Friday, July 1, 2011—Paleohora, Crete, Greece
FINALLY hiked the Samaria Gorge yesterday. I have to say it was worth it. It truly is a beautiful area. Sheer rock wall towering well above you. A piney, almost alpine feel at the top. Steep descents and narrow passages. Rock-hopping across the stream. Natural springs, from which it is actually safe to drink. Surprisingly cool breeze. And all sorts of other good stuff …
The hike was nowhere as hard as reputed either. The main problems are that you're continually hiking over broken stones (like every other hike on this island), which really takes its toll on your ankles and feet, and the fact that it’s mostly downhill, which puts a lot of pressure on muscles you don’t use that heavily all that often. So even though it wasn’t overly taxing I’m really sore this morning, to the point where I’m feeling the need to alter my travel plans somewhat. More about that later.
Overall, partially because of the hike, I had a strange day yesterday. As I was getting ready to leave for the bus that would take me to the gorge, I met this German girl in the place where I was staying who was doing the same hike. She was quite cute (ridiculously blonde with sparking blue-green eyes) and like me traveling alone, so I made sure we fell in together for the day. This meant that I went on my first German hike. By this I mean that she was very German, in that she wasn’t going to let anything like beautiful scenery or contemplative moments get in the way the efficiency of her hiking. So we set a blistering pace down the gorge, ultimately conquering the place in a little over four hours, when the average time is said to be slightly more than five. It was a fun experience on one hand, but in the end I think I would have preferred a slower pace. I mean, every once in a while I’d snap out of the marching mentally she put in place, take a look around, and be amazed. Then I’d think, “Shit, how much cool stuff have I missed on this trek!” Oh well, it was still fun, different, if nothing else …
Unfortunately this girl and I turned out to have almost nothing in common; all she seemed to be into was playing sports and watching American TV—she was nowhere near cute enough to compensate for that--nobody is. But for better or worse we ended up locked together for the rest of the day, drinking beers after the hike and then I somehow got roped into having dinner with her and some German people (and one Austrian) she’d met earlier in Paleohora. They were very nice people but didn’t speak much English (the girl’s English was pretty good). They were also a little boring. I of course don’t speak German. I was also by this point pretty over my hiking buddy; she was nice but just not very interesting (she probably felt the same way about me). Finally, at about midnight, exhausted from hiking and too much beer (the Germans were really putting it away and I got caught up in their wake) I extricated myself from her and the situation and went to bed. I left her a note on her door this morning thanking her for hiking with me and quietly slipped out of there ...
Partially because I was so exhausted I decided to skip my early morning boat to Hora Safakilon. This is probably just was well. I was going to use that little town as a hiking base to get to Frangokastello, an old Venetian castle I want to see. I’m now so sore and that’s such a challenging E-4 hike that I really couldn’t do it and enjoy the experience without giving myself forty-eight hours of down time. I can’t spare that. It’s time for me to get off of Crete and on to other places. So I’ve decided to let fate decide my next move. I’m going to take the bus to Hania. There’s a bus that leave Hania sporadically for Frangokastello. If I can catch it without too much wait I’ll head there that way. If not I’ll head on to Rethymno and try to catch the bus to this little inland town (the name escapes me) I want to see. If I can’t catch that easily I’ll just keep traveling east towards Sitia, where I’ve decided I’m going to catch the ferry to Karpathos, before heading over to Rhodes. So my next entry could come from just about any of the places I mentioned. It’s all up in the air …
I’ve been doing a lot of interesting thinking lately, about where I’m at in life and what my next moves will be when I get home. I’m realizing that even though I’m enjoying this trip this part of my life is over: I simply don’t need to be a globetrotter anymore. My next phase of life is to build something better than I’ve got back home, something deeper and more meaningful. First off, I now know that my writing is and always will be the center of my life (at least my inner life). I also really want to turn Burning Shore Press into something; right now it’s kind of a failed vanity project. What else do I want to build? A family? I can’t seem to shake that idea from my head … Hmm ...
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