Koutsamatada Ravine, A Really Old Tree and the Organic Olive Oil Woman

My neighbor Mandy hiked part of the Koutsamatada Gorge while her son and his family were here visiting, but she wanted to explore it further and I was happy to accompany her. We set out in her car at 8:30am to drive the short distance to the head of the trail, and then proceeded to spend almost 7 hours in the gorge. I'm not sure how long it would have taken had we just set about "hiking", but we definitely dawdled along the way, stopping to look at the various flora, take pictures, eat a picnic lunch by the river, and explore a cave. Really nice walk, I hope that the water is still there when my sister (and maybe my dad!) come to visit in a few weeks.

Various landscape shots from our hike.











This is the cave that we found. It was quite a scramble up a hill through some pretty thick brush, but I'm glad our curiosity got the better of us because it was pretty cool. We found a few very old signs of life...a glass lantern hung from one of the rocks, a crucifix hanging in the entry way, and what seemed to be a little shrine of sorts, with a broken mirror, a couple of empty glass bottles, and some animal bones! We named the cave "Fegarri" which means "moon" in Greek (Φεγαρρι) because there was a
full moon scheduled for that night.

After hiking the gorge, we took a short trip up the road to Vlatos to see a very old plane tree, and the woman who runs, along with her daughter, a small organic farm that produces olive oil and other products. The name of the establishment is To Metohi tou Monahoyou (Το Μετοχι Του Μοναχογιου), and they also provide several incredibly atmospheric but tastefully decorated rooms for let, and I would love to stay in one of them some time.

I left with a very expensive but very nice bottle of organic olive oil, and a jar of olives in lemon juice that may be some of the most amazing olives I've tasted.