Crete, (unintentional) day 7

I had a shower and a cup of tea, and went down to check out. I had to wait for a shuttle, but got off at the south terminal as I spied a bus ticket office nearby. I was only charged £7.60 to change my ticket, but I had to wait nearly two hours for the next Cambridge bus. So I got some food from M&S, and amusing myself until 1.45 with my phone. On the coach, the traffic was fairly awful, but I still managed to get back just before 6pm, in time for my 7pm tour rehearsal.

Postscript

The cicadas in Crete are very noticeable. They are incredibly noisy, but it didn’t take me long to get used to them again. Andy, however, struggled rather a lot, finding them very hard to bear.

The other thing is the eucalyptus trees – I saw lots of them on the approach to Xania, and they made me feel at home.

Greece is awesome, and I again got teary at the thought of leaving it behind. I will be back. . .

Crete, day 6

I was vaguely aware of someone moving around the next morning, but I certainly wasn’t awake enough to establish whether it was Blair, or to say goodbye. I was fully awake at 8.30, though, and just lay there until 9.30, when my alarm went.

I sat up, and Keira walked in. I said hello, and she introduced herself nicely. They’d both been very noisy in the room, which was a bit annoying. I packed my bag, spoke to Joe a bit, and then Ivan came in to ask us to vacate the room. Joe went for a shower, and I walked out when I was packed. I left my bag downstairs, checked out, chatted to Ivan, and sat in the paved courtyard (blissfully free from Frenchies) and wrote this diary. I need water. It’s windy, but still hot.

I went out to the supermarket and got a seventh one-and-a-half litre bottle of water for the week, and drank it in about half an hour. While I was out, I went to look at the Hellenic Australian War Memorial, near the bus station, which was an affecting experience. Not just because Robert Menzies said ‘We cannot leave Greece in the lurch’ and all the associated ‘friend in need’ feelings, and not just because the Australians and Greeks seemed to identify with each other and that Greece felt like ‘a piece of Australia towed across the world’ to the Australians, but even just the sight of the lopsided slouch hats made me teary for some reason. Maybe that was because of the photo of my grandfather on Grandma’s dressing table, wearing one. Anyway, the history was very interesting and I photographed everything.

From there, I walked to the beach, getting some strawberry sorbet on the way, and took some photos there, and asked about the cost of sunbeds (€5 for one person). On the way back, I got a very tasty crepe for lunch and then read my book for a while.

Around 3pm, I was on the move again, heading for a proper beach session. The onshore wind had whipped the beach into a decent surf, and there seemed to be fewer people around. I paid my €5 for a sunbed and settled in for the afternoon with my book and another 500ml of (cold) water. I got a bit of colour, and only went in the water once as it wasn’t too hot. The waves were big enough to break over my head at least once.

I left at about 5.30, and headed back to the hostel for a shower – Ivan managed to push me into a cubicle before any of the Frenchies could get to it. Feeling more refreshed, and ready for a long night of travelling, I donated Andy’s beach mat to Ivan and the hostel, and he threatened to use it as a deterrent for ‘the kids’, which was very funny – he high-fived me when I laughed.

I’d intended to get the 6.45 coach to Heraklion, but had misjudged the time, so I went out again to get yet another one-and-a-half litre bottle of water, and some Ion chocolate to take back with me, and a pistachio ice cream from the first place I’d got one on the Monday. I went back to the hostel for the last time, packed up, said goodbye to Ivan – which was sad. I thanked him for being friendly and kind, and he thanked me for being great. We talked about me maybe coming back one day (though I think it unlikely), and he kissed me on both cheeks.

I headed to the bus station, bought my ticket, and took some photos of the lovely sunset. I got the coach with no problems, and from Heraklion bus station walked up the road to get the airport bus. It only took about ten minutes for one to come along. At the airport, I discovered that the flight had been delayed from 23.15 to 23.50. I hung around for ages, bought a baguette, packed my bag, finished my water. At this point I ran into Joe and Keira. They were on their way to catch their own delayed flight, so we had some hugs, and a quick chat.

I went through security (eventually finding the right door), and waited for even longer. We finally got the bus to the plane, and managed to get seated and take off in our allotted slot. The flight was uneventful and mostly very quiet, but we landed at about 2.10am, making me miss my coach. Rather than wait over an hour for the next one, I caved in and called the Moat House to see if they had rooms. They did.

