Thursday, Sept 20

Got up early this morning to take a walk before the crowds came out.  We found a geocache that we couldn't get to the other day because of tourist.  Continued in our walk and came to a beach that looked too good to pass up, so we went back to get our swimsuits on and came back and swam for awhile.  A perfect morning.  Once cleaned up, we went for breakfast and did some more walking.  We saw some of those little tiny fish that looked like the ones that nibble at your feet and and ares so popular here, Susan put her foot in the water, but they ignored here. Must have beena different fish.  So much for a free foot spa!!  We're enjoying our last day here in Ag. Nikolaos, before we hop a bus this afternoon for Heraklion and then an overnight ferry into Athens for our flights home tomorrow.

Repacking the suitcase has been fun.  This time I check my luggage.

The hotel let us check out late, so that was nice, we grabbed a taxi to the bus depot, arrived just as the bus to Heraklion was boarding, so made the connection and off we went to the Ferry terminal.  We went into the port cafe for a Greek Salad, but the person who made them, was gone for what turned into over 1/2 hour, so we had a glass of wine and Susan went out insearch of a geocache, andfound it without a GPS or iPhone.  We were able to board the ferry about 7pm.  It was a gigantic ferry, as big as a cruise line ship and most of the amenities including swimming pools and disco.  Lots of passengers just had seating only, so lots of people sleeping all over the place, couches, hallways, steps.  Susan and I booked a cabin, so got a good nights sleep.  

So our last day on vacation,  journey home will be a long one.

Anytime a new country is discovered its a learning experience.  I will always be grateful for the opportunity to see a new culture, meet new friends, swim in another sea and hike in beautiful and not so beautiful locations.   Susan once again is a perfect travel companion.  .

Wednesday, Sept 19

Had a slow morning, isn't that what vacations are for?  Then headed to the bus station to go explore another small city, Krista, which isn't to far from here.  It was a delightful little city, very old (what isn't in Greece).  Had some pretty common tourist shops, and then it had what is known for, it's needlework and linens.  It also had some fused glass that was unique.  We had a nice time wandering, had a not so great Greek Salad, then decided to find a geocache.  Well we got waylaid just wandering the streets, took lots of pictures.  The buildings were fantastic.  Winding streets, old mixed with new. Some construction incorporates the new with the old.  Lots of very interesting doors, if I was a professional photographer, I would have been going crazy.  As it was I exhausted my camera battery again, but luckily this time towards the end of the day.  In the afternoon we head back to the bus stop and for 1.60€ we rode the bus back to Ag Nikolaos.  I was ready for dinner, but we waited until after dark before we set off for some of those fantastic gyros we had had the night before.  Pita bread, garlic sour cream, tomatoes, and pork wrapped up with fries.  Pretty fun and so excellent.  Then I had some wonderful ice cream to finish off my meal.  Nutrition has been challenged on this trip.  I must say I have eaten more than my share of Greek salads though.

An early evening.  I think we are both wearing outand ready for home.

Tuesday, Sept 18 and Susan's Birthday

We had a great day today.  Because Susan was whining about her birthday and not having coffee in bed, I went out and got coffee and pastries for her birthday breakfast.  Had a lazy morning enjoying the balcony (just love the balcony).  Once on the move we explored another part of the waterfront less traveled by tourist and found another geocache and a great view.  We were on the hunt for another one, but too many people around so couldn't look for it.  

At noon we set off on a tour  boat to explore Spinalonga Island.   It's a small island that was an Venetian Fort a very long time ago and more recently (1903-1957) used as a leper colony.  It was an amazing place.  The old fort had such well constructed rock walls, or which many are in ruins and some still standing.  And then the leper colony lived there for 50 years, modifying for their use.  Again I have lots of pictures that I will post later.  There were also a couple geocaches on the island, we got the one at the top of the island. We didn't have time for the second and see the ruins too.

On the way to the island we stopped off at a small inlet and were able to swim in the beautiful waters, a little on the cool side, but you warmed up fast.  We also learned the history of some other small islands on the way back, like where pirates lived in a cave.

