Personal reflections (aka rant) on joys lost and joys re-found on our recent trip to Lagada.

– Catching up with old friends. Discovering that “coming of age” does not necessarily mean a reign of cynicism and strife.

– Getting infected by contagious wanderlust and appreciation of all things small. Learning again in positive vibe.

– Hanging around and getting to know better new friends. Sharing moments of testing and expanding personal limits.

– Experiencing one of those unique moments in time. Perched on a clumsy balcony, laying back between huge tufas, slowly feeding rope through an undersized grigri to a friend making painstaiking progress on a monster roof. Warm-up, projecting and burning out all wrapped up in a single rock voyage. Watching the mountain’s tear drops falling from the suspended gardens above my head in slow motion. Mystically, methodically, hypnotically. Water born of earth, plunging into the void below. Sparkling voyagers, sometimes hovering in mid air, sometimes riding the wind. Clouds racing above the stone roofs, crows tumbling among the currents. Taygetos magic.

– Slaying an old demon only to discover it was a dragon of fable.

– Eating lentils and cod at Pappous’.

– Driving back home, racing the long cypress shadows, bathed in the octarine light of a two-hours long sunset. Passing though works of man, their ugliness washed away by rain and divine light.

Almost everything went wrong this weekend. Rain fell when it shouldn’t, routes were wet where they shouldn’t, temp was cold while it shouldn’t. We climbed less than we should have. Mike’s ten routes in a day plan went completely astray.

And yet there was not a single frown, not a single bad vibe, not a single hard feeling. Rediscovering the art of being content among content people. Suddenly people are laughing in my photos again.

Damn, I only now start to realize how precious this is… Goals and ambitions can be the spice of life, but they can also be its poison.