Greece: Day 6

Location: Loutro, Anopolis

I saw dawn today, as I was up early to do another hike; this time, I would be exploring Aradena Gorge with Ryan. The most strenuous part of the trip came first, scaling the hills that ring the coast of Crete, which required a good deal of steep switch-backing. At the top of the path there was an old monastery with a terrific 360-degree view; this allowed me my first true view of the interior of Crete (we have been travelling around the coast for the most part), which is a vast valley of farmland and little towns. We headed into Anopolis, where we got some breakfast. Anopolis felt the most genuine of all the places we’d been so far, and as such, I remember it fondly and clearly. I have no pictures of Anopolis; it was the first place I’d been to where I felt that taking photographs would be an invasion of privacy.

Aradena Gorge was, in truth, a lot more fun than Samaria. The trails are a bit less worn-in and there are a lot fewer people; Ryan and I did not spot a single soul until the very end of the hike, where some visitors from Marmara Beach were exploring the mouth of the canyon (we started at the top of the canyon and walked down). Once again, the hike reminded me forcibly of Colorado.

We ran into Leslie and Seth at Marmara, and we all had lunch together (cheese pie with honey for me), after which Ryan fell asleep with his head in his arms on the table. We collected beer bottles from the other restaurant patrons, arranged them around Ryan, and took a couple of pictures for posterity (and blackmail material) before he woke up, after which we left for the beach. Ryan fell asleep again on a beach chair, Seth and Leslie did some cliff-diving (I didn’t participate because I did not want to get wet), and then the three of us left Ryan to kayak back to Loutro; this was a great way to end the day, as I thought I was going to have to hike back to Loutro and not get any kayaking in at all.

Greece: Day 5

Location: Loutro/Agia Roumeli

Awoke to the sound of Coco, the African Grey parrot that belongs to the owner of the hotel we’re staying at, meowing this morning. He sits on top of his cage and hoots and whistles at the people who walk by. He has both English and Greek words.

Today was the day of my hard-won Samaria Gorge trip. After Ben, one of the guides, cautioned us repeatedly to return exactly at or preferably before five in the evening, we had five hours to ourselves. It was a nice little hike; it’s about two kilometers to walk to the entrance of the gorge, and then Lynn, Alexis, and I managed to get six kilometers in, close to halfway, before we had to turn around due to time constraints. It was a nice hike, with periodic water stops, some really cool ruins, and donkeys tied to posts (the park rangers there ride donkeys).

The weirdest thing about the gorge was that, once you got far enough away from the ocean, it was exactly like walking around in Colorado. The foliage was slightly different here and there, but it was uncanny. I even asked the other Coloradoans here about it, and they said they’d been thinking the same thing. Weird to find a bit of home in Greece.

Dinner was probably the best we’d had all week; I got lamb and Alexis got chicken, so we could share. The biggest event of the evening were the anti-austerity fire-bombings in Athens; all the locals have been glued to their TV sets. It’s a little weird vacationing in a place that’s up in arms against its government; I feel bad that these people must be worried about their friends and family in Athens, and we’re expecting them to act friendly and serve us delicious roasted meats.

The owner himself (Pavlos) served his home-brewed raki, called Pavlos Raki. I even got a picture with him.

Greece: Day 4, or I eat a goat's head

Location: Sfakio/Loutro

This morning we left Matala and saw the ruins of Phaestos’ palace; checking out historical ruins has never really been my thing, but maybe it was good to inject some history into my Crete trip. I took a lot of pictures; even apathetic Alana was a bit impressed by the scale and the age of these ruins, which are four thousand years old and *huge*.

After that, we got some bad news - Samaria Gorge was closed for clean-up after yesterday’s torrential rainstorms. Interesting, that here the Gorge is closed due to possibly hazardous climactic conditions; the rangers close it when it’s too hot, too cold, too rainy, too windy. In America, you can go pretty much anywhere in whatever conditions you like, and no one cares if you slip and fall and die.

Anyway, this was a devastating blow for me, and I immediately tried to reason with the guides - “If the itinerary is shot now anyway,” (since we would rearrange/add new activities in order to make up for the day), “can we reschedule for another day?” The head-guide, Dirk, roundly refused.

That was when I got furious. Really, I think I could’ve bitten through wood. I understand that the guides aren’t responsible for the weather, but for them to just write off what we wanted? And it wasn’t just me who was disappointed, it was every single person I spoke to.

Because did I speak to people. I began to foment a rebellion right under our oppressors’ unknowing eyes. I thought to myself, “I have a guidebook and access to the internet - if they’re not gonna take us, we’ll take ourselves.” We would incur a few additional expenses and it was a bit off the beaten path, but I had a group of four people willing to ditch the group and go off on our own for a couple of days. Then, in a supremely brilliant political power play, I let slip to the junior guides, “Yeah, a couple of us are gonna take off for a few days to hike Samaria, and we’ll meet up with you guys later wherever you are…” and I proceeded to explain exactly how we were going to get there and back (can’t threaten effectively without teeth). Later on that night, the head-guide announced that he was taking the group to Samaria Gorge tomorrow. :D This happened to last week’s group, too (the trip was rained out), but nobody whined like I did, so they didn’t get to go. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, my friends.

In the meantime, we drove to Sfakio and took a ferry to the water/footpath-access-only town of Loutro. It’s pretty tiny, and when we got here, the weather was still rainy and cold. I was nervous - it takes about a minute to walk the entire length of the town, which is a small amount of space to be cooped up in for three days in the pouring rain. But to everyone’s delight, the sun came out, and suddenly Loutro looked a lot friendlier. All the walls are painted bright white, and the doors and trim are a deep blue. The water is lovely, clear, and aquamarine; we spotted a sea turtle and an eel today, just looking out from the shore. There are canopies everywhere, and people decorate their porches like one would a living room - framed photographs, vases of flowers, desks, armchairs. I don’t know if it’s legitimate or just for the benefit of us tourists, but it is very charming nonetheless.

Lunch.

We spent the afternoon and evening hiking; I’m a far faster hiker than anyone here, so I outstripped them quickly, and then walked back in the opposite direction, and then back in the first direction chasing the sun. I found a spot where the land turned, so I could watch the sun go down over the ocean - my first real Cretan sunset. Greece is like my yellow sun - I have super-powers here. Everyone in my group thinks I'm a bad-ass; haha, if only they could see me stopping every thirty feet for a break hiking a fourteener.

Most of the coastline by Loutro is made of razor-sharp igneous rock, which provided me hours of exploratory scrambling. Climbing along the rock on the coast allowed me to see some sights hidden from those who stuck to the path, the most exciting of which was a cave! It was a spotty climb down, but I found myself at the mouth of the cave and I was just about to begin my search for pirate treasure when an inhuman growl echoing from the cave gave me pause. Out of the cave, growling and screaming, came a big pink pig. Behind it were two other pink pigs, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder like a couple of toughs while the pig that was presumably their leader began to chase me across the rock. I screamed and the surge of adrenaline allowed me to clear the area in two strides and I perched on a rock, hoping that pigs couldn’t climb. Happily, it appears they don’t, so while the lead pig followed me on the ground as I hopped across the rocks ringing the cave entrance to return to the path (my interest in further adventures spelunking with pigs understandably dampened), as soon as I was a safe distance away, he went back to stand by his two minions; they satisfied themselves by growling at me as I left.

Here’s my personal highlight of today: I ate a goat’s head. I first noticed them as I was walking through town getting oriented - five goat heads skewered on a spit and slow-roasting over a woodfire. I immediately stopped and asked the waitress for one, but she told me they were only for night and that I should come back. I did, at 7:15 tonight - sure enough, the goats’ heads had been roasted to golden perfection, and it was brought out to me split in half on a plate. I ate its brains, its tongue, and its cheeks; the cheek meat was actually really good, like extremely juicy dark meat, and the roasted skin was crunchy and delicious. Alexis came with me for moral support, and she ended up broadening her horizons by trying the brains and cheek meat, too.