The day of two turtles, neardeath, wooden crosses and Greek meatballs! 11/4-2013

Today was gonna be a great day was my plan. I got up early in order to see the monasteries of Meteora, more specifically the monastery of Metamorphosis. The region is called Meteora, it means "middle of the sky", "suspended in the air" or "in the heavens above" as they are built on the mountain tops, both the monasteries themselves and the unusual looking mountains are sights to behold. The staff at my hotel suggested to get a cab up there and walk down and I took their advice, it was a beautiful, hot day.

The monastery I visited, one of  several monasteries in this area, is the one to the right, the one on the left in the distance is the monastery of  Varlaam that was closed this day.

It's really mind boggling how they have managed to build these feats of human capability. The monasteries itself is still active and since it's a very popular tourist destination in this part of Greece it has developed into a museum of sorts, way more interesting than "just" seeing a regular church or monastery. It was filled with beautiful artifacts, among them wooden crosses that were hand carved with such intricate and exquisite craftsmanship it had a magnifying glass attached in front of it so viewers could see all details. As is customary with these kind of places photography and video recordings are strictly prohibited. Some of the allowed pictures I took are these;

There wasn't any description who these skulls were remnants of but I guess it's monks that has died. 

I walked around there in wonder over human creativity and determination, it does not require Christian beliefs to appreciate the beauty of it's creations and be moved by events of positive and negative nature during it's existence.

On my way from the monastery I bought a Börek filled with spinach and cheese and a beer, I enjoyed it at a nearby resting spot.

As I started walking home I was in a great mood, my plan was to view some of the other monasteries from the outside and just enjoy the summer heat. I checked the tourist map and decided to take a marked hiking trail down to town. I started following what looked like a trail in between three massive cliffs through small passages until I reached a dead end with a cliff too steep to get down from. I went back up and thought it has to be the crevice next to this one then.

Before things got pear shaped.. 

The town of Kalampaka, just out of reach.

Thorny bushes!

This is what it looked like in the easy parts.

This is where things started to become a bit dangerous, the way down the second canyon was very difficult, lots of sharp thorns on bushes, difficult passages through rocks and places where I had to press my back against the rock wall and use my legs to press against the opposite wall to get down, parts where I had to lie on my back and balance on my hands and feet downwards because the cliffs were very steep and with gravel here and there. I am not kidding it was a few times where I was scared that if I loose my footing here I might fall to my death.

Yes it was stupid, ok, very stupid but you sure feel alive when you manage to get past an obstacle. The really bad thing was that this too, turned out to be a dead end. I should have known but both those "trails" where actually just dried out beds where thawing snow and rain has been flowing down the mountains, it didn't really look like a hiking trail I guess I blame heat stroke or something...

So after a couple of hours of sweat, blood from getting scratched by thorns, insects enough to skip lunch, cobwebs, fear of tics, snakes and spiders AND beautiful scenery I got back to where i started only to realize I had gone of the road at the wrong place - the real hiking route was on the tourist map and I wouldn't have missed it if I had been paying attention.

When I started it I just happened to notice a small turtle sitting in the grass and eating various things in front of it, I shot some video of it and it looked really cute! Like 30 minutes later I went along the hiking trail and heard a lot of noise in the bushes near me, I was thinking it was a human rummaging around in there but after a few seconds I see the tops of grass move around near a brick wall along the trail, as I watch over the wall I spot another turtle moving along in the grass, probably the most noisy turtle ever.

Mr Turtle!

The real hiking trail.

View of the Meteora mountains, some of them at least.

 After that I slept an hour in my room and went out to have dinner.

Greek meatballs fried in olive oil and drenched in tomato sauce, eggplant stew, rice, potatoes and beer finish a wonderful day, among the best of the trip!