The Middle Finger

Today was a circular tour of the Mani Peninsula, the middle finger of the Peloponesse. Our first stop would be the Pyrgos Dhirou caves. There was some deliberation about whether we should do this given H's meltdown at the Castleton mine in Derbyshire but I assured her it wouldn't be as claustrophobic although I didn't really know.

As we stood at the cave entrance complete with life jackets I began to fear the worst. We were taken down a few steps and loaded on to a small punt that seated about 8 people. This punt would be navigated for about 1200m through the cave system by a big Greek bloke who spoke no English and was armed with only a 4 foot paddle come rock 'pusher-offa'. So my latest musings on Greek health and safety. No briefing of any sort, for once there were leaflets in multiple languages, unfortunately the English one had 'finished'. Life jackets were a sensible idea but considering the water was rarely more than a few feet deep you wouldn't have thought critical. Now given that during the trip you spent a considerable amount of time bobbing and weaving around low hanging stalactites, hard hats may have been a far better option! Seriously there must have been cases of stitches required, we were lucky to be sat at the front so we could see them coming, not the case for those behind. After the boat section you got to walk another 300m to the exit. We both really enjoyed it and I have to say hats off to the 'punter' who manoeuvred his craft with great skill. There were a few English folk around, mainly Essex I think so we moved swiftly on after the caves.

The rest of the Mani peninsula is mountainous and famous for its

towers. Due to the difficulty accessing the area it has resisted pretty much all occupations and remained largely automonous from the rest of the Peloponnese. The population has dwindled considerably and we hardly saw a sole. It was pretty bleak and desolate if that's possible with blue skies and seas, but was well worth a visit.

While pulled over in the middle of nowhere to take one of these photos a van pulled over, sounded the horn and a chap started shooting something in Greek. I thought I'd parked somewhere I shouldn't but soon worked out he was the local baker and wanted to sell me some bread. He opened the back of the battered old transit to reveal wall to wall bread, pies, pastries, crisps, drinks. We had a couple of pies and some bread, delicious. Summed the area up really.