Meteora

The only places I can liken Meteora (Μετέωρα, "suspended rocks") to are sets from fantasy movies – Middle Earth, Narnia, the landscape surrounding Hogwarts, Jurassic Park. Certain slopes reminded me of Pride Rock, and I half expected to see a baboon holding up a lion cub for a vast array of African animals below to see. But alas – there were no animals. Only giant rock pillars, shooting 600 meters or more up from the valley below, like a mangled mass of fingers reaching toward the sky. If you look closely, some rocks look as though they have faces carved into them.                                       

It is commonly believed that weathering and earthquakes shaped the rocks into their current forms tens of millions of years ago. In the 9th century, a group of ascetic hermit monks moved up to the ancient pinnacles. The great height of the suspended rocks and their unforgiving cliff walls kept away most visitors, making the hermit life easy. The monks lived in caves and cutouts in the rocks, meeting only on Sundays to worship and pray.

By the end of the 12th century, a large ascetic community had flocked to Meteora and founded the great Meteoron monastery upon Broad Rock. The setting was perfect for the monks - here atop the rocks they had complete control of entry to the monastery, which could only be reached by climbing a ladder. If ever someone suspicious came along, they just pulled the ladder up. In the late 14^th Century, the Turkish occupation led more and more monks to seek refuge at Meteora. Over twenty monasteries were built, but only six remain today.

The Train

Meteora sits smack in the middle of the country. I hadn't traveled very far inland in Greece before, so on the five and a half hour train ride I saw what mainland Greece looks like outside the cities. Athens is Greece’s largest city, with a population of around 3 million, with Thessaloniki in Northern Greece coming in second at just under a million. The route from Athens to Kalambaka (the town nearest the monasteries) was entirely rural. As I dazed, droolingly, in and out of that half-awake sleep you experience when traveling, I saw goats and sheep and cows, snowcapped mountains (which baffles me because it’s 65 degrees on the ground), and near-empty valleys stretching on endlessly below as the train snaked through the hills. I also got to watch one of the most unrestrained displays of PDA I’ve seen in a while, performed by the couple across the aisle. Barf.

When “the turtle train,” as an elderly Greek man on the train described it, finally pulled into Kalambaka, I think most of us (seven of us) reacted like, “We came six hours for this…?” Kalambaka is a rather desolate looking little town, and not in a charming way. It just looks really run down, with an American strip mall feeling.

Thankfully, as soon as we took two taxis up to the “panorama view” to watch the sun set, I understood what I had come to see. Meteora is like a city of rock formations. These ominous grey figures rise like spires into the sky. Across the valley (beyond Kalambaka) sit snowcapped mountains. The view is certainly beautiful, but there’s something haunting about it – I think because it’s so lifeless. The rocks break up in ridges at the sky, and sometimes the odd tree or two creates a silhouette against the dimming light. But the trees appear black, not green. One tree in particular looked like a large bird, perhaps a vulture crouching to devour its prey. It was also freezing up there. Because the weather down in Kalambaka had been so warm, I hadn’t brought a coat up. The wind hit me like a whip, and as the sun went down, I couldn't stop shivering.

As the light bled from the sky, we walked back to town. 8 km later in the pitch black, we were pretty hungry, and settled on a lit-up, pleasant looking taverna for dinner. A short, fat, bald man seated us at a table in the middle of the otherwise completely empty restaurant. When he returned to take our orders, we listed off the usual fare, to share for the whole table: a couple greek salads, two tzatzikis, patates (fries), zucchini balls, some fried cheeses, bread, beer, and a few meat dishes. For the first time ever, the waiter disapproved of our selection. He told us that if we got all these appetizers we'd feel sick and bloated because they'd mix poorly. He puffed up his already chubby cheeks and put his hands out in front of his stomach as if to act out the horrible consequence we’d face from such a selection. In a poorly concealed attempt to make more money, he aggressively urged us to order more mains. I was sitting there thinking, “this is a traditional Greek restaurant, and you’re trying to tell us that this traditional Greek meal is going to make us sick? Great sale, buddy." We said no thanks. He walked off in a huff. 

After he left, we began to discuss how rude he had been. My friend Eleni happens to be the loudest person I've ever met, so I think the waiter overheard her saying "What an asshole!" Sidenote: Eleni is Greek American and fluent in Greek, and loves to chat with the locals. She also likes to assume that most Greeks don't speak any English, and talks a whole lotta smack about people, in English, right in front of them. It's made for some pretty awkward situations, because from what I understand, most people in Greece understand English.

After we’d been served and had begun eating, our waiter returned and asked, "How is everything?” It was rather mediocre, but we responded that it was good. “You can't argue I don't have a good kitchen, even if the service is terrible,” he said, sarcastically, having obviously overheard our commentary. Awwwkwardd.

On Sunday morning we called the cab drivers that had driven us up to the panorama. They arrived within two minutes, and took us to the monasteries, or as close to the monasteries as you can get in a car – they take a lot of stone steps to get up to. Once inside, women are made to wear long skirts to cover even loose fitting pants. The skirts reminded me of American Apparel’s African print, and I contemplated trying to buy one, but then forgot.

A few monks still live and practice in the monasteries, but I didn’t see any. Their quarters are cut off from the part that tourists are allowed to see. What we saw were the ornately decorated monastery interiors, where prayer is to take place. Considering that it’s not tourist season, there were a surprising number of old Greek women lighting candles and doing the sign of the cross. In Greece the sign of the cross goes forehead, heart, right side and then left, unlike the left/right you see in North America. I liked the rich, deep blues and golds of the wall paintings, and I realize it must have taken forever to get them up. However, what's depicted on the walls creeped me out, big time. The imagery is almost entirely of people cutting eachother up or burning eachother or burning themselves or bleeding giant spouts of blood into the air or being swallowed by enormous fish with horribly jagged teeth. There was one room full of skulls of about a hundred monks past. So after two monasteries I was happy to get the hell out (pun intended) and spend more time enjoying the scenery.

Greg, Tom and Robyn all felt the same way, so we split off from the other three girls and hiked down into the valley that ran between the road back to Kalambaka. Tom kept saying "there's the path" and insisting that we follow it down into the gorge. Although at first there did seem to be a path, by the time we were about 200 m down into the abyss there was nothing left to follow. Attempting to relocate the path, we crisscrossed a fairly wide stream two or three times, and had to contend with some very slippery rocks. We tromped through bushes of thistly thorns and soon I was covered with prickles. I’ve been pretty itchy all over this past week, and I’m wondering if maybe I got poison ivy. At about three pm I started panicking in my head, thinking, “we're definitely going to miss our (5:30) train. We're gonna be stuck here all night and get attacked by bears, or at least snakes. Definitely.”

Somehow, we miraculously made it back to the road and had time to walk down to a taverna (a different, better one) and get lunch before returning to our hostel and heading off to the train. Though I was momentarily convinced I’d be eaten by a bear, our little adventure into the gorge got me really excited for more outdoor exploration. I can’t wait for island hopping to begin.

While we were down in the valley, the other girls saw a naked man standing in the woods next to the road. Perhaps it was a monk, doing some sort of spiritual exercise. I’m sorry I missed it.

In other news, I had my first real full length conversation in Greek the other night, with a taxi driver. I was very proud. His name was Stellios and I’d say he was about sixty. Before I got out of the cab, he insisted on writing his number down for me in case I ever needed a cab again. "Or, you know, if you want to get coffee or something." Ha.