Matera Hiking

After the amazing dinner on the 8th, I had a not so amazing morning, seeing it all again it the toilet. I think that is enough detail for you there about that. Anyway, while everyone was exploring the city in the big group that morning, I was back at the hotel being sick, and then I slept for a few hours because I didn't feel well. Then around noon, everyone came back and I was feeling much better. Then, for the afternoon, everyone was on their own to do what they wanted, and so a group of us decided we wanted to hike up the mountains in Matera. I was ready to get out of the hotel anyway. For Matera, I didn't see much architecture outside of Sassi, and the building carved into the mountainsides (which were awesome), but I did see much of the beautiful natural side of things.

View down from the start of the journey


Following the leader


We were almost to the top and we stopped into some caves. This is our O-H-I-O from inside one of the caves, looking back out to Matera

Guys were trowing paper airplanes into the valley below. Its ok, its biodegradeable.

Trevor going from one side of the cave to the other

Denis playing king of the mountain

We never saw Steve's paper airplane land. It caught a drift and went on forever, we think it might have made it back to the U.S.

I am tired after the first mountain

Then, after the hike up, we hike back down to the bottom...again

And down there, we find this little abandoned chapel carved by the rock

There, we stop for lunch before hiking (more like rock climbing) up another smaller hill (mountain)

At the top of this mountain, there were some more caves, but they were less natural, with windows like this carved in them
Then, we hiked down that mountain, this is a view from Matera, looking back onto those caves. See the three little windows on the top? Thats where the previous photo was taken. Then we scaled down this hillside below them.

This is my favorite photo from the day. We had to cross the river 3 times, and this was on the last jump across. I feel like this could be one of those inspirational photos that says : "TEAMWORK" under it with some quote or definition.

Another shot of the river crossing

Trevor was stabbed by some rusty barbed wire in the valley, and hadn't had his tetnus shot. He later went to the hospital, and they told him the shot was more risky for his wound at the time, so he didn't get one. He's still alive, I think he'll make it.

And now for your viewing pleasure:

A view from the top

A river crossing