Crete Part 2: Going Solo

Back on the road, my bus traversed the mountains that run like a spine the length of Crete. When we could go no further I walked on to the edge of the sharp cliffs where the Libiyan Sea sparkled beyond and then descended to the palm beach. This was my first day truly alone and it felt good.

Preveli Beach, one of two places remaining with native Cretan Palm Trees

Preveli Beach was a picturesque spot but as I found throughout my journey along the Mediterranean, picturesque often means crowded and even though the steep hike deterred many on foot, daily boat taxis from neighboring towns removed any semblance of seclusion. But with a little searching I did find an ideal nap spot in the shade of some ancient Cretan palms. When I finally continued on it was with renewed energy and the hope of walking far enough in the wrong direction to evade all other tourists. I found an old Monastery up the road with fantastic views and then I left the pavement toward an unknown summit.

Preveli Monastery: If you had to spend your whole life
in one placethis wouldn't be a bad place to stay

This kitty was surely meditating on the importance of a good nap

The steep hot road road to who knows where

Being totally alone in travel is an exhilarating and sometimes unnerving affair. On the one hand, you don’t need to convince anybody else that it’s a good idea to embark without a map in the blazing afternoon sun and you don’t have anybody to remind you how bad your singing voice is when you begin belting out Van Morrison songs to whatever farm animals happen to line the road you walk. But on the other hand, when you realize that you’ve badly miscalculated the distance to the next town and your pants get caught on the barbwire fence you are crossing and the cheat grass fills your socks and your water bottle runs dry, you have nobody to commiserate with. Not that any of that happened to me of course. All I can say is that after a gruelling climb I did find a happy companion, the curious goat pictured below and we enjoyed the phenomenal view together.

My bearded friend the goat

The view I shared with the goat

That night after walking all over hell and gone to find my way back to the beaten track I found my very own private beach to pitch my sleeping bag. I was a bit worried about the tide and I woke up a few times wondering if the sound of the waves was closer than it had been before but I woke dry and immediately ran to the water for a wake up swim.

My beach campsite at sunset

Self timer