Feeling a strong pressure near the tip of my cane, I looked down to see Katrina’s black cat butting my cane with his head. I reached down with my gloved hand and stroked his head while he purred contentedly. The cat resembled Katrina in many ways: they were both pushy but very friendly. Together they were the perfect hosts, making my boyfriend Gordon and I feel welcome at Koka Roka Rooms, a small hostel Katrina manages in Kalambaka, Greece. We had come to Kalambaka to explore Meteora, a series of monasteries built into the tall sheer rocks particular to this region. Our plan to explore the monasteries the day before had been thwarted when both Gordon and I came down with malicious colds. Though we both still felt weak, we decided to try it that foggy morning on January 7, 2009. Gordon experienced the worst of the cold, so he was still upstairs in one of Katrina’s rooms, slowly getting ready, while I was playing with Katrina’s cat. Eager to be outdoors, eager for an adventure, I had come out, alone, to explore an old corner of the world.
Since the monasteries are above the town, I decided to walk uphill, away from the charming cat and Koka Roka Rooms. The road was cobblestoned in this part of town, and wide enough for only one vehicle to pass through at a time. Barking sounds came from a house on my right, and since the barking did not grow in volume I merely moved on. I loved the freedom I experienced on this trip. For the first time I, not someone else, decided where and when to go. All my travel experiences before this involved family members who controlled the agendas. My family’s interests and hobbies differ greatly from mine, so I tended to feel a lot of frustration on those trips. Last summer I finally earned enough money to plan and execute an adventure nearly completely on my own. (Gordon helped a little with the planning, but he was mostly busy with his senior thesis). So walking along that cobblestoned path in Greece, knowing a parent or teacher would not hold me back, was a thrillingly new experience.
To my surprise, the road thinned to a trail. A huge grey rock jutted out of the ground like a gigantic braille letter A. The sides of the rock were sheer and smooth, somewhat similar to a round skyscraper. I wondered if a monastery existed on the top of this rock, and then immediately realized that I must be on a trail that leads out of Kalambaka to the monasteries. The trail was still cobblestoned here, but the stones jutted out a bit and were further apart from each other than those on the street. My cane collided with some of the stones, but for the most part the trail was quite easy to follow. The air felt cold but clean, and my hard-of-hearing ears couldn’t pick up a sound other than the tapping of my cane. I felt so happy to be walking along this trail after spending the last day cooped up in Koka Roka Rooms with a cold. I jubilantly curved around the huge rock, contemplating whether the path would lead to a monastery.
After twenty minutes of following the trail, I turned back to Koka Roka Rooms to see if Gordon was ready to climb some hills. I found him just putting on his coat in our room, and together we went downstairs and out the door. Katrina met us outside, showering us with advice and directions to the monasteries. Apparently, the trail I had found earlier was indeed the route to the monasteries. Thanking Katrina, we embarked on the trail that I already knew. Despite the below-freezing temperatures, the upward hike soon had me warm enough to remove my hat and gloves. Following the cobblestones brought us higher up above the city. Kalambaka nestled in the valley behind us, while before us in a semi-circle stood the tall rocks that had been pointing at the sky for thousands of years. Gordon could see power lines snaking to the top of the nearest rock on our right; our first hint of a monastery. The sounds of rushing water soon reached me, and sure enough the cobblestones ended at a stream. With my cane I found some sturdy rocks to dryly step across the stream. However, the absence of cobblestones on the other side of the stream meant treading mud, so my shoes soon acquired a thick wet coating of it. From here on the path steeply zigzagged up the side of the cliff just below the rock with the telltale power lines. I felt a combination of fatigue and dizziness climbing up. My typically excellent balance wavered at every upward step. Gordon also felt similar cold symptoms, and I wondered if it would be wiser for us to wait another day to continue the adventure. We did stop for many water breaks on the way up. We took many photos on those breaks, too, for the vistas of Kalambaka and the rocks only improved as we neared the top of the cliff. The patches of snow also increased as we neared the top, and the last fifty feet of the trail was completely covered by two inches of snow. Finally stepping off the trail onto a wide paved road with a tall dark rock protruding out of the cliff on my right, a wave of relief and excitement replaced the gloomy fatigue.
