With this very exciting news of no school Jacques (the other intern), and Vereed (the other new intern), and I decided to take a short vacation to Mt. Olympus. With a very well known guide book and our somewhat understandable Greek, we left out on a Sunday.
Not knowing that the time changed that day, we all woke up an hour early and had to sit around waiting for the bus to come on time. It was a great and confusing start to our exciting adventure up to Mt. Olympus. We took a short 45 minute train ride to a city called Katerini that the guide book had suggested we go to … then we were to take a bus to Litohoro, and after that a taxi up to Prionia where we would begin a three hour hike to the shelter on Mt. Olympus for an overnight stay. That way we could plan on hiking as much as we could or wanted to the next day to the top.
Well … the 45 minute bus ride took us straight into Katerini — and straight into a lot of rain. We asked for help on where to find the nearest bus station and that was too far to get to so we made an executive decision and decided to take a taxi straight to Prionia. It was only five euros more than we had planned so we were set.
The rain was not going to stop us from getting to Mt. Olympus!
The taxi driver took us on a highway first and then to the exit of Litohoro. You had to go through that city to get to Prionia. The rain began to get stronger the closer we got to our destination. As we began to ascend into Mt. Olympus I could barely see anything. The windows were fogging up and the rain was coming down pretty strong at this point. All I could tell myself was to keep looking forward so that I did not get car sick.
The drive up the mountain really and honestly felt like the curvy ride up to the top of the Pinnacle at Cumberland Gap — very sharp curves, narrow and surrounded by beautiful trees and nature. Even though it was raining, we still felt that we had picked a great time to go because the leaves were starting to change and the weather was satisfying with a light jacket or long shirt.
As we drove up the mountain up ahead we saw a massive flood of water pouring down the side of the mountain into the main road that we had to drive across to get any higher up. At this is point it dawned on me that I had actually put my life into some strangers hands! The driver was even talking Greek under his breath about what he had to drive through up ahead. We all clenched as he drove forward and said our prayers as he headed on through the flooded part of the road. Our prayers were answered as passed through with great success! This, however, was not the only flooded area that he had to get through. The ride up to Prionia was at least twenty minutes — or seemed that long — with all the curves and obstacles, pit holes, floods, broken tree branches, and a gravel road.
I was really looking forward to getting to Prionia. With the rain coming down, we came up with plan B, which was to get a hotel room in Prionia and then venture out the next day to another hike if the weather agreed with us.
Great plan, but as we entered Prionia we discovered that it was not a little town or village … it was a single log cabin restaurant with a bathroom across the way outside. We kindly paid the taxi driver and went inside to the dry and warm atmosphere. As we entered everyone looked at us like we were crazy to be coming up instead of going down. Yes, we are amateurs, you don’t have to remind us. We found ourselves a seat and decided that there was no reason not to eat since we had come this far. We ordered our normal chicken and fries and the traditional Greek salad with feta. We discussed our dilemma, and were really clueless as what to do since the weather at this point was impossible to even be out in for more than two minutes.
Since we were clueless as to what to do, we played some cards and ate the delicious homemade food. I eventually got up enough nerve to other hikers what we should do about getting back down. They said call a taxi but that was a possibility that we did not want to do again. It was too expensive, so I said thank you and went back to my seat. Then the man told me that if we wanted he could fit us in his car and take us back down to the city of Litohoro and I kindly accepted their offer. These hikers were so nice and that was the nicest gesture that anyone from Greece has done for me thus far.
When we got back to Litohoro we found a nice, clean, inexpensive hotel, and … well that’s another story for my next column.
A native of Middlesboro, Emily Schneider can be contacted by e-mail at editor@middlesborodailynews.com
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