vikos gorge thumbs

9 am start,the restaurants were shut so i had another day without lunch.The route out of Monodendri towards the gorge is well marked,past the theatre and Agia Paraskevi and the descent to the Vikos gorge starts.At this point the gorge is not very high and the river bed good enough to walk in.Further on the rockpools appear and giant boulders have to be negotiated.After an hr( i teamed up with an older Italian couple) the river bed became impassable so we took the path on to the left side.By now we were in the deepest part of the gorge ,the actual height of the right wall was 1300m.We had a rest as we watched wild goats grazing above us.The next area is the shady side and it starts with millions of wild flowers on to very deep forest full of moss and to a flatter area with mushrooms of every variety everywhere.Passed Agia Triada the gorge widens with meadows now and loose cows grazing.Near the walnut trees it splits in two directions,one goes to the village of Vikos in 20 min while the other to Papingo in 2hrs.We chose the later and after a hard slog up a steep hot slope passed the springs of the river Voidomatis (and 6 hrs of trekking)we arrived in Megalo Papingo the end of the trek.The ride back was in the back of a pick-up track(driven by the Ladias Pension owenrs)down the famous Papingo bends and on to Monodendri. A brilliant tiring day.