This will be the last sound of the outside world: in a roar of backfiring machinery, the boat moves away from the southern end of Mount Athos, like a monster of scrap ebbing with a crash, leaving us on this deserted quay, whipped by the wind. and the surf.
Above the reefs, the wild escarpment of the Athonite "desert"
(relating to Mount Athos, editor's note)
overhangs us in an intimidating way with, emerging from the maquis, the tenuous silhouettes of a handful of cells and hermitages: the village monastic, or
skite
, of Kafsokalivia!
It is the geographically most removed point of the forbidden zone, in an atmosphere at the end of the world.
What a daring bet this attempted immersion against time on the easternmost finger of the trident of Chalkidiki, south of Thessaloniki.
With, as a guideline, this insane string of monastic fortresses and eremitical huts spread all around the peninsula, that is to say about 2500 voluntary recluses – a figure…
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