Chapter 6

There is an old Yiddish proverb that goes ‘Gatkis shmekkle - reem kaif chavver’ which translates as ‘What goes up must come down.’ Danny and I had this very much in our minds as we said goodbye to the Greek Gods and crawled off the fragmented summit of Olympus.

Since most deaths occur on descent; and since last week a Polish climber had gone to meet his maker down the Kaki Skala while descending from Olympus; and since Danny had a
library book that he wanted to take back and didn’t want the fines to accumulate as he lay in a Greek hospital bed with tubes sticking in him; we took extra special care on our way down.
Dropping down the gully, making controlled sliding descents down near vertical slabs using our backsides as braking systems, we descended a few hundred feet to the traverse: then singing songs to ward away the demons we girded our loins, didn’t look down and scrambled back to the lip of the cauldron where Dimitri was waiting for us.
By his side were four strangers, two couples in their twenties who had, like Dimitri, decided the summit ridge was too much for them. They all clapped Danny and myself as we pulled up onto levelish ground.
‘Do you speak any English?’ I asked the strangers.
They shook their heads.
‘They’re Belgian.’ Dimitri explained.
‘Very nice chocolate, Tin Tin and Jacques Brel” I said smiling at the Belgians.
They smiled back.
Then I turned to Dimitri and gave him two minutes of very good Manchester swearing which included references to the fact that not only had he organised this trip and left the fruit of his loins and myself to do the last nasty bit while he lay snoring in the sun but that also he was a page boy at his parents wedding and not a member of Mensa; and furthermore if he ever asked me to climb a mountain again two words not unconnected with sex and travel would spring to mind.
The Belgians laughed. They did not understand the words but somehow the sentiment had communicated itself to them, particularly my cheerful mime showing that any future schemes of this sort would result in the impaling of Dimitri on one of his own sheek kebabs.

Having got this off my chest we began the descent, so elated at having climbed the mountain from sea to summit one of the hardest that any I have ever made, only eclipsed by the descent from the Gangalwat Pass in the Hindu Kush.
Not only had we just climbed 3,000 feet, the last five hundred a sever scramble, but we now had 6,000 feet of descent to make, most of it through piles of mule crap.
I won’t tire you with a blow by blow account of the heat, the dust, the flies that followed me down the mountain in clouds licking the salt sweat off my skin, only leaving me when I came to a particularly fine pile of mule crap - So they preferred mule crap to me!
On we trudged muttering and groaning in the heat - in the words of Captain Bloodnok “God it was Hell I tell you - no more curried eggs for me!”
By the time we got to the road head we were hobbling like spavined mules. (I don’t know what a spavined mule hobbles like but it’s a fair guess it looked like us.) Anyway oy gevalt ! Enough already! We made it to the car with kneecaps exploding and boots on fire and drove immediately down the treacherous mountain track to Litohoro where we staggered into the nearest Taverna after I had instructed Dimitri not to pass Go and not to collect two hundred pounds.

The first pint didn’t touch the sides but fizzled and hissed when it reached the dry sandy bottom of my belly. The tavernist, or whatever it is you call a man who drives a tavern didn’t even ask us if we wanted any more but brought three more tankards of chilled nectar toute suite.
‘We Mount Olympus have just climbed’ I declared in fractured English
‘My twelve year old daughter did it on Sunday with her school’ he said in perfect English, smiling.
‘He’s lying” I said to Dimitri as we got in the car to continue our pilgrimage
‘He has to be lying, either that or there’s another smaller Olympus with steps up it.’

And so we bade farewell and aloah and drove into the sunset towards Meteora our final destination where we were to spend a few days of rest and recuperation looking at some interesting monasteries that were built centuries ago on completely inaccessible rock pinnacles.
Everything, including the monks had to be hauled up in baskets and this isolation,
- according to Danny, who is a student, served two purposes - being several hundred feet higher on a rock column sticking up off the plain brought you just that bit nearer to God so that you could meditate and pray in peace and silence and it also meant that worldly distractions such as red headed ladies with big bosoms and Turkish marauders who
wanted to chop you heads off couldn’t get near you. I suggested to Danny that perhaps they just haul up the red-haired ladies with big bosoms and leave the decapitating Turks far below. He thought about it for a moment and then said ‘In AD786 Musselman the Significant made his entire army or thirty thousand murderous muluks dress up in sheath
dresses and fish net tights and don red wigs. Thus accoutred they infiltrated all the rock column monasteries of Meteora and decapitated all the monks. That’s why even to this day there is a Greek proverb which says ‘Beware red headed women with big bosoms bearing scimitars.’
I tell him that not only do I not believe him but that when we get to the Taverna we are staying at it is his round.

We arrive at the Koka Roka our hostel for the night. It is built under the shadow of a massive rock with a monastery on the top. The landlady’s son has spent thirteen years in Australia. He sounds like a cross between Harry Enfield’s Stavros and Edna Everage.
While he brings us beer his mum cooks chunks of lamb sprinkled with rosemary over an open
fire and as the moon rises over the monasteries of Meteora where bearded monks lie troubled by dreams of red haired women with creamy thighs our little adventure draws to its close.