Kelch!

National Day Parade

It finally stopped raining on Thursday but we still had to wait untill the afternoon to climb to let the rock dry.  Thursday also happended to be National Day in Greece which celebrates Greece's independance from Turkish occupation.  We spent the moring in Kalambaka watching the National Day parade which consisted of all the local school kids marching in a very unorganized military style to some victourious souding music.  That was it.  The whole town turned out in their Sunday best to witness this.  After some lunch, finally it was time to go climbing. 

Lisa and Gustl approach the Spindle (seen up and left of Lisa)

We set our sights on a thin, free standing tower called The Spindle and started hiking there with our new mentor, Gustl.  The approach was nothing if not sureal.  It should have only taken us around 30 miniutes to reach the base but Gustl was stopping to point out every tower that he has climbed (which is all of them) and if it was a "very good route" or "shit."  When we were finally almost there Gustl got very excited to show us the old cemetary.  We went in the gate and there were no head stones or crosses or anything.  We followed Gustl into an old room with all walls shelved from floor to ceiling.  The shelves were full of boxes with peoples picture on them.  Gustl lifted the lid off of one box to reveal a human head inside!  At this point we decided to wait outside.  Gustl then led us into another room with a trapdoor with light comming up through it.  He lifted the door and underneath were bags and bags overflowing with bones.  He then directed our attention, well actually just Lisa's; I had had more than enough and stepped outside,over a 3ft high wall to a 15ft by 15ft room on the other side completley filled with bones and skulls.  We kept trying to get Gustl to leave with us but he just kept saying "where is there problem, this life, this life."  And then he called John a "Sheizer" for not looking! (added by Lisa!) He really is hilarious and means well and is truly a good person
:-) After a few minutes we rang the chucrch bells and headed to the base of our climb.

John belaying, Gustl climbing and swearing, Lisa waiting and shivering

At the base of our climb we met two other people from our campsite who were quite excited to watch us climb, they had never seen anything like it.  It worked out great for us because now we had photographers.  The climb was 3 pitchs of hard 5.10 or easy 5.11 cobble stones.  It was great becase this was the first rock that was actually vertical and protected well enough that a fall would not leave me crippled.  I (John) led, Gustl followed me and Lisa brought up the rear.  The whole time Gustl was muttering "ooooh pain, my arms, Gustl better in cemetary."  We got to the summit of the tower without a hitch.  We both almost had a heart attack watching Gustl wander around the summit, which was no bigger than a kitchen table top, unroped looking for a place to set up a picture.  At one point he knocked a rock over the edge and noted that a fall would leave you "kaput."  We did an amazing, rope streching double-rope rappel and we were back on the ground.

Gustl rappeling, John and Lisa on summit

The other tower of note that we climbed was called Kelch, which means grail in english.  I started the lead up a moist gully but about 30 ft below the top of the pitch got nervous because of lack of protection.  I sacked up and did what any self respecting man would do; I came down and let my girlfriend lead it.  Lisa ended up leading the whole route smoothly and quickly.  After two long pitches we were on the first summit.  We then down climbed a little and did a big stretching step across to the opposite face.  (See gap in picture below.)  The last belay was miserable as the wind funneled through the gap in the rock at 40mph.  The climbing on the last pitch made up for it though; perfectly vertical finger crack and face climbing with 400ft of air below your ass.  Once on the summit we located the rappel which Gustl had installed and had boasted about all week.  He even let us use his twin ropes since our single rope would not have been long enough. Once over the edge I heard a familiar "Jeaune . . . Litsa . . . ".  Gustl had come to watch us on his famous rappel.  The rappel did turn out to be all it was talked up to be.  It was two 50m rapples, both completly free hanging (that is no contact with the wall.)  Once on the ground Gustl informed us that we went "longsome longsome" (he means slowly) and "I come to see, no Jeaune and Litsa so I go take sleep.  I come back, still no Jeaune and Litsa so I go a little motor bike, I come back and finally Jeaune and Litsa."  " I go this route alone, 1 hour." 

