Mt. Zeus

I went to bed effectively as soon as I got back last night and had  to leave early  sorry for  the late post. I know how much you all look forward to these. What's the tallest peak in the Cyclades? Mt. Zeus. Who decided it would be a great idea to climb up in the sweltering heat? Me... Yeah not my brightest moment. There are a few paths up. I chose the 6 km round trip one. It goes past the cave called Zeus Cave. Why so much Zeus on this mountain? Well it is where Zeus was born and raised of course. Anyways, it started so easy. There was a paved path and everything. Then very quickly it went away. I told myself I'd go see the cave and that was it. Getting there was hard on its own. As I mentioned there is no path. You're just climbing over rocks, some stable, some loose. And the only thing to balance yourself with is more rocks or incredibly spikey bushes of sorts. Very roundly shaped though. Kinda cool. And the only things marking your path are the occasional red dot or Cairns. And as you can probably guess, it's easy to miss Cairns when you're surrounded by rocks. So I made it to the cave which is just a door. At the door it was super cool. It was also everything I ever wanted in a cave. Freedom to explore. Well thing was pitch black and swarming with bugs. Couldn't see three feet in but you could see the bugs. And hear them. And feel them trying to eat you. I got out of there quickly because I wanted to survive the devil bug menace, but that sucked because it was so nice and cool in there. As I continued on in the brutal sunlight, I decided to take a break in the shade before climbing up what would be the hardest part. Looked like a landslide happened there. While chilling in the shade sipping on water, I noticed some Cairns going off to the side. Told ya they were easy to miss. This was good because I didn't have to climb up the landslide remanants. Following those Cairns I was led to a fence to walk along. So nice having rusty rebar and rusty fence to lean on too. From here, the path got a lot easier. Less steep, more open. It was nice. So easy, in fact, that some dude casually jogged past me. At 3000 feet up in the air. On a mountain. I kept my casual, dying stroll going. I feared if I sped up I would trip and die or have heat stroke and die. But eventually I made it. Only to be greeted by more freaking bugs. Don't they have better things to do than pester me? Apparently not. Lucky for me, dying of tired and heat at this point, I got to go down. The only thing worse than climbing loose dirt and rocks is climbing down. I fell at one point but I caught myself. On one of those spikey round bushes. I have at least ten spikes embedded in my left hand. Its wonderful. The rest of the walk down was treacherous but otherwise fine. By the time I got to the bottom I'm sure everyone I passed was wondering why there was a pool at the top, but probably understood why I wanted to go swimming then. There's not a pool at the top. I was a little drenched. I decided to go back to my room and shower. It was awesome. Then I decided to take it easy for the rest of the day and relax and walk around a bit. I found my way back to Apollo's temple for sunset again and it was lovely.

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