I found a place where taxis were pulled up, and discovered that I had to call to book one. One driver gave me a card, so I called. I got to the hotel with a minimum of fuss, and checked in. Upstairs, I turned on the air conditioning, jumped under the quilt, and slept wonderfully well, waking up just before my alarm at 10.15.

Crete, day 5

The next morning I was awake at 5.30, despite my alarm having been set for 6am. I performed my ablutions, got dressed, and headed out to the bus station. Before I even got out of the hostel, a guy stopped me to ask whether I knew how to get to the bus station. I said I was heading there now. Turns out he’d missed the 5.30 tour bus to Samaria, and wanted to do it himself instead. So we tacitly embarked on the adventure together. His name was Joe, and he’s from New York, and works there in films (like Melinda Ziyadat from Sicily).

We bought tickets to Xania/Omalos, and caught that bus with no problems – it was cold – the temperature on the clock display got down to 21 degrees, which felt positively freezing in comparison to the highs of 37 and lows of 29 that we’d been having. At Xania, we had to wait half an hour for an Omalos bus (8.30), but found it OK.

The journey to Xania had been standard, and the city itself large and uninteresting, but the journey to Omalos was slow and very precipitous. I was trying not to fall asleep, but made myself sit upright to avoid getting sick with all the corners. We reached the end of the road eventually, just before 10am. I went to the toilet, and bought some peanuts for the purposes of salt replacement. Joe had coffee, yoghurt/honey and some takeaways for the journey. We eventually set off at about 10.20.

The mountains rising way above us were incredible. The first hour or so of the walk was basically steep steps into the gorge itself, and then it flattened out more as we got to the bottom. Joe and I chatted most of the way, about our respective countries, about photography, about music. There were regular rest points with water, squat toilets, and seats. We used a few of them, and ate a few times. There were some particularly panoramic views that we stopped to photograph. He didn’t have a camera, so he took some with mine, and I took some of him, and we agreed to share them online later.

The path continued alongside the river bed (which was dry) at varying heights. The altitude steadily dropped, though, and I found my left knee starting to give me trouble. Eventually the path followed the river bed itself. We’d been trying to track our progress on the map, and were disappointed that we’d not travelled further. It had seemed like a very long way.

We finally proved that we’d reached the 6km mark (of 12.8km), which was a milestone of sorts. With feet getting more and more sore, we forced ourselves to go on, longing for flat ground instead of constantly moving rocks, and we finally reached the 11km yardstick. There was a rest stop just after this, at which a horse seemed very interested in my grapes.

Not long after starting again, we came to the narrowest point of the gorge, which was 3m wide and 300m high. Quite impressive. By this time, the path was very easy, but quite hot, and I could feel the backs of my lower legs burning. There was some water flowing along the river bed now, and a few hand-made wooden bridges took us over it.

We reached the end of the national park, and surrendered our ticket stubs. It was about 4.15 by then, and we still had 3km to walk to get us to the beach and the boat at Agios Roumeli. We went on for another km or so, through a village with stalls promising fresh orange juice, and lots of goats in pens. [PS: on our bus journey to Omalos, we’d seen herds of mountain goats on the road.] We were then faced with the opportunity for a bus ride for the last 2km for €1.50. We took it, as I was nearly wrecked. It was a little minibus, and probably a profitable little business.

At the beach, we had trouble finding where to buy boat tickets. Upon finding it, we bought €9 tickets for the boat to Hora Skafion, the next of which left at 6pm, giving us an hour to kill. I found a toilet, and joined Joe at the beach, which was black pebble, and absolutely stunning. I took my boots off (bliss) and plunged my hot, aching feet into the coolness of the sea, wading in as far as I could, and splashing my arms. (At this point, of course, I wished I’d brought my swimmers.) I then sat on the edge of the dry pebbles, with my feet buried in the wet ones, enjoying and sound and feel of the jewel-like pebbles. Beautiful.

The 5.30 ferry still hadn’t left by 5.45, so I tore myself away to investigate. There were a lot of people waiting nearby, so I assumed that they were just running late. Joe found me and confirmed this by asking someone. We eventually got on our ferry, which dawdled along the coast, stopping once, before letting us off at Skafia. We found the bus easily, the driver of which insisted I put my dusty boots in the storage underneath. We asked for tickets to Rethymno, and were charged €3.50.

