Circe’s eighth task was one of my favorites.
It required that The Idiot “Meet with Zeus, the master of cloud, at the cave of his birth on Crete, visit him again at the top of Mount Olympus, and see him once more after you traipse through Troy at the top of Mount Ida in Turkey.”
And that’s exactly what he did.
Crete came first.
I’m at the bottom of the cave in Crete where Zeus was born looking towards the heavens.
Although there’s an unfinished welcome center, a closed taverna, and an almost completely empty parking lot at the site of the Idéo Ándro cave, which is easily accessible on Crete’s E4 hiking trail, there’s really no infrastructure for tourists.
During the last two-kilometers of the climb up a rocky path, I explain to an Austrian couple, the only other visitors walking up to the cave, what Zeus was doing here in the first place….
Then Mount Olympus.
The Idiot waiting to meet Zeus atop cloud-clearing Mount Olympus.
During my reverie my baseball cap, with “Environmental Defense” written on it, blows off my head and literally flies off the top of Mount Olympus. When I meet Zeus I’ll tell him that I left it as a token veneration for the gods, or at least a token gift for a fellow hiker who needs a baseball cap. Then I grab a tiny stone for Judy Fox, a friend who wanted something from the top of Mount Olympus for the altar at her home in Chico, California, and put it in my backpack just as Zeus appears.
The god of gods isn’t smiling as he approaches me…
And finally Mount Ida near Troy in Turkey.
I met Zeus inside this shrine atop glorious Mount Ida.
I’ve been excited about getting to the top of Mount Ida for years because of an enticing paragraph in The Iliad: “At full stretch midway between the earth and starry heaven they ran toward Ida, sparkling with cool streams, mother of wild things, and the peak of Gárgaron where are his holy plot and fragrant altar. There Zeus, father of gods and men, reined in and freed his team, diffusing cloud about them, while glorying upon the crest he sat to view the far-off scene below – Akhaian ships and Trojan city.”
It’s right up there with Olympus and I give the gods my thanks for locating their earthly homes in such heavenly spots…
Want more? Simply download the interactive and/or paperback versions of “The Idiot and the Odyssey II: Myth, Madness and Magic on the Mediterranean” @ http://followtheidiot.com/purchase.
Next week: Idiot-ic T-shirts make MedTrekking fun!
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