kaleb's blog: not for the swift

South East of Thessaloniki the Halkidiki landmass spits three dramatic peninsuale into the Aegean. The Easternmost, carved sharply around Mount Athos' 2033m summit, hosts twenty orthodox monasteries and is an independent territory accesible only by male permit-holders. A four day permit costs around 30 Euros (although fees vary according to nationality and stated religious denomination) and takes a month to process through an office of the Executive of the Holy Community of Mount Athos. I've been so blessed on this trip that I've almost exhausted my capacity for surprise at the abundant fortune yielded by simply commiting to hazard; trusting chance, grace, and the goodwill of strangers (or the distantly connected). So it was no great astonishment that a chance dogwalking encounter in Athens led to my permit and monastery invitation being granted (via emails to and from Cairo of all places) in less than 24 hours of my mentioning vague monastic visiting intent to said dog-owner on Gmail chat from Thessaloniki. I arrived in Ouranopolis, a souvenir town at the root of the sacred peninsula, on Friday afternoon still not knowing if the Cairo connection had borne permit fruit, but my inbox said it had and so I happily slept on the beach beneath the acrid sky. It has been Greece's hottest summer for many decades and I've seen lots of wildfires now. This particular spate raged for several days around Mount Athos giving the peninsula's enforced seperateness an extra, epic quality.

There followed all sorts of little tests and rewards. In the morning I realised I had exactly enough cash for my permit and a one way ferry ticket. Ouranopolis' cash machine was on strike. I had cream crackers, four eggs and of course coffee in my food pannier. Boiling the eggs in front of the dock a monk ambled over with a restaurant plate of Greek salad and bread, grill octopus and fresh mussells. He gave the plate and spoke no English. An accordian picked up nearby, my eggs boiled over and we had a moment; the monk, the morning and I. Minutes before my ferry was to depart (the only road closed by fire) I learnt that in the garden of the Mother of God bicycles were verboten. Panic and stress, futile argument (there were cars loading; it made no sense), no help from the Holy Executive Office... I left it in the car park, grabbed a random pannier and caught the boat by seconds. From the landing dock I had to get to Vato Pedi, the largest monastery on the Holy Mountain, first built seventeen hundred odd years ago (sacked by pirates and rebuilt by monks repeatedly since), which had somehow invited me to stay. Happy pilgrims paid my two bus tickets and so I arrived, expected, already endebted, and already anxious about my worldy treasure - locked as it was in an Ouranopolis carpark with baggage in the attendant's kiosk.

It is difficult to know how to write the monastery and its monks. I struggled with the long services, endless liturgies and vespers; attended only a couple, entered late to sit at the back and leave early. I found myself instinctively sceptical about what I saw as a fine line between veneration and worship of the many icons and ancient relics (including the Virgin Mary's camel-hair girdle and several saintly skulls, one with an ear miraculously preserved). I didn't kiss or prostrate before anything. The frankinsence and chanting made me feel dizzy and I invariably sat when everybody else stood. The meals were wonderful. A huge frescoed refectory, 28 marble slab tables aged a thousand years, great piles of pepper and cucumbers, olive oily vegetable dishes, fresh bread and melon, wine on the marble, honey at breakfast, 200 people eating with chanting throughout. In the monks there was the beautiful realisation of grace as a lived potential. I constantly gaffed calling them brother instead of father. I would have liked to stay longer but found myself not quite consistently but significantly agitated at the thought of my bicycle being stolen (only the cable lock had fitted around it's olive tree post). My devout Romanian cellmate denounced my concerns as the voice of Satan who obviously wanted me to leave. The monks were gentler but nonetheless seemed to frame their reassurances almost in the terms of a test of faith: should I leave early to retrieve the bicycle I'd be demonstrating precisely the absence of faith likely to cause it stolen. Nobody actually said that, but still such a sense prevailed (and actually began to feel feasible). Another layer to the tangle, of course I still had no cash for the 15 Euro combined bus and ferry tickets to escape. I compromised and waited until I felt more or less at peace that my bike would be fine, and then left immediately; begging money from another happy pilgrim in the bus queue.

Of course my bicycle was just where I'd left it. Last night I camped on a beach in company of many Greeks who also like to camp on their beaches and this morning was back to crackers and eggs. Today has been pleasantly sociable at intervals, with all kinds of brief road encounters. First by happy coincidence a car load of monks from Vato Pedi drew up along side honking, Father Gregory at the window: God with you! What chance the one monk I especially took to would be driving past me first thing in the morning? Clad only in cycling shorts my attire was opposite the requisite long sleeves and legs on Mount Athos. Momentarily I was embarrased, then realised that they must have taken the expensive speed boat option to be off the peninsula so early, and the car looked brand new and costly; if they'd caught me unchaste then I'd likewise busted their transport extravagance. Then I met three Polish cyclists but was in too good a riding mood to really stop and talk with them, a load of soldiers flicked me Vs (the good kind) as I rode past their barracks and a Greek-Englishman gave me yet more peaches and backslapping cor-blimey exclamations when I showed him my tatty little progress map.

I'm finally headed directly East now, into Thrace where Greece meets Turkey and Christianity overlaps Islam. Europe segues into Asia. I'm excited for İstanbul.