Surprise Cherries! Oh boy!

Climbing Metéora:

I am in a video game.

I’m riding a bus through one of those places so majestic and fantastic, it must be fake. Rocks the size of colossi or dragons spring from the middle of tree-covered mountains. I have never been so afraid of stalling out in my life. It would be a quick-time event to try and throw myself out of the fire escape hatch into the tumbling scrub brush and forest below, then I’d spend the rest of the game limping through some lost civilization, an offshoot of the Mayans, before waking up in a hospital, being told it was all a dream.

In the sequel, I would go back, and find out that the doctors had lied. I would be forced to find the civilization, which, between this game and the previous one, had been destroyed. I would seek my revenge against the logging companies or something, like a twisted Ferngully gone ape-shit.

* * * * *

An hour later, Metéora behind us, the Greek countryside rolls past as large, rocky hills (or small mountains?); foothills of the Parnassus, I think. We’re arriving in Litochoro in an hour, or something like that. We climbed up the rocks at Metéora to see a beautiful view; it would be a spiritual experience for almost anyone. Fairy-tale woods where Snow White’s heart was cut out, and emerging from them onto a dragon spine in the middle of the sun’s heat versus a cool breeze chilling the sweat on your forehead and the back of your neck, which prickles in response to the cold. A one-foot-wide ledge and some beauty in terror later; I kept thinking something like a rock-slide would happen. But just beauty, I could see why someone would come out here for monastic solitude; there is a peace in these rocks and their caves and footholds.

This land is so varied; like people, it wears many faces. Mountains, valleys, vast farms, unworkable moors, harbors and waterlogged rivers, and places so dry, you shrivel like a snail in salt. Graffiti is thrown onto every unpainted or neglected surface, most of it poorly made, some of it really beautiful. Greece needs more graffiti artists with quality – there aren’t enough.

Delphi was… well, it was tiny. And expensive. And full of tourists (don’t get me wrong: tourism’s alright... But do we all have to hit the same towns at the same time?) Half of the stores here in Greece are labeled “eco-friendly” and half of them don’t even try. Because they just are. A/C? Open windows. Heat? Firewood. Most of the homes even have one or two solar panels outside. And then we come here and dirty their beaches, feed their strays, and buy their gimmicky t-shirts and souvenirs in every city.

* * * * *

So I got my days wrong. But I did hike [part-]way up Mt. Olympus. Katie and I wandered along every little trail that made us curious, including a trail that we found out (about ten feet down) was not a trail… Mount Olympus was gorgeous… After arriving in Lotochoro last night around 7 PM local time (11 AM central standard), we went to dinner and relaxed and turned in our homework.

But dinner… we went to a place that insisted on giving us three different desserts (ice cream pop, cherries, and cake, made by the sister of the owner), all of which were a surprise, but very good. I didn’t catch the name of the place, but they wear pink polos as a uniform. Anyway, good food, great people, very nice. The condos we’re staying in are gorgeous, and I have a room overlooking the rose garden. Everyone was confused why we were so happy to have a room on the same floor as the garden… I’m not really sure why. I’ve washed all my clothes, so they should last me the next (and final) five days of the trip. It’s weird to think how quickly it’s gone by. In a week, I’ll be back in the States, adjusting to my old time.

Anyway, Litochoro. Tonight, dinner was at a place called Papy’s, which was good. They don’t have any vegetarian dishes… I got souvlaki and a beer for 4 euros total, and that was good enough for me. It may have been less than that, but we’re not sure. Climbing up Olympus was fun, though. From where we were, we kept hearing/seeing (alternately) the river running between the mountains, and horseflies, butterflies, columbine-like flowers clinging to the rocks and slope, lichens…

We had to get there. So we kept climbing (we started at 9:30 AM) until around noon, when we ate at a bench on the path, and then turned around, found a path (or… well, what we thought was a path) down, and started slipping and controlled-sliding down the side of the mountain. We weren’t even really that sure that we’d get to a place where we could jump in, but we figured we had to try, because the water was so clear and looked so cool, compared to the hot sun beating down on us.

I was so close to the edge in some of the places. This was a rock we climbed to (and yeah, that's an almost sheer drop; note the river winding through):

So ten minutes after first starting down, we see what looks like a clear path to some rocks in the shade on the edge of the water. We get there, realize we want to jump in, and don’t want to fully saturate our jeans and t-shirts. So we went without. Which… well, probably was a mistake. The water was freezing. I mean, melted snow from the top of the mountain, freezing. It was so cold. And, surprisingly, there were water striders, and tadpoles the size of dimes with tails (as well as one fully-grown frog that was chilling on a rock and we hadn’t noticed), a few fish, and some teenage Greek boys who decided to come over and hit on us...

Hormones are the same in every country.

The oldest of them was sixteen, and probably knew English the best out of the group (or was the leader, or babysitting the younger ones), though his English was as broken as all the Greek I know. He ended up showing us a quicker way out (and in, really) of the area where we were, which led straight back to the way we’d come before going on the upper trail.

It was all a little surreal.

It was all really fun, though.

Also, spider nest: