Xristos is awesome. He is a paramedic, by profession, but since Greece has run out of money for many things in this past year, he has to wait until more jobs are available to work or possibly even move away from Velvento for a couple of years to continue with his job in a larger city. He is also the lead mountainman for the group that takes care of the mountains for camps, group trips, and many other things, what you could call the mountain director of sorts. When fires threatened the area, he was in the lead with many other volunteers to help put it out before it overtook the region. Recently he has traveled to Chile and Haiti with a Greek emergency response team to assist in rescue and cleanup efforts after the earthquakes devastated much of these two countries. Everyone is very proud of his efforts to help not only at home, but abroad as well, and it was a real pleasure to hear his stories.
The views were amazing - you could see many towns/cities from the top and all of the rock formations in the surrounding area.
The four Agoratsiou builders (Niko, Xristos, dad and me) stood next to the display case of tools the monks used to build the monasteries right into the rocky cliff! These were so old and I can't even begin to tell you how amazing it is that they could create such sturdy, beautiful structures with such rudimentary tools.
When we arrived, my mom and sister had to put on their offered garments to cover their legs and shoulders as it was a very modest religious site.
Velvento provides 70% of the power Greece needs to run as a country. With a huge river running through, and a humungous new lake that didn't exist when my dad was a kid, the dam generates electricity and there are also power plants further outside the town along the major highways. This statistic is truly astounding when you really think about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment