Ins and outs of the Ancients.

Greece in all of its glory rests beneath my slipper protected heels.
We have found home in many ways since entering this place. Presently we are staying with a little community, called the Karaloitas, (http://www.users.otenet.gr/~kar1125/) a wonderful clan of humans, one of whom, Estella, is blind and obviously the head of this home in many forms. She has even relocated the group in South Africa as her work is dedicated to the Greek blind, across borders. They are living such simple, loving and warm lives here; to all of which I have such gratitude. We found these folks through couchsurfers (http://www.couchsurfing.com), which I recommend to anyone who is interested in connecting with travelers, as difined in any context.

We connected as well with an orginization called help exchange (http://www.helpxchange.net) through chance that sent us to camp out a thunderstorm in a bus station insted of autostopping with which we have fallen in love. There we found a fellow Seattle-ite woman who invited us to stay through this orginization on a horse farm in the northeast of Greece, where the population was surely 100 horses and sheep to each person. The days are passed by caring for the land and horses as winter quickly approaches. It is very much like World-wide Workers On Organic Farms (www.WOOF.org) but cheaper and without borders.

Along the journey we have camped amoungst the pinnacles and caves of Metéora (Μετέωρα: "suspended rocks" or "in the heavens above") is one of the largest complexes of monasteries in Greece which are built on natural sandstone rock pillars, in central Greece. There we met many characters; young and old, Greek and otherwise, for it has been the greatest concentration of people we have experienced in some time... Old men inviting us in for tea at the tavernas, Dutch alcoholics into their caravans to traverse the country, Little women serving us Irish pancakes, Shepards and their bawlking dogs along deserted trails of the autumn colored mountains, Albanians driving us around the town in their stolen Marcedes... to name a few.