The journey was winding, and the mountains seemed never-ending, and I had no idea where we’d end up. The bus stopped in Vrisses, and the driver said something I couldn’t hear (as we were right up the back). I asked someone nearby (who didn’t know either), so I ran up the front to confirm what he’d said. He said yes, that we’d need to change, as if I was stupid, so I said that I hadn’t heard him. He said something (probably insulting) in Greek, which evoked laughter from the first three rows of the bus. I charged back up to the back of the bus, woke Joe up, and got off, collecting my boots on the way. A new ticket to Rethymno cost €3.70 and the bus would arrive in about 20 minutes. We caught that with no problems, getting back around 9.

We hobbled back to the hostel, and I stopped to get a gyros. Back at the hostel, Joe and I exchanged names and email addresses, and I went to have a shower and go to bed.

Blair was already asleep when I went up. It was stupidly hot and uncomfortable – the pharmacy clock on the way back had said 29 degrees. Yuck! I did get to sleep, though, because I was woken up at midnight. I looked around, and Blair was awake too. We chatted, mainly about Joe and Keira (who’d ended up in our room), and then one of them came in. I’d turned the light off, and we both immediately feigned sleep in a somewhat amusing way. They went out again, and Blair and I finished the conversation, agreeing to go to sleep this time. We said a quick goodbye, though I said I might be awake at 8am to say goodbye properly. We slept, and I don’t remember the others coming back in.

Crete, day 4

I had a lazy start, and then just sat downstairs for the morning reading my book in the heat, while Andy was on his laptop and other people came and went. Andy had checked out and left his bag locked to my bed. I went out at about 1pm to get some bread and tzatziki for lunch, which was tasty, and then went to the beach at about 3, leaving my key with Andy, in case someone locked the room, promising to be back at 6pm at the latest. Today’s beach experience was much like Tuesday’s, but the sun felt more savage, so I made sure my back was covered with cream. I got some colour on the other side of my back, which I was hoping for, and got some more of my book read.

I had another refreshing fresh water shower, and headed back to the hostel just in time for 6pm. Andy was impressed with my punctuality. He was intending to get the 6.45 coach, but he hadn’t even packed, so Blair and I went up to talk to him while he packed, and eventually headed off to catch the 7.45 instead.

I took the remains of my lunch and went to eat it near the municipal gardens. I was still unsure what to do the next day, as I’d called in to speak to the people at the tourist office on the way to the beach, to ask about the buses etc to get to Samaria Gorge. They tried to persuade me to do one of the organised tours, but I wasn’t keen on the 5.30 start. So at this point I went to ask the guy running the hostel on Ivan’s day off, and he told me that he used to lead the gorge tours, and that I could easily do it on my own (leaving at the more civilised time of 7am) and gave me the details I’d need.

I headed out again to buy a hat, buy something for lunch (grapes, apple, and biscuits from previously), get cash, and get some ice cream (I got cappuccino from the gelato.it place). It was just Blair and me in the room this night, and we both decided that an early night was in order, and switched the light off at 10.30.

Crete, day 3

I set my alarm for 10am, but I was awake at 9.30. I ate my cereal bar and an apple, and got dressed.

By the time I was ready, I’d missed the 10.45 bus to Heraklion, and so I went the long way around the fortress, and ended up nearly missing the 11.45 as well. I was taking a chance, because I didn’t know exactly how to get to either Knossos or the archaeological museum, but Ivan the hostel guy had just told me to find the tourist office. As luck would have it, I spotted a Knossos bus ticket office at the bus station almost immediately, and bought a return ticket. I missed the first number 2 bus, because the guy forgot to tell me when it was leaving, but I got another after only five minutes. The driver told me where to get off (though it was fairly obvious), and I sat and ate the remainder of my olives and bread before paying my €6 and going inside.

It was a fairly big site, and quite well explained in Greek and English. The sad part is that an archaeologist from Oxford, Arthur someone, took it upon himself to categorise everything, and even to irreversibly reconstruct how he saw things, in concrete! So some frescoes were copied, and some stairs, and sometimes even whole buildings were built out of modern materials.

