(I've put off publishing this post because it's not very worthwhile without pictures, but due to some tragic camera mishaps, all the pictures I took on Mary's camera are currently stranded on her camera and not on her memory card...but even so, here's the imageless story:)
It takes no great feat of imagination to understand why the Greeks considered Mount Olympus to be home of the gods.
It was an adventure from the beginning of the bus ride, as Nadia (the head of CYA) made the last of us sign away our lives in a waiver, handed each of us a parting present of a nutella-filled croissant-ring-pastry, closed the bus doors and sent the 25 of us off on our own with not another word of explanation. After about twenty minutes, we stopped at the side of the road and picked up two young-ish Greek men, one wearing a Georgetown shirt, the other wearing a shirt that depicted a sign with two stick figures, one kicking the other, with the words "THIS IS SPARTA" above. At first I thought these were two strangers also hiking Mount Olympus, but then Georgetown man took a roster with our names and phone numbers and put it in his pocket, and I realized they were our guides...or at least, I hoped so.
After an hour, the bus pulled into a gas station/rest stop (side note: this was no average American rest stop; I could buy anything from a Playmobile set, to a package of handmade dried pasta, to a Cyndi Lauper CD here). As the bus was stopping, one of the men announced, "We will have a twenty minute break." Still no further explanation. It wasn't until after we got back on the bus and had driven another fifteen minutes that the man picked up the microphone and began to read off of a piece of paper:
"Hello, my name is Kristos. And this is my friend, Yannis." It carried on in this very formal, scripted manner, as Kristos explained our itinerary: "This is a very dangerous trail. Many people have died...heh heh heh" and let out a sinister laugh. It was worrisome enough that we were on a bus in the middle of nowhere in Greece with two strangers. The fact that one of these men was laughing sinisterly at the prospect of death was not particularly reassuring. Later, I could hear the two of them repeating parts of the speech: " 'My friend, Yannis'...hahaha...'many have died'...hahaha" and chuckling to themselves. It later became clear that Nadia had provided Kristos with a typed-out script, and this was why they had been laughing, but at the time it made me uneasy about who exactly our guides were.
But they turned out to be quite amusing, good-natured guides. We made it up to the refuge--miraculously without any accidents, despite having to navigate a rocky path in darkness--ate dinner, and put our stuff into rooms. Both the dinner and the rooms were much nicer than expected. I spent a good hour wrapped up in every article of clothing I had brought and more that I had borrowed, lying on the ground looking up at the stars, which were unbelievable. I would have stayed out all night if the fog hadn't moved in and slowly erased all of the stars from the sky.
The next morning we set off for Zeus's throne, by far the more stunning half of the hike. I really felt like I was on top of the world when we reached the bottom of the summit--and I suppose, being at the highest peak of Greece, I was on top of the world to some extent. It was a perfectly clear day, with a spectacular view all the way down to the ocean and all the way up to the heavens.
It takes no great feat of imagination to understand why the Greeks considered Mount Olympus to be home of the gods.
It was an adventure from the beginning of the bus ride, as Nadia (the head of CYA) made the last of us sign away our lives in a waiver, handed each of us a parting present of a nutella-filled croissant-ring-pastry, closed the bus doors and sent the 25 of us off on our own with not another word of explanation. After about twenty minutes, we stopped at the side of the road and picked up two young-ish Greek men, one wearing a Georgetown shirt, the other wearing a shirt that depicted a sign with two stick figures, one kicking the other, with the words "THIS IS SPARTA" above. At first I thought these were two strangers also hiking Mount Olympus, but then Georgetown man took a roster with our names and phone numbers and put it in his pocket, and I realized they were our guides...or at least, I hoped so.
After an hour, the bus pulled into a gas station/rest stop (side note: this was no average American rest stop; I could buy anything from a Playmobile set, to a package of handmade dried pasta, to a Cyndi Lauper CD here). As the bus was stopping, one of the men announced, "We will have a twenty minute break." Still no further explanation. It wasn't until after we got back on the bus and had driven another fifteen minutes that the man picked up the microphone and began to read off of a piece of paper:
"Hello, my name is Kristos. And this is my friend, Yannis." It carried on in this very formal, scripted manner, as Kristos explained our itinerary: "This is a very dangerous trail. Many people have died...heh heh heh" and let out a sinister laugh. It was worrisome enough that we were on a bus in the middle of nowhere in Greece with two strangers. The fact that one of these men was laughing sinisterly at the prospect of death was not particularly reassuring. Later, I could hear the two of them repeating parts of the speech: " 'My friend, Yannis'...hahaha...'many have died'...hahaha" and chuckling to themselves. It later became clear that Nadia had provided Kristos with a typed-out script, and this was why they had been laughing, but at the time it made me uneasy about who exactly our guides were.
But they turned out to be quite amusing, good-natured guides. We made it up to the refuge--miraculously without any accidents, despite having to navigate a rocky path in darkness--ate dinner, and put our stuff into rooms. Both the dinner and the rooms were much nicer than expected. I spent a good hour wrapped up in every article of clothing I had brought and more that I had borrowed, lying on the ground looking up at the stars, which were unbelievable. I would have stayed out all night if the fog hadn't moved in and slowly erased all of the stars from the sky.
The next morning we set off for Zeus's throne, by far the more stunning half of the hike. I really felt like I was on top of the world when we reached the bottom of the summit--and I suppose, being at the highest peak of Greece, I was on top of the world to some extent. It was a perfectly clear day, with a spectacular view all the way down to the ocean and all the way up to the heavens.
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