Chortiatis

7.10.2023

We woke up at 9h45, Sofia was already to Drasi to do the Florian's lesson. They were on the kitchen so I disturbed them a little in preparing my breakfast. Thanks Ella to find the lid of my blender ahaha ! I was eating my breakfast outside with my best companie : Adynatos, and Maria and Sophia arrived to Drasiagriazoi's center. Sophia Always with the smile, I said her that we have something for her, she had a smile in listening this. With Maria, we spoke about Adynatos, that since there is Allblack, Adynatos is scared, is fear about Allblack, he doesn't everytime because he is scared that Allblack flight him. Maria wants that we adopt him. She told me that when Allblack arrived to this place he fought with Adynatos quite violently. I don't trust this dog... I see that Adynatos is afraid, it pains me. Then, Quentin woke up and we offered her gift, a beautiful wallet, not with a farmer but with Flamingos and a beautiful design. She was really moving and happy, and us too. She kissed us and straight away she went to get her old one to fill the new one.

Then, at 10h30, we left with Sofia to pass the journey with her. She dropped Garance and Lorie off at the bus station Garance, they wanted to pass the day to the thrift festival and to Thessaloniki. Us, we had 1h of road, direction the mountain that we see every day from Drasi. Thé name of this moutain is The Chortiatis.

The Chortiatis or Hortiatis (Greek: Χορτιάτης), Formerly known as upstream kissos[1] or Cissus, It is a mountain 1,201 m high.  of Central Macedonia in northeastern Greece.  It is the highest mountain in Thessaloniki Prefecture. Its slopes are densely covered with oak and chestnut forests.  At the top of the mountain is a radar station with several antennas for telephone and broadcasting.

During the road, I did my meditation and my awareness and Sofia and Quentin was discussing, Sofia gave some historic, geographic and cultural information about what we Saw on the road and also about the mountain. For example, In ancient times, the Greeks dug holes in the mountain, they put ice from the mountain in the holes during the winter, covered them with leaves and used the ice before summer.We arrived to the refuge Chortiatis at 12h, it was really a nice plan for hikers. So we bought a hot Mountain tea because in the Mountain it is more cold and Sofia brought some snacks for the lunch that she cooked : cheese pie and chocolate cake. So we began to do our Greek lesson to the refuge in eating our lunch. We learnt about the prononciation, some fruites, vegetables, food in greek and we learnt the card that we use everyday for the shift to Drasiagriazoi in traducing each word. So, now we have some lessons to do for the next week. The tea was delicious. Then, we went to the Forest where there are a lot of chestnut trees, oaks and flowers.  Come on, here we go, we were going chestnut hunting.  We were having a nice walk and were looking for chestnuts.  Sofia explained to us that it was this week that the chestnuts fell from the trees and that it's time to collect them because afterwards there will be nothing left, everyone will have taken everything.  This was already the case, at the chestnut trees which were at the side of the road, there were no more chestnuts.  Sofia explains to us that some people arrive very early to collect them or even tear them from the tree and then sell them on the market. We picked up some and we took the road back, but not the same. Sofia would like to show you the lake Limni Koronia, not far from Vasilousi, the town where Lila lives. But to go there, Sofia didn't want to take the GPS and we landed on very ramdom roads like the roads we had in Kenya in the bush. However, we did not have a Jeep as a car we had Sofia's small but efficient car.  We saw magnificent landscapes, superb views of the lake and the other mountains.  We also came across hunters with shotguns, a bit easy... At one moment, after 1h30 of driving we find civilization and a normal road, phew.  We have an appointment in Thessaloniki at 4:30 p.m. with ESC volunteers whom we met at the seminar 2 weeks ago. We arrived at 4h30p.m. to Thessaloniki, Quentin did a pizza stop and me Toilet stop and After few minutes, we managed to join Nuria and Mille to Thessaloniki. They bought some food for their dinner, we joined them during their dinner.