The youngest volcano in the Aegean Sea
The volcanic island of Nissiros direction. The last eruption date 1886 and the volcano is still considered active. As for the thousands of tourists each year, We want to walk in the crater between fumaroles and boiling water puddles that rise to the surface.
Saturday 5 March: Telendos
We leave Leros on track of lifeboat English along the coast looking for the gusts. We are going to the West coast of Kalymnos hope to find more wind, but a strong residual swell is reflected on the different capes and creates a completely disorderly sea that flap us in every sense. For not to fix things the wind is now zero! A glance on the map and we identify an area that should be sheltered from the swell in the channel between Kalymnos and Telendos.
The port is tiny, then we get wet to the few houses of the village right at the entrance of the port.
Behind we stand the imposing cliffs of Kalymnos. Rather arid!
The island is beautiful with a pine forest above the port and many paths to wander in the ruins of the early Christian Necropolis.
Sunday 6 March: Nissiros
Small hook from the north side of Kos where we hope to find a small port in Limnionas Bay. A barge is wet in the middle of the port and the place seems deserted with only two houses in sight who closed shutters. A look enough between the master and the crew to agree and make a u-turn. So let's directly in Nissiros.
The port of Pali offers good protection and the place lacks this season. Tao is comfortably positioned along the wharf. There is the world in the taverns and we hasten to go to the meeting of conservators. One of them organized a car rental for the following day.
First stop the Nikia village perched above the crater. The village is deserted. We see a man who sneaks into an alley and after a happy "Kalimèra" we are discussing with him a good time, sitting on a bench. He is the owner of a bar (see photo) and is glad to see its first tourists after winter rest.
He calls his wife, who opened the bar to serve us a coffee (Turkish coffee genre with the marc), While it will the grocery store looking us cheese and fresh bread.
Small steep up to the Chapel, which overlooks the village and enjoy the views of the Caldera and its three craters
Then we follow the road that descends into the caldera through Prairie and olivier until... desert parking fields!
It's awesome to be in the caldera, surrounded by mountains shaped by eruptions. We are alone and a little apprehensive by breathing the vapors of suffers and surrounded by the gurgling water that bubbles under the crater... Fortunately a person comes to water the plants in the cafeteria. It reassures and confirms that it has no risk as long as we stay away from the steam jets.
We descend into the crater...
lunar landscape where the smell of sulphur is intense
The ground on which we walk is sometimes spongy, Sometimes it sounds under our feet. The steam jets blow by their mouths lined with crystals of sulphur
And still the rustle of the water that seethes beneath our feet. We carefully walk on rocks that seem the most solid, with even a small concern that the ground collapses under our feet and we loose in a cauldron of boiling water.
The Sun drops and illuminates the strata stained around the crater
Return by the "Castro" which overlooks Mandraki, the 'capital' of the island
Where we cross the occupants of the Castle
Then the small Evangelistria monastery lost in mountains.