After hanging out on our balcony drinking cheap local wine you buy in LARGE water bottles for 3.20€, we went to find a birthday dinner for Susan.  Earlier in the day I had discover some wonderful desserts and took Susan to see.  We decided to have dessert first (we had been drinking and would never do this without the influence of alcohol).  So we had some absolutely delicious chocolate mousse and caramel gelato, with dessert done, we wandered around looking for a gyro, had to have a gyro, after 1/2 hour of exploring new parts of the harbor, we found the perfect gyro.  So dinner complete!  We strolled through town some more, with Susan coveting some beautiful earrings that we just had to go back and see again, finally making it back to our hotel room.  A successful birthday day.

Monday, Sept 17

Now the real story, after my last post, the new location went downhill fast.  While the swimming pool was delightful, the room was dirty, the food horrendous, the mosquitoes on the attack, air conditioning was an extra and we were so far away from everything.   We decided to check out in the morning and find something more to our liking.  We talked to the hotel management and they said they'd credit us back our money for the meal and give us free air conditioning. So we went off to our room to get some sleep and ponder what to do.  Our room was filled with mosquitoes.  We wiped out as many as we saw, turned on the air conditioning and tried for some sleep.  The little suckers had gone into hiding and we got bit during the night.  Me more so than Susan.  My left eye was swollen shut and the rest of my face didn't look so good either.  I iced it for awhile and got my eye back open, but there wasn't much else i could do.  So, we went down to breakfast, told the desk clerk we were checking out and set off on foot to find a better location and hotel.  Which we did, we're now in a lovely hotel right on a small inlet harbor.  And the desk clerk gave us some fabulous chocolate.  So, with a brand new attitude, we had a great day.  Susan wandered the streets checking out the shops, I actually came to the room and rested for awhile (all that mosquito venom must of had some effect on me) and later we met up had a nice lunch waterside, did more strolling.  Had a late dinner and came back to the room.  So it started out not so good and ended up on the sunny side.  Life is Good.

Sunday, Sept 16

Sunday, Sept 16

Up early and on the bus to Heraklion, a 2 1/2 hour ride, then another bus ride to Ayios Nikolaos.  We'll spend the next four nights exploring Eastern Crete, and get in some islands, like Santorini.  The bus is a very nice coach, with Greek Music playing.  The music isn't bad, just can't understand the words, kinda like American music!  Lots of stops along the way, sometimes we're along the north coast, and then inland.  Quaint villages,a couple larger towns, a few nicer hotels along the sea (for the rich and famous).  All in all, I think this is a high poverty area.  At lunch yesterday, I had a small child ask for food off my plate.  The mother was with him.  There's many ways to beg here, some sit onthe sidewalk with their hand out and baby in lap looking very mournful, some have accordions which they play poorly.  You see the same people inthe same places everyday. 

More thoughts as I'm riding along:

We woke one morning to an earthquake, 5.2.  Just went back to sleep, later at breakfast we all commented on it, all we're not sure if it really was one.  So we checked on the internet.

During the hikes I got to noticing that there we no ground animals like squirrels and very few birds.  The goats, and there's many of those, have stripped this island bare.  There are areas that are fenced off, so vegetation can grow.  But all in all, the island, especially the south side, has a very large population of goats.  In some areas there are herds of sheep. Most of these animals are scrawny by my standards.   The other animal that is prevalent where ever we have gone is the cat.   This are the sleek, Egyptian looking cats, Absynian (spelling?).  Some are most elegant looking.  

The bus has Internet, but I can't pull it in.  It can't pull up the DNS numbers.  Rats.

The forest here are a Cyprus, pine, maple and oak.  Not lush at all, very little underbrush, but what's there would carry a fire well.  I saw areas that were ripe to burn.  

Did I mention body odor?  Right now were sitting behind a guy that is quite ripe.  Not too unusual and hard to get use to!

Smoking, so many smokers in this country.  There are no restrictions for smoking in public places.  Though, no one is smoking on this bus. 

As in America, they must have gangs here, or kids just like to run around with spray paint tagging the buildings.  Even they really old structures are tagged.  It's been a distraction for me.

This leg of the bus ride is coming to an end, we'll transfer to another bus to finish the journey today.  Four nights in one location will be nice.  No unpacking and repacking.  

