Thanks for Coming but Try Again Later

Well, what should have a been a blog of spiritual proportion (literally) has turned into really nothing more than a report on a very very long car ride and a hike into Alice in Wonderland. Wanting to take advantage of the 3 day holiday weekend (with an added 4th day) and both of us not having any commitment with our girlfriends (his in Belgrade and mine unable to walk), Sander (as seen in the Rolling Stones blog) and I decided to go visit the monasteries on Mount Athos in northern Greece. The mention of the ladies is relevant since no females are permitted on the southern most secular tip of this peninsula by Greek law. Each one of the 20 or so isolated monasteries are reachable only by boat, an official invitation visa from the High Holiness Council and reservations for a free bed made directly with the monasteries which would be visited. This is where things fell apart for us.

But prior to arrival we had a heck of a time even figuring out how to leave Kosovo. See if you have an EU plated car like many of my friends, no problem. If you have a Kosovo plate, you can only go to Macedonia and Albania. Anywhere else will charge you this made-up bullshit insurance tax, and for Greece it is 280 euros for a 1 month pass (when you only need a weekend). So when I called to reserve an EU car to find they were all booked, we were figuring we were SOL. Taking several buses at best and then renting a car once in Greece. But fortunately at the last minute we learned that some Kosovo cars at this one rental place have the right insurance so there would be no extra fee. Perfect! For 50euro/day (they gave us 4 days for 3) we sped out of Pristina in a fast new Passat with an excellent stereo system. Usually driving anywhere in Kosovo at anytime sucks due to the road conditions, traffic, crazy drivers, cows etc. But on this particular night, the eve of Bajram, the Muslim holiday, everyone was off the road at home with all the shops closed. We made it through all of Kosovo, the borders, Macedonia and into Greece in record time to arrive in Thessaloniki in time to meet up with Sander's good friend for a beer.

Now this encounter and our free night lodging almost didn't happen since Sander had left his number at work. Fortunately for Internet cafes and email we retrieved the information, met this guy's roommate to drop off the gear and headed into town to walk about and meet up for drinks. Amazing to be in a huge metro city and have so many ancient ruins all around. This place is also an insane shopping city with thousands of stores and places to eat/drink. So considering this fact it was rather ironic that we ran into another old friend of Sanders in the bar right next to where we were heading. Sander had lived/studied in this town for about a year so I guess this wasn't too unbelievable. So several beers later we crashed for less than a 4 hour sleep in order to wake up before sunrise to do another 3 hour drive to the 3rd finger to reach the boat that would take us to our final destination. So through darkness, rain and heavy fog with no clear sense of direction, we miraculously made it to our destination as they began boarding the boat.

Unfortunately it was not to be. Apparently the reservations at the monasteries didn't grant us one of the 10 foreign visa's they can issue per day. Despite my constant nagging of Sander to have taken care of this logistic he said he had taken care of things and they would work out. Well even with our begging it did not change the fact that the bookings were full until Nov 17. So instead we sat in a cafe to watch the boat pull away and the dark rainy skies opened up to add insult to injury. 7 hours drive, several hundred euros for transport and for nothing...As the gravity of the situation hit Sander he was ready to just head back to Pristina. NOT. I suggested we make the most out of it and instead walked the town a bit, thought about taking a boat cruise to see the monasteries from the water (but missed the early boat and the later might not have departed), drove out to the border so Sander could be convinced we were not 'hopping the fence and hiking in', and then we headed back up towards Thess but planned on checking out this trail head hiking map we had seen on the way in.

Half hour or so later we found a terribly calibrated map with what looked like a simple and not too long loop hike up into the mountains. With nothing better to do and the rains having temporally stopped we laced up our boots and entered into 'Alice in Wonderland'. Please, allow me to explain. For the next four hours nothing that we saw had any logic to it what-so-ever. First off the map immediately was off as we crossed intersection after intersection on the main muddy fire road upon which we were walking. Somehow though we receptively guessed the right route climbing up and up and up till we were near some major radio towers. As the trail leveled out a bit on the ridge, another road broke off to the right but went up to the highest peak in the area. So we decided to take this brief detour just to say we did it. Well low and behold there was another very expensive map stand similar to the one in the beginning with a big arrow on it suggested we were less that a quarter of the way into the loop. There were also several very nice wooden resting benching and wood trashcans with no bags (and most likely no one to ever litter into or empty later). And the clincher was if you walked up 20 feet higher to the base of the antenna tower, there was another map exactly like the one we were just looking at. To top it off this particular spot wasn't really even on the main trail. Not to mention that Greeks just do not do this type of activity too often, ever.