I managed to see all there was to see, and waited for a bus back to Heraklion. As luck would have it (again) the number 20 bus stopped right near the archaeological museum, and I even managed to find it a little way down the hill by following the signs to it and the bus station. It cost €4 to go in, and was clearly only a tiny part of the whole collection (the museum was being renovated), but it was still interesting, and good to see so many of the items that had been removed from Knossos, and the Phaistos disc.

I kept going down the hill, and found the bus station with a minimum of fuss, and some more (cold) water and some chocolate. The trip back to Rethymno was fairly uneventful, though the driver was rather nice to look at. (Why do I have a thing for Greek men who can drive buses?! Apa, John, this guy. . .)

Anyway, back in Rethymno, I called in at the hostel, established that Andy was doing his own thing, and headed into town to take some photos and eat. The sunset was stunning, and I got some good harbour and moon shots too. I chose to get some calamari, rice, and Greek salad from the first restaurant on the west side, and it was good, but the service was very slow and the wine was awful. It was cheap, though, and the people were friendly. I even got some watermelon and some raki. I got an ice cream (stracciella – mmmm) and a postcard for Andrew on the way back. I had a shower and didn’t do a great deal else – beyond writing this. Bed around 12am I think.

Crete, day 2

I woke to the sound of the really annoying bells nearby, but snoozed until my alarm went off at 9.30. I got up slowly, with the others stirring. I ate a breakfast bar, got dressed, and faffed around while the others worked out what they were doing, and while I charged my camera battery.

I ended up heading to the fortress at about 11.30. It was interesting, but a bit more explanation would have been useful. There was an art gallery to look at, a really nice mosque, some cool (literally) tunnels, and some amazing views from the ramparts. It was very hot, though. I made my escape, took some more photos, and got some yummy chocolate ice cream. I then bought some seriously good bread from a bakery in a side street, some salami from the supermarket, and some olives from a fruit stall, and headed back to the hostel to eat my lunch off the stiflingly hot balcony.

I left my camera, grabbed my towel and book, and headed for the beach. I walked past the port and the car park, and found a nice bit of beach. Unfortunately, everyone else in Rethymno had the same idea, and I was soon surrounded. The water was very nice, though, if a bit warm. I stayed for about two and a half hours, before having an extremely refreshing fresh water shower and heading back to the hostel for a very big drink.

I had a little rest, had a shower, and rounded up the troops to find some dinner. It was too late by the time we left for me to take the photos I wanted (8pm), so we wandered into town, looked at a few menus, got some cash, and headed for the restaurants to the east of the port. We got sucked in by a guy at the first one we came to, and the consensus was to give it a try (though I was pretty suspicious). The guy showed us a lobster that was still alive (which was quite disturbing) and the catche of the day – which was sea bream and red bream. He took our orders, and wouldn’t let us order any fish that wasn’t the catch of the day. So Todd and I had the sea bream, and Nathan the red bream. Andy had a chicken fillet. Nate and I shared a bottle of sauvignon blanc, which was very nice.

For starters, Nate had grilled octopus salad, Todd had eggplant salad, and I had fried cheese saganaki. We all tried each others’, and it was all extremely good. Poor Andy ordered fried potatoes, which turned out to be chips. He wasn’t very happy. As Nate said, the company was good, and the conversation relaxed and fun.

The fish, when it came, was excellent, and paying extra for the fresh fish was worth it. In a cruel twist of fate, Andy’s chicken also came with chips. He’d joked about the possibility, but didn’t really expect it. We had some raki to top the meal off, and headed back to the hostel, via the ice cream shop. We hung out downstairs for a while, with some beer, until the group got too noisy for the neighbours, so we went upstairs. We chatted to our new Australian roommate, Blair, until late, and until we were asked to be quiet. We said good night at about 1am, and goodbye to Todd and Nate, who were leaving on early ferries the next morning. I slept fairly well.

