Hospitality & Rain

It's 7:00 PM and it's raining heavily again. We've been on the trail since this morning. This time, we didn't stay dry. On the contrary. Completely soaked, we push through the last kilometers. As if today's route with over 1000 meters of altitude wasn't enough already. The only thing that stayed dry in the end was our sense of humor. Somehow, we have to keep ourselves in good spirits, that's the motto.

When we finally spotted the long-awaited village through the thick fog clouds, optimism returned. Almost exaggerated joy was sparked by a church with an excellent roof, which we had already recognized when we were crossing the mountain. Excellent, clearly ambiguous.

So we headed straight down into the village and straight towards the church. It was still raining heavily and on and off the road there were already small rivers forming.

Under the excellent roof of the church, we could finally settle down and put on the remaining dry clothes. However, we did that only after we had walked again to find the mini supermarket that should be here and that was intended to save our evening with a few simple snacks. We found it and I stuffed my bags as if there had been a happy hour.

The excellent canopy of the church is once again a perfect sleeping place. Actually, almost more than that. Almost like a home after a hard day out in the wilderness. Who needs Airbnb when there are churches.

The trail was wild today, that's for sure. Once again, we hiked through mostly challenging terrain, through uncivilized areas, far away from the life that had accompanied us in the last few weeks. Today's section was also really mountainous with constant ascents and descents. It's starting to leave its marks on our feet, shoulders, etc.

We already had to climb a few elevation meters in the morning, which we couldn't do yesterday.

But in return, we had a little unexpected surprise this morning, which we didn't expect. In the same village where we thought there was no open tavern, we found one at the outskirts, just before we left the village.

Costa, a very friendly young Greek, invited us in immediately and served us coffee and sandwiches. To strengthen us, he even made us a fresh orange juice on the house.

We found out once again a few hundred rocky paths further that hospitality is not a rare occurrence here. In an 80-inhabitant village, a friendly older man invited us to his home directly when we asked him for directions. His warm-hearted wife, Georginia, spoke a little English, as she had lived in Australia for a while many years ago. We were served scrambled eggs, fresh feta, salad, bread, and cola. What a gift. They were super sweet and exactly there when you don't expect it but could use a little boost.

Once again, there was no internet in the village.