#litohoro

Saving people, hunting things, driving in dad’s car -- all part of a month’s travels. Okay, it’s actually been only 3 weeks (not even), and as much as I wish, I’m not Sam & Dean’s half-angel/half-human sister (you do not even want to know my head canon around this) who they love aaaaalmost as much as they love each other (okay I’ll indulge this nugget: sam and I are captured by monsters and dean is forced to choose. obviously he chooses sam but sam trying to talk him into choosing me and me being noble like, no, no, obviously choose sam, i love him most too). And I haven’t even been watching supernatural lately! (It’s been all Game of Thrones & GoT recaps, theories, etc. etc.)

Anyway. In between staying on top of my Game of Thrones theories and stoking the fires of my Wincest head canon, I’ve been backpacking around northern Greece. Woo! First stop, where I flew in from Berlin, was Thessaloniki. I had a lovely walking tour of the city centre on my first day there, but had only booked 2 nights so before I could dig a little deeper into its history, I was off to the (c)halkidiki peninsula, to a little town called Kalamitsi and a camping ground there called Thalatta Camping. At first it wasn’t what I expected -- hot (I mean, duh, Meg!) and buggy, and pretty spartan. BUT I quickly got used to it and by my first full day I wish I’d booked more than two nights there. What did I love?

the beach -- little pebble stone beach, a bar with smoothies and hard liquor right there on the beach, perfect translucent green-blue water that was so freaking salty I didn’t have to do a damn thing to stay afloat in waters well over my head

it’s a family place -- this helped me feel safer, alone in the wilderness, shall we say.

sunsets, sunrises, wifi on the freaking beach

cool nights

idk I could go on but it was really lovely. Only downers were the bugs, for sure, the fact that I got super spooked on both nights there and couldn’t sleep very well for my vigilance surrounding every sound and shadow, and that the cheap digs were sold out so I was riding a little over budget (or would have been, had I stayed longer or gone back). I had this little camper van that they called a caravan, and it was glorious to have a large (it was cramped but it was all mine!) space to lock my stuff up in, vs. a tiny bed in a hostel. And there were no top bunks! In retrospect I’m glad I had the caravan because I don’t think I would have slept a wink in a tent due to the potential for exacerbated safety fears. I’m working on a more essay-y piece about this wariness, fear, safety, etc. but want to clarify that I was, in fact, totally safe the entire time there. Sometimes I think wariness contributes to safety but sometimes it makes me feel crazy. But more on that another time.

I was sad to leave the beach -- gods, I loved that easy-swimmin salty water -- but excited to get back to Thessaloniki to actually see the place. I had an all-day walking tour planned out, and strategically positioned myself in the upper city/old town to get a different perspective.

Pro: found an amazing little restaurant a 5 minute walk away with the best falafel I had in my life

Con: one of my dorm roommates was a racist fuck I didn’t feel comfortable or safe around

Pro: the hostel let me change rooms

Con: not until after I’d stayed up about 2 hours later than I wanted to make sure he was asleep because I didn’t feel safe sleeping until he was

Pro: my new room had AC

Con: I didn’t get there until the afternoon because this fuck had kept me up all night so I slept in

Pro: got a solid nap in

Con: slept so long I missed the upper city walking tour I planned to do (not to mention my entire day tour plans)

Pro: went back for more falafel

Ugh I could continue. This guy was truly awful, and when I went to reception to complain about him, he was there, so I caught the receptionist outside the office to talk to him. He admitted he could see why I didn’t feel safe and that he didn’t blame me (from what he had heard from this guy), but did nothing to remove this dude from the premises, which was disappointing. He was smaller than the asshole in question and there wasn’t really any other staff there, so I get it, but I wish that he had been booted out for being a racist, xenophobic, violence-glorifying dick. But whatever, I’m away from him now because...

I went to another beach! I left Thessaloniki early afternoon and took a bus to Katerini, where I caught a connection to Lito(c)horo, a little beach town in the foothills of Mount Olympus. Seeing the mountains on the journey out of Thess made me feel right at home after two years living in Boulder. What’s awesome here is that there’s mountains AND a beach! And, weirdly, a Colorado flag flying in a porta-potty island on the beach outside my hostel.

that’s the view from my hostel. below is an attempted shot at the CO flag, it’s in the center of the picture if you follow the tree branches on the left the whole way down to their tip

I’ve decided to stay four nights instead of two here, for a few reasons. One, I regretted leaving the last beach so soon, so I’m settling in for more beach fun. Two, I really want to go canyoning on Mount Olympus, and that doesn’t happen again until Saturday. I’m planning on hiking Mount Olympus tomorrow with the crew from the hostel (the proprietor will be briefing us on the deal in the next half hour or so), then Saturday going canyoning, leaving Sunday for checking out Ancient Dion, with more beach scattered in there. I’m really excited for canyoning, especially (still a little scarred from The Great Nicaraguan Waterfall Hike Disaster of 2015 in terms of mountain hiking), but I think Ancient Dion will be cool, and it will be great to see some history and monuments, since I ended up missing most of the ones in Thessaloniki.

After my four nights here, the plan is to head to Meteora for just a short time to check out the mountain-top monasteries there, then over to the Vikos Gorge for some hiking (maybe) and rafting (hopefully). After that, I want to do a short jaunt to Corfu and Paxi, part of the Ionian Islands, then down to Arta, and then on to Athens (and then [c]halkida right after) for the next adventure. Two weeks to do all that -- whew!