Crete, day 1

Well. Here’s an auspicious beginning of my holiday. I’m currently sitting in/near the municipal gardens in Rethymno waiting for the hostel’s reception to open after siesta so I can actually check in. I’ve just had my first, very impressive ice cream (nutella – which as far as I can ascertain was just vanilla with chunks of delicious chocolate in it), and have an hour to kill with my luggage, and with nowhere to get changed into cooler clothes. I’ll live. But anyway, how I got this far…

I caught the coach at 4pm from Cambridge and arrived at Gatwick at about 8pm. The coach driver helped me find the hotel shuttle and I got it with no problems to the Best Western Moat House Hotel. I checked in, paid my £49, and booked a wake-up call for 4.45am, and a shuttle bus back to the North Terminal at 5,15am. I went out to buy some breakfast from the service station nearby, and, due to the lack of other options, had a fairly good omelette in the hotel restaurant. I watched a bit of TV, read my phrase book, and went to bed at about 10.30. I slept well, but was awake at 3.30.

I somehow managed to go back to sleep, because the phone jolted me awake at 4.45. I got up quickly, had a cup of tea and a muesli bar, and headed downstairs to check out and get the bus. I was in plenty of time, and got to the north terminal well in advance of my flight. I went straight through security (being patted down because of the metal in my walking boots), and went to find some breakfast. I found an egg and bacon bagel in Eat, and got a sandwich for later as well. I waited ages for the gate to open, and finally went to it, getting a bus to the plane.

We took off late, but managed to make up the time on the way. The flight was OK, with one spell of fairly good turbulence, and the ubiquitous child hitting/kicking the back of my seat. I did manage to get some sleep, though.

As we got close to Crete, we went over another interesting-looking island. As we came over Crete itself, I (and the child behind me) was aware of a lot of swimming pools. It was an interesting landing (it was very windy, and the plane did one huge bounce after its initial contact) and passport control was almost cursory.

I wandered until I found the public bus stop (the airport isn’t very big) and established that I had to get a bus to the city bus station in order to find my KTEL bus to Rethymno. This was achieved with a minimum of fuss, and the nice bus driver pointed me down the right street. I only just got there in time to get my bus, and I annoyed the driver by not having a ticket, nor the right change (though luckily I’d had some small denominations to work with).

The journey to Rethymno was along the coast, and quite pleasant – I’d changed my shoes, but was still thankful for the air conditioning. I got off at the bus station, and realised that I had to walk back to the previous stop anyway. It was very hot by this stage. I found a cash machine (which gave me a ‘cash advance’, which means I’ll probably get charged a lot) and found the hostel reasonably easily. I found reception, then found it was closed. I sat on the steps in the cool entrance tunnel and ate my sandwiches, as I was now very hungry, and then went back for the ice cream. So we’re back to where you found me, waiting under some beautiful jacaranda trees.

My first impressions of Crete are as follows: It’s very hilly; it has a fairly bare landscape, with pale to reddish soil/dust. I has nice, though not stunning, beaches. It has the same shrines to road victims as Peloponnese. It has a feral goat problem, and, I suspect, a feral cat problem, as I saw a very small one disappear into the bushes behind me about half an hour ago. The hostel may be dodgy, as the only residents I saw were a very large group of rowdy French people. We’ll see: maybe I can snaffle a nice quiet corner. Half an hour to wait until 5pm. Come on!

I went  back to the hostel, and finally got to check in. The guy in charge is very friendly and happy to help. He asked where I was from, and got me to sign the book, and took my money. He showed me upstairs and briefly explained where things were, leaving me to rest. I ended up nodding off a few times, and a guy came in and out while I was there. I finally stirred, said hi to him, and then set off to walk into town and get some dinner – it was about 7pm by now. I saw a few gyros shops on the way, plus a lot of other interesting shops – clothes, shoes, ice cream, and food. I got a chicken gyros just before I got to the water, and sat eating it in front of the fortress, looking out to sea. There were lots of photos I vowed to take the following night.

I walked around the front of the fortress, into the sunset, then turned back and walked around the posh seafood restaurant side, caught a glimpse of a pretty mucky looking beach, and then headed back, stopping at a supermarket on the way. When I got back, there were three lovely guys in my room: Todd and Nathan (Australian) and Andy (British). We had a chat, and they invited me out for a drink, which I accepted, under a little bit of pressure. I’m glad I did, though, because it was a fun, beer-fuelled evening.

Later on (after midnight), Andy decided he was hungry, so we found a place to eat, and Todd decided he fancied some snails. They ate, and then went in search of an ATM. I left them to it at that point, headed back, found another girl in our room, had a shower, and went to bed. The boys were pretty rowdy when they came in, and I don’t think the girl from New York was very impressed, as she moved rooms the next morning.