Wandering Meteora

Friday, Sept. 16, 2016--Kastraki/Kalabaka (Meteora)

I didn't want to visit more monasteries, so I picked out a trail that two different groups recommended to me yesterday.  It, too, leads to a monastery, but much of the trail is in the hills before heading up the mountain.  The trail goes behind the town of Kalabaka from west to east before heading up to Agiatrias.  First, I had to walk from Kastraki to western Kalabaka which takes about 30 minutes.  On that part, I stopped at a bakery and bought myself a thick slice of spinach-cheese pie to eat for my breakfast.  Then, at the edge of town, I started the trail.  After crossing the northern side of the city to get to the base of the mountain (another 30 minutes or more), I still continued up the trail maybe 1/3 of the way.  By then, I was tired and hot and had less than half a bottle of water left.  After resting in the shade awhile, I decided to come back down to town.

One problem here is the flies.  I had been told about them, and the owner of the guesthouse said there are fewer than usual this year, but a few more mosquitoes than normal.  Well, the flies have bothered me all day today.  They seam to like sweat, and I know they like my hair gel when combined with perspiration.  They want to swarm around my head all the time!  That was another reason for cutting the hike short.

I met an American couple of Japanese descent at that moment.  They had taken the bus up to the monastery and were walking down the trail.  We walked together and talked.  I told them I was going to a supermarket to buy some things, and they wanted to join me.  (They had until 17:00 to spend in town, because they were taking the train to Athens at that time.)   We talked about lots of subjects.  She is a chemist with Merck Pharmaceuticals, and he is in IT.

At the supermarket, they were buying more than I was.  I had decided I wanted to sit on my balcony tonight until the sun had set, so I was buying things to eat and drink.  Also, I was getting enough to have tomorrow as my breakfast before the bus leaves.  The Japanese-American couple were still shopping when I finished and left.

By the time I walked back to my guesthouse, it was 14:30 and hot.  I sat outside in the shade on my balcony and read the news on the computer.    After that, I read in my book.  Finally, around 19:00, I ate--a ham and tomato sandwich on a nice seed-filled bread with a half-liter of Greek beer.  For dessert, I had five fresh plums.  The sun still was not down, so I went back to my book.  I was reading the last pages of it just as the sky was turning colors and starting to darken.

The book is a bit unusual for me.  It's not a novel, but it reads like a novel.  It is a true story of people living in a slum in Mumbai written by an American woman who went there to live among them and write about their lives.  Like so many other books about India I have read, it is quite depressing because of the circumstances of their lives with things often getting worse rather than better.  The book is Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, and it won the National Book Award for non-fiction.  Even though I didn't like what was happening in the book, it was well written and well documented.  It's an extraordinary achievement.  I gave it 4 out of 4 stars.