see the last kid take a few strides and bound off the ledge to join his friends in a splash of white.

As the sun drove on to the other side of the great Gulf and the air cooled, I set off for the crack in the outcrop, following the road past more apartments and restaurants and now some small resorts. A rough concrete road strode up a hill into rough land beyond. I checked the map and saw it offered a scenic way through the lower levels of the Taygetus before weaving back to the coast at Kardamyli, right where I wanted to be. The climb was long and steep. Despite the cooler evening air, I was soon drenched in sweat. Atop one of the many crests along the way I saw a great parting in the Taygetus stretching out before me. A valley of sorts spread into the distance. The tall peaks spread to the left and right of me as soft hillocks lead the way through. Each topped or dotted with an old church or tower; some bearing more, a cluster, a collection, a village. The road had levelled out somewhat by now and I considered it a victory. The cicadas, before an incessant buzz and click, became an invisible audience to my achievement. Their screech was that of applause, a rattling of legs where no hands existed to clap.

The Majority of my Walking Path

Shadows stretched and the lowering sun brought a warm glow to the hills, and like the glow of orange firelight, it drew me onwards, across terracotta soil and around small folds in the rippling hills. I passed through Kato Doli and headed onwards for Malta, hoping for a suitable patch of ground for a tent or a cheap guesthouse in the hills. A sign directed me up a precipitous alleyway. An old woman made her precarious way down the stone road, one tiny step after another. I ventured up, and at the top, the road split into small side streets leading past old stone buildings.

I asked around for a place to stay, but my words fell on confused ears, until one man called out his son, who spoke English. He asked if I was looking for a hotel, but his face looked ready to bear the bad news: none existed for thirty kilometres around, at least. But I had my tent, so he led me around on his veranda to point out a plot down the hill from his house. A basketball court and football pitch sat in an alcove road curving around the valley. ‘There’s a basketball court down there. You can camp there.’ I thanked him with a slight grin; it seemed an unlikely spot. ‘Some people will come to play at around nine,’ he warned, ‘but when they leave you can camp there, no problem.

Sure enough, the courts were surrounded by rough stony ground. I tested it with the pegs and struggled to get them in further than a few centimetres. With no other option left at this darkening hour, I fixed up my plain meal of spaghetti with ham and tomato and began setting up the tent as best I could. A few kids began filtering down to the courts. They looked over at me, curious, humoured, perhaps incredulous, but didn’t say anything.

My ample body heat from the day’s trek turned the tiny tent compartment into a sauna within seconds. I lay sweltering. The kids bounced and shouted around the courts. As a feeble breeze wafted in and evaporated a few drops of sweat off my body, I managed to drift into an uncomfortable sleep.