It should be a given and, without minimizing the horror of the tragedies that saw at least three people die, tourists in Greece apparently will have to be given a warning not to hike alone in over-100 degree heat on rocky, hilly islands without enough water, a cell phone, a hat, or sunglasses. Better yet: go swimming or stay inside.
It’s still befuddling after all these years to see tourists wilting in the Greek summer heat – now upon us in the spring – and slowly fading as they try to navigate the stairs to the Acropolis and stand on the sunbaked rocks, where there’s no trees, and many without hats or sunglasses or water, you know, just in case.
The heat in Greece, like the sun, can overwhelm even the physically fit, so it’s still a mystery why noted British TV doctor Michael Mosely, known for pushing intermittent fasting, set out on an arduous hike alone on the island of Symi.
He didn’t make it, said to have died from natural causes while alone on an especially difficult walk and climb, his body found just 100 meters from possible safety at a resort where he could be seen, but wasn’t.
He had an umbrella, not enough protection as it turns out, but not his cell phone. His wife, Dr. Claire Bailey, devastated by the loss of her husband, now has to live wondering why he took such a chance.
“How long he had survived there is hard to tell but he had walked a very long way. He was close to where he wanted to get to,” said police spokesperson Konstantina Dimoglou of the tragedy that needn’t have happened.
After that was reported, a retired Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff with dual U.S.-Greek citizenship, Albert Calibet, decided he would go on a hike alone too in the searing sun, on the island of Amorgos, despite what happened to Mosley.
He had been visiting Amorgos for years and knew its hiking routes well, according to local officials, who believe he might have opted for a more challenging course. The trek he told friends he planned to take was a 12-mile trail south to Katapola, an established route for walkers, the New York Times said.
“He had walked that route many times,” said Deputy Mayor Calliope Despotidi. “He may have chosen to take a tougher route, and perhaps overestimated his capabilities. The heat has been intense,” she said.
Therein lies the problem. Noel Coward famously sang that ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ go out in the midday sun without hats, either oblivious to it or believing they won’t be affected, with that sense of British stiff upper lipness.
On the island of Samos, near Turkey’s coast and where refugees and migrants are being held in a detention center because they want asylum and a new life, a 74-year-old Dutch tourist died while taking a hike in blistering heat.
He was found face down in a ravine, taking some time because he, too, decided it was safe to walk alone, rather like swimming by yourself in Sydney Harbor, because what are the chances a shark will get you?
The purpose behind saying all this is the hope that perhaps – almost certainly unrealized – that with the summer not yet begun that other tourists in Greece might think twice or more before hiking without friends, water and the right gear.
Besides these tragedies, an American tourist from Floral Park, NY died on the small island of Mathraki – population 174 – and a 45-minute boat ride from Corfu in the Ionian Sea off Greece’s west coast.
“He was found in the surf on the beach at a spot which had already been searched, so it seems he was washed out of the sea,” Deputy Mayor Spyros Argyos said, the man last being seen dropped off at his rental house by two British women tourists he’d met at a tavern, and then they left the island, no further details reported.
He turned out to be a well-known horse trainer, Toby Sheets, aged 55, but the circumstances and cause of his death weren’t initially revealed, nor if he too had gone on a hike or what happened to him.
The temperature has been over 90 degrees for much of June and predictions are that it will continue the rest of month, already breaking records for being so hot so early and with complaints tourists aren’t being advised about the dangers of hiking paths.
On the tiny South Aegean island of Sikinos, two French female tourists, 63 and 74, also vanished after going on a hike, one not bringing a cell phone and the other apparently switching hers off after sending a text message to the owner of where they were staying that she’d fallen.
Mayor Vassilis Marakis told Greek TV that, “they went out for a walk … in the heat … and now we can’t find them” – more likely and saddening, their bodies. Curiously, the three tourists found dead took time to be found.
On Crete, an 80-year-old Belgian man who had been walking with a group died near the ancient site of Lato, said police, adding that two other tourists, a 70-year-old Frenchwoman and a Dutch man, 70, died hiking, most of the victims elderly. Let’s hope they are the last because the real summer heat is coming.
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