A Difficult Day

Today we walked from Sydima to Gavuragili. There was to be a beach at the end, more on that later. The day was hot and we had to climb 400 metres in the first 5kms then flat for 5kms and then down. In the village of Bel (5kms) we were offered cold drinks from a lady on the road but as her pension was back (up hill) the way we had come, we declined (you never retrace your steps)We were then invited to a house next to the road by a lady offering tea. We sat on her verandah and she poured us turkish tea. She disappeared and her husband appeared and got on an ancient exercise bike.The lady then reappeared with a plate of fried breads filled with herbs.  They were quite tasty. She refilled our glasses many times.The husband got off his bike and indicated that he had had a stroke, pointing to his whole left side. We left offering them 10 lire which seemed very acceptable.The afternoon was most difficult. We had a final four kms along the coast , dropping 600 metres, on a steep very rocky path at a constant 30 degrees. We needed to judge every footstep as the rocks were either loose or poking up. Hot and tired we reached a Pension about 50 metres above the shore line. They had beds and beer so we stopped. We never saw a beach and suspect it was very rocky.