Climbing Mount Olympus

Text and photo: Nick Iliev

It was one of those inebriated Sunday mornings after a heavy drinking session when I distinctly remember the spirit of Zeus coming over first thing in the morning: "You are that lunatic who likes climbing, right? Come to my Throne for a drink of ouzo".

Well, it wasn’t quite like that as you could probably imagine, but the desire to climb Olympus and Mitikas was always there. The mission was planned, discussed, dropped, reconsidered, delayed, then put in circulation again, then suffered one final blow about 24 hours before departure as we discovered we didn’t have a vehicle – or rather, we had one, but with old papers that could prevent it crossing the border.

Mission Olympus was dead before it even started – we’d go shopping, stock the car with groceries and alcohol and head east towards the Bulgarian Black Sea instead. And the very thought of that turned my stomach. I hadn’t been to the Black Sea since 1994 and I have vowed never to lay a foot there again, and suddenly here we were, headed there. It was at that moment that Mira and I looked at each other: "Listen, what do you say, we give Olympus a try? We’ll drive to the border, if they turn us back, then we can always go to the Black Sea?" With that the decision was taken instantly and we were headed south to the Koulata.

Border business
Arriving at the Koulata, we crossed our fingers – it was crunch time. The plan was that if we were forbidden to leave the country, we’d drive to Plovdiv, spend the night there and head for the sea the following morning. Our car approached the checkpoint and the officer greeted us politely. He took our identity cards, smiled and waved us through. As we reached the Greek barrier, the policeman hardly even glanced at our ID cards, motioning to us that we should proceed and leave him well alone. Before we knew it, we were cruising down the E79 to Thessaloniki, sporting a mile-wide grin on our faces – Olympus, here we come! The business at the border had taken 15 minutes flat. It was 6.20pm, there was a two-hour trip to Thessaloniki and we agreed we would park the car somewhere by the White Tower, get our hands on a sufficient amount of alcohol, and get blitzed along the seafront. Entering Thessaloniki, its oriental beauty immediately immersed us, that unmistakable architecture which I have seen all over Greece, in Damascus, Syria and Amman in Jordan.

Read the full article on The Sofia Echo.