One of the mountain roads leads to an army base, and passes through the contacts of the Pelagonian Schists with the underlying Olympus Series Carbonates. The contact was pretty difficult to miss.
Left: Pelagonian schists. Right: Olympos series carbonates
Beyond the contact, the roadcut exposed mylonitic marbles. Paragliders sailed above our heads as we looked for structures and rare undeformed areas rich in fossils.
Paragliding above the Pelagonian
A couple of roadcuts proved themselves particularly weathered; the greys giving way to rusty browns. Large exposures revealed sharp to isoclinal folds marked by thin beds less resistant than the surrounding layers. On the way back down, we startled a bird of prey from its philosophical trance atop a dead tree, its large wings pushing it up and out westwards over the contact only a few meters from the car.
Startled from its musings
Returning to the main road encircling the mountain, we continued our journey. Rather than heading north towards our destination, a detour led us further east, through a section of less-than-perfect ophiolitic material. Purple-green lavas outcropped along the forested road, their sulphide-rich surfaces occasionally revealing tight and isoclinal folds clearly picked out in white.
Unhappy lavas
Occasionally, the trees parted sufficiently to afford us a view back towards the west.
Westwards towards Olympus
Passing through unimpressive scraps of peridotite long turned to serpentine, we stopped in a sizeable village to rest. A small cafe was open on the far side of a wide stone-paved plateia. We sat on the chairs, and ordered coffee from the aging owner. He told us that the village, once 400-strong, now had fewer than 100 inhabitants. He owns a farm outside the village, which he wants to pass on to his son. His son, perhaps unsurprisingly, has other ideas. I can't blame him; such an isolated place doesn't offer much of a future to anyone young. It struck me as a wonderful place to retire though.
We returned to the Blazer, and backtracked to the road skirting northwards around Olympos. Further contacts appeared, with carbonates this time overlying schists. The Aegean appeared ahead of us, and we followed the hairpins down the mountain side, stopping occasionally to take photos of the 10 m-scale boudins in the carbonates on our way down.
On our arrival in Leptocaria, we were warmly welcomed by the owner, wife and sons of the Hotel Galaxy, our home for the next two nights. Adamos and the owner once again quickly fell into conversation. Anna joined in as a third Siatistan - I assume they were talking about old times, but I admit that I quickly lost interest in attempting to pick up intelligeable scraps from the fast, smooth flowing Greek, and just let it wash over me instead.
The rooms in the hotel were very basic, but perfectly clean. The balcony looked over other hotels to the south. A dazzlingly bright sun dog lit the sky like a second sun to the west, lingering for twenty minutes before dusk descended.
We ate outside with the family in the evening. All of us sat around a long table, with the two men at the head and foot. A sumptuous banquet was presented to us, with salads, potatoes, breads and dips filling every available surface. Eight large fish were placed in the middle, their silvery scales lustrous under the fluorescent bulbs. I once again gained a reputation as a good eater, our hosts wife (also cook) gesturing for me to have more. We sat talking long after the food was finished, watching the moon rise over the large swimming pool to my left.
After dinner, we all went out to one of the local ice-cream and alcohol bars, and watched the younger tourists walk down the sea-front road. There was no need for anyone to wrap up warm, even for the girls walking along the beach.
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