METEORA!

I got to the bus stop a little early, just in case the bus was early. About 20 minutes before my bus was to come another bus showed up, so I asked the driver if it was mine and he said yes... but I'm not sure he knew what he was talking about. So I had time to wave goodbye to Michelle and Monica and hop on the bus. There were two American guys on the bus so I asked them to see if they were heading my way. They said no, they were headed to the Monasteries in Meteora, but we all had to catch our busses in a different town. After talking to them for a few minutes I decided to change my ticket and head up with them to the monasteries.

Justin and Tyler are Peace Corp. volunteers in Bulgaria, they were spending their 8 day vacation in Italy and Greece then heading back to Bulgaria. Justin works at a national park and Tyler teaches English and coaches kids sports. They're both 24 and have been in Bulgaria since 2007. We had a lot of time to get to know eachother - a total of 4 busses from Delphi to the switch point; there to Lamia, then to Trikala, then to Kalambaka.

They had reservations at a hostel but we decided to try to find a triple, hoping it'd be cheaper. We got off the bus, hadn't even looked up from the steps yet, and George had found us. He handed us a brochure for his hotel, '100 meters away' and offered us a 3 person room for 15 euro each. We took it sight unseen and followed him up the street. George is a little old man with about 20 English words in his vocab. He rode up the street next to us on his moped to the room.

Turns out the brochure he gave us was not for the room or even the building we were in. The room was above his shop- a mix between an antique shop with old belt buckles and swords, a Greek Orthodox Church with incense burners and hundreds of candles, and a hardware shop with tools, nails, keys, chains everywhere. Oh and a pet store too, there were birds hanging from the ceiling.

He gave us the key but it was the Turkish Delight he gave us that won my trust. That and the official hotel notice on the back of the door confirming that he was legitimate. I slept good last night!

In the morning we got up about 7:30, locked up our stuff in the back room of George's shop, got stuff for a picnic lunch from a supermarket and grabbed a taxi up into the mountains.

I can't really begin to describe the place-- you have to see the pictures. The place is named Meteora because it looks like the rocks fell from the sky; once you see the pics I'm sure you'll agree. Then, on top of these huge rocks, with sheer cliffs on all sides, monks built monasteries in the 1200's-1400's. We hiked around from the largest to another, hiking up ridiculous staircases and trails to get into the monasteries. In ancient times they had a pulley and basket system to carry up food, supplies and people. I didn't get to ride up :( but it looked like fun.

We went to 4 monasteries, then decided to hike over to the one featured in Bond's 'For your eyes only.' On the map in the book there's a trail that appears to go right through the mountain, so we took that. Long story short, after a nice hike we ended up on the edge of the grand canyon with the Bond monastery on the opposite side. On the map, the trail walks you straight off the couple hundred foot cliff, so we decided to find our own way down the otherside. Here I should mention that Justin's a pretty good climber, so he led the way. Tyler not so much... haha but we all made it off the mountain no problem.

As we walked back into town we met George, who seems to be everywhere at once, cruising on his moped. He was impressed that we hiked down, and led us to a restaurant in town where we got good food at a good price. I had moussaka, an eggplant casserole with layers of eggplant, mince meat and cheese. It was delicious, and so was the Greek Salad and rice stuffed tomatoes.

After lunch I said my goodbyes to George, who was back in his shop moments after zipping by on his moped, he gave me another little Greek sweet and some business cards for 'his' hotel to spread around.

The train ride was boring back to Athens, I was hoping to catch another train to Ancient Olympia tonight to be there in the morning, but that didn't happen. The man at the info desk gave me the 'duh, we stopped that service in March' that I guess I was supposed to know about. Luckily the hostel I stayed at earlier this week is really close to the train station so I'm hanging out here tonight until 4:30 when I have to head back to the station to catch my train.

I was thinking about going to Diros Caves and Corinth on Wednesday before heading back, but the hostel man has been talking to me and I think I might take his advice and go to Nafplia and around the coast to see a wonder of the world and some cool castles. All I know is that I have to be back in Athens by 6 am Thursday, beyond that I haven't got any plans!

Hasta luego!