We've made it too our hotel, it's a bit out of the tourist area, but rather nice.  We checked, ditched our stuff, went looking for a bottle of wine and are now poolside enjoying the downtime.    

Ayios Nikolaos

Saturday, Sept 15

I started the day early blogging about yesterday, lost the Internet connection, so most of the blog wasn't saved.   I'll catch that one later.

Today was suppose to be a kayak from Loutro to Sfakia, turned out it was another hike.  So no kayaking on this trip.   I'm pretty disappointed, as are the rest of the group.  We started the morning with a breakfast of bread and orange juice.   I must say I won't be eating bread once home.  We get our fill here.  Every morning it's bread and if we're lucky we get yogurt.  Once breakfast was over, we gather up our stuff and headed to Sfakia.  Alexis says 2 hours, and the rest of us do a little math and come up with 3 hours.  Again across a barren rocky hillside, with some major cliffs.  It started easy and we got sucked in thinking this isn't so bad, and then the boulder fields and cliffs began.  We had one quite long trek that for me was quite frightening.  One foot in front of the other,  I did stop in a couple wider places to get some pictures.  One of the guys refused to continue and he and our guide turned around and went back to a small beach that had a water taxi.  The rest of us were already past the nasty part and continued on.  I did sit down at one point and think about not continuing one, wondering what a helicopter rescue would cost.  But I regained my senses, got up and continued on.  And I'm here to tell the story.  

We made it into Sfakia, just as the water taxi was arriving, we gathered up our luggage that had been delivered earlier my ferry, caught the bus back to Chania.  It was quite the hairy ride, I must say.  Some of the road was one lane, we were in a large bus.  When you come to a corner, the driver would just honk and keep going.  No accidents, but there were some close misses.

Once back in Chania, we checked into our hotel, then Susan and I went for some lunch and ended up having a Turkish bath and massage, al hamam.  That was wonderful, especially the steam part.  then we had lunch, wandered the side streets of Chania.  Now it's rest time until dinner.  

Had a wonderful Greek dinner, said goodbye to some new friends I'd love to see again.  Email was exchanged, with intention of staying in touch and sharing pictures.

Friday, Sept 14

It's early Saturday morning as I blog this.  Sitting out on the balcony of our hotel room.  It's still dark and with the quaint little town asleep and the lights mostly out, the stars ate amazing.  Very bright and seem very close.  At home I get to see some wonderful skylights, here they seem closer.

Here's how the day went:

The trek from hell today.   That sounds like I wasn't having a good time and I was was glad to be out hiking and enjoying Greece.  This did turn out to be a very long and very very hot hike.   We started in the morning from Agia Roumeli, found a geocache,  then off across a beach (nude).  Seemed pretty simple a hike, wentthru some lightly forested areas, stopped at a beach for a break where a small ancient church still stands.  The terrain is not bad, the path not too rocky,still feeling like this will be a long but easy hike.  Then, Alexis, says something about coming to a no shadow area.   What he didn't say is the rest of the day was across a day, hot, rocky slope.  Hot hot hot.  We did bring lots of water.  Alexis, we had figured out wasn't too good at translating time and distance.  This 5 hour hike turned into 8, with a very nice picnic (their translation of lunch along the way) at a small beach where we all jumped in and cooled off.  feeling refreshed and thinking we didn't have far to go, we started off across the very hot (did I already say hot) slope.  Uphill we went, then came the good part, a narrow ledge with a 50ft + drop to the sea.  I personally have a healthy fear of heights, put my  head down focused on my feet, and went for it.   Made it.  One of our crew, had to be coaxed across, he wasn't buying this narrow ledge to well.  But he made it.  Finally after 8 hours, exhausted and hot, we arrived at the beautiful sea village of Loutro.  Susan, bless her, had taken the ferry (smart woman that she is) and had lugged my bags up to our room, and while I was taking a shower, she got some wine and we relaxed on our balcony overlooking the sea.  

Later we met our group for dinner and had a great time embellishing our day.   This rendition is the absolute truth.   It was a very hot, long nasty hike, across some land that wasn't really all that picturesque.  And I have pictures to prove it.