Well Sander and I decided to go for the entire route since we knew we were still on the right trail and had time to kill. So for the next 3 hours we came across several more of the extremely overdone hiking map signs, a new pavilion with BBQ pit and no less than 20 new picnic tables in and around it which would technically require approx 60 people to have hiked up the mountain in poor weather conditions with food (to BBQ) and everyone wanting to eat lunch at the exact same time. We even had the chance to see the fog roll across the mountain top with a little bit of sun cutting through the forest. Of course any hike in Alice's Forest needs a random pig farm in the middle of nowhere. Sander almost started a stampede feeding them chestnuts. A couple more right hand turns, several more hiking shelters, wooden trash can holders with no trash can, picnic tables, alter, and these patches of concrete for road lasting no more than 20 feet, we finally ended up at the other end of the trail. In an abandoned strip mine with no chance in hell anyone would find the final well conditioned map sign. And according to the sign post, all of this was brought to the wonderful tourists in Greece for a meer 140,000 of the EU's taxpaying euros.

As we headed toward the village and walked through its streets to reach the main highway back to the car, we saw NO ONE. The entire village was empty but had the sounds of people, colors of fresh flowers and clearly seemed like we would notice something. And the next village too. We know that places close town off tourist season but this seemed a bit extreme. We finally saw a women sitting on a bench watching as we tried to hitchhike back to the car, unsuccessfully. And just when things couldn't get any weirder, there he was watching us with those beady eyes and satirical smile; the Cheshire Cat. As I started to run we noticed this random park on the left that caught our attention. And of course it turned out to be a touch and feel psychedelic garden on the inside of an old Monastery. Too much.

Having not eaten for the entire day we drove about 15 minutes to the next big town that actually had people and a couple restaurants open. No sooner had we parked the car, stepped inside and ordered a well deserved feast, the Heavens opened up with a torrential flash flood rain that sent rivers down the hill road and across the square. As we stuffed our faces watching the storm, we realized that someone was looking out for us after all. Or at least until we arrived back in Thess and were able to contact another of Sander's friends kind enough to offer us a shower and nap until we connected back with the guy we stayed with the night before. Even though Sander lived there, even at this exact apartment I guess two years time tends to erase memory of the details. For the next 2 hours we got lost in the city where every street looks the same full of traffic, people, shops shops shops. Just when my fuse almost blew we found the apartment, were greeted with a warm sweet treat but not so warm a shower. The boiler had broken the day before so I was transported back to my backpacker days in Asia of bucket bathing from a pot of boiled water. No matter, I was clean and took no time to crash on the sofa for a nap that lasted till 9 the next day.

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At this point I had decided to cut our loses, enjoy the warm day walking around the modern city (Starbucks) and then head back to Pristina so as to not have to crash in someone else's apartment and technically kill time. There was now no reason for me to take the extra day off work and I needed to reschedule my Advertising Class with my students. The return drive was fortunately uneventful at nice standard highway speeds. I got Sander as far as Skopje where he jumped out to catch a bus to spend the next 2 days with his gal in Belgrade and I B-lined it for the McDonald's. Man, a Big Mac never tasted so damn good. Recharged, I returned to Pristina in time to spend the evening dining with a close friend and enjoying a brilliant sunny Sunday mountain biking and actually taking Pranvera out of her apartment to socialize for only the second time since her return from Belgrade. I could see how much the fresh air, different clothes and mild exercise lifted her spirits and allowed us to enjoy each others company somewhere new. As for my spiritual weekend, it was an exercise in patience, forgiveness and just rolling with it. After all, this is the Balkans.