Kelch.  Note the gap at the top which we had to cross.

After our climb it was time for a little retsina which is a local white wine that only costs 1 euro for a half liter and tasts like wood, but for some reason is delicious. 

Today was really windy so we skipped climbing and just went for a nice long hike and packed up our stuff.  We have to leave camp at 6:30 tomorrow morning to start our journy to Istanbul.

Lisa on the summit of Kelch after a heady (scary) lead!

Crazy Opa

We left Dilys and Les in Elea and headed to a town called Nafplio for 2 days of climbing.  The bus ride there was interesting to say the least.  The bus driver was smoking with one hand and texting with the other while somehow navigating switchbacks so tight the the edged of the bus would hang over the sides of the mountain!  Overall Nafplio was a bit of a disappointment.  It was beautiful but when we went to climb it was closed due to rockfall.  It was very touristy and for some reason there were hundreds of very loud Greek teenangers from out of town.  Our "hotel" looked like a crime scene out of Law and Order.  Overall we had a good time anyway, hiking 999 steps up to a medevil castle and relaxing on a rocky beach.

After Nafplio we took 2 buses to Meteora which took about 9 hours.  Meteora is completly mind blowing!  There are 600ft conglomerate spires rising out of 2 towns, some with active monestaries on top, and most with ruins somwhere on them. 

We are staying at a funky campsite right in one of the towns, it has wifi but squat toilets (a porcilin hole in the ground that flushes).  We met a 70 year old German climber named Gustl or "Crazy Opa" which means crazy grandfather who is hilarious. To Gustl every thing is either "very good", "shit", or "kaput".  He has been coming here for the last 25 years for a few months at a time and has pioneered many of the routes here. 

We started by climbing a warm up, 4 pitch-5.7 up one of the towers which felt less like a warm up when there were only bolts every 40-50ft and little protection inbetween.  When we went to rappel the route our genious system of only having one rope and a small cord to pull it down failed miserably.  Most of the towers are less than vertical on top so the friction is too much to overcome.  We ended up rappeling down with two Czech climbers.  Later that afternoon we looked up to see Gustl soloing the same route and goats around the top of the first pitch!  The next day we climbed a short crack that Gustl put up that was 5.10a but in the same way a crack at Vedauoo is 5.10a (meaning very hard for the grade).  Again the 70 year old Crazy Opa showed us up by flying up the route on a stomach full of beer telling us water is for animals and washing, not drinking.  After that we climbed another nice route that Lisa led, again very run out. 

Yesterday it rained all day so we just hiked up to one of the monestaries and took it eazy.  It is raining again today but should be ok to climb again by tomorrow.  The campsite is interesting, right now there are 3 canadians, the German, another german couple, a man from Minnessota and a French couple biking to India!  We have our eyes on some amazing towers for the next couple of days!

More from Greece

We are still doing well in the southern Peloponnes Greece. We have spent a couple of days in a fantastic medieval village called Monemvasia. It is a big rock a few hundred meters off of the coast connected by a single causeway. You drive across the causeway and halfway around the island. That’s as far as cars can go. After that you walk through an archway gate and around a corner and you are all of a sudden in this beautiful village. We explored this village walking all around the little alleys and cobble stone paths. Above the village a cobblestone path switchbacks up the cliffs atop which you enter another archway. Through this archway is a ruined village from 1100. Most of it was completely ruined except for a gorgeous church which is in great shape.

We love just about everything about Greece and the Greek people except for 2 things. First everyone smokes everywhere. We have had waitresses smoking while serving; there are ash trays in the kitchen of restaurants, its everywhere! We really take the smoking ban in Boulder for granted. The other problem is the way that dogs are treated. There have been several cases of dogs being poisoned while we have been here. There is a young hound dog that Dilys likes a lot that lived in a house near the dumpster where we take our trash. The other day it was missing and Dilys was very worried. After a few days we saw her again but she was out of the gate and cowering more than I have ever seen a dog cower. It broke your heart, it was obvious that her owner kicked her out and beat the hell out of her to keep her away. Being a dog she was trying to go home. Dilys and Les brought her some food and today ended up bringing her home. She was very scared this morning and cowering, but she has been getting better all day. She is extremely sweet, especially considering that she has obviously been treated so bad! Hopefully she will be happy in her new home with Les and Dilys.

We will be here until Thursday when we will head to a town called Nafplio for a couple of days of sport climbing, then its up to Meteroa to climb towers and then Istanbul. More soon!

GREECE!!!

Our first post FROM Europe!!  After not sleeping for 30+ hours we made it!  Athens was a bit overwhelming, scooters flying every which way, every one honking and generally in a hurry.  I have no idea how anyone here survives past 30 without getting hit by a car.  Other than the horrendous traffic Athens seems very safe, even walking down an ally at night.  We went to the acropolis; saw the Parthenon as well as the temple of Zeus.  It is amazing seeing all of these ruins from 500 BC considering that nothing in Colorado is older than the 1800s.  There are Indians everywhere selling all sorts of useless things like toy tomatoes.  When a cop comes near they all pick up their stuff and jet.  Our hostel was really funky but worked out just great.  It was in a really cool neighbourhood with no tourists.  We took a walk at like ten in the morning and everyone we passed was an old man fingering a rosary behind his back.  There is a mountain in the middle of the city which we climbed at night to get some pictures of the city lights.  We talked with a Greek man for half an hour about owls without him knowing the word for owl.  After some charades we finally figured out what he was talking about, but I suppose that is half the fun.  As much as we liked Athens it was a big city and therefore very exhausting and we were really looking forward to getting out to the countryside; but first we had to walk all the way across Athens, through several protests with our 40lb packs to the bus station.

We took an adventurous 6 hour bus ride to arrive in Elea where we are now.  After about 4 hours the bus stopped in Sparti, and we were kicked off.  We then waited unknowingly until a bus that was headed to Molai showed up.  The bus went through all of the little traditional farm towns before arriving in Molai.  Dilys and Les, the British couple that we are WWOOFing for, picked us up.  At this point it was dark so we could not see our surroundings when we arrived.  We had a nice meal and went to sleep.  We awoke to the most amazing view across a kilometre of olive groves to the sea where there is a small fishing village.  Beyond that on the other side of the gulf is the Mani peninsula with small white villages dotting the coast and snow capped mountains behind.

The closest village, Elea, has about 500 people and zero tourists.  There is a small harbour, a few restaurants and beautiful views.  Greek food leaves something to be desired.  There are plenty of great fresh veggies and oranges and the olive oil is truly something special, but all restaurants have the same thing: overcooked meat, small whole (including the head) fried fish and greek salad.  The only disappointment so far has been finding out that the Mediterranean is totally over fished and that there is almost no seafood here. The local wine however, is amazingly fresh and you can buy a 2 litre plastic bottle of it for about 1 euro.  The local Feta is made by a girl who lives on top of the mountain in a one room stone hut with her father.  She rides a mule down to town on occasion, stopping to change into high heals and makeup on the way.  It is sheeps milk and pretty funky stuff. I don’t think that I can eat any more without getting sick.  Greek coffee is like espresso but is served grounds and all. You have to let the grounds settle to the bottom before you drink it.  We love the frapees here which are made of Nescafe.

We are having a great time working in the garden, walking around the town and sight seeing with Dilys and Les and their pooch, Foxy.  We went to a beach near Monemvassia where we found very old pottery (Roman?) on the beach instead of shells!  We haven’t done any climbing yet and are getting a bit antsy.  The amount of rock in this country is unbelievable but totally undeveloped and limestone is hard to protect so it needs bolts.  Soon hopefully.