According to a sign Gordon read aloud, the tall rock on the right housed the Agios Stefanos Monastery. Full of curiosity, I walked faster than I’d walked for the last hour. Cold wet rock greeted my hands at the stairs leading up to the monastery. The stairs curved under another set of stairs from which water dripped incessantly. So as I climbed the steep steps water rained down on my nose and forehead, which were not completely covered by my coat. As a result of the water, the curved staircase threatened to slip my feet from beneath me. In addition to the slippery water on the stairs, like so many European spiral staircases, the individual steps were narrow at one side and wide on the other. Practically glued to the right side of the staircase where the steps were widest, I made my way up with one hand on a railing while the other hand used my cane. When I reached a viewing platform at the top of the staircase my hands were freezing wet. I made a mental note to travel to warm climates in the future. Despite the numbing cold in my hands, I felt the rocks on the surface of the waist-high ledge that stood between me and a thirty foot drop to the base of the staircase. Some of the rocks were smooth while others were bumpy, reminding me of some of the grand structures we had explored in Pompeii. Looking out beyond the ledge, I could see and feel the expanse of space before us, our great height above Kalambaka. Defying the cold breeze, I witnessed the majestic dark blurs of the surrounding monastic rocks, the great green expanse of winter’s leaves below those rocks, and the white snow patterned as though a child-God fancied it vanilla frosting.
Up there, at the door of Agios Stefanos Monastery, at the top of a cliff overlooking Kalambaka I realized just how much I enjoy the freedom granted to the independent traveler. Only an independent traveler would spend an hour arduously climbing a cliff to reach a monastery that was closed; tour guides would not allow such a mistake. Independent of expertise and groups, Gordon and I ended up with a part of Greece all to ourselves on a serene viewing platform above Kalambaka. I explored and touched and listened and moved at my own pace. Remarkably, Gordon’s tastes and pace resonate so much with my own that he was a wonderful travel companion. We moved when and where curiosity led, with ten days in Greece and no agenda, we had time. The absence of burdens, the absence of obligations, the absence of schedules was just heavenly. We took care to ward off boredom by never staying more than three days in any city in Italy and Greece. During our time in Italy we even found kind hosts who provided us with friendship and a free room, all through the online database couchsurfing.com. With Internet access at every place we visited, we truly had the freedom to explore spontaneously, limited only by our own sense of adventure and monetary funds. I know I will soon depart on another independent trip, perhaps to the Middle East. Many vacations occurred in my twenty years, but none compare to the pristine experience of this style of travel.
That day in Kalambaka we spent another four hours walking along the paved road between the six different monasteries. Since the monasteries each have about 3 kilometers between them, you can see how we spent so much time on that one paved road. Unfortunately, most of the monasteries were closed that day, so we merely walked up to them and explored their surroundings. At 4 PM, an hour after all monasteries closed, we walked along the 10 km road to Kalambaka. Miraculously, a car with three Greek students on holiday offered us a ride, dropping us off in downtown Kalambaka. Famished, we then wandered around looking for a good place to eat. Gordon spied an ATM machine, and to my bewilderment the ATM had English braille! I felt disappointed that the braille was not Greek; the Greek Ferry we took from Venice to Greece had Greek braille on signs in a few places. I suppose English braille is better than no braille at all.
Afterwards, we found a small restaurant providing flavorful gyros. They were absolutely delicious, and the friendly staff gave us excellent directions to Koka Roka Rooms. We enjoyed the thirty-minute walk through the quiet streets of Kalambaka, returning to Koka Roka Rooms to find Katrina and her son Arthur in the dining room. While Gordon asked to use their computer, I went upstairs to grab my PAC Mate. Katrina had a fire going in the dining room, where the smells of cigarettes and her wonderful coffee mingled in the air. I sat beside Gordon with my cane by feet and my PAC Mate on my lap.
“What is that?” asked Arthur, Katrina’s middle-aged son. Gordon and I thought Arthur was British at first, but then we learned that his accent was actually a mix of Greek and Australian English.
“It’s called a PAC Mate,” I explained. “It’s a computer designed for people who are blind.”
“Are you blind?” he asked me. I felt puzzled. What had he imagined I used my white cane for? He’d seen me tapping my way with it quite a few times.
“Yes,” I answered. Through the following conversation about blindness and accessibility, I discovered that the only blind people Arthur could remember were blind beggars on the streets of Athens. Perhaps that was why he could not believe I was blind despite my visible use of a cane; the thought of blind people traveling internationally was beyond him. I realized that by merely traveling, by merely allowing people in rural Greece to see me moving with my cane I was spreading a positive message about the possibilities for the blind. The next time Arthur and Katrina come across a blind person, they will have a story to tell, that blind people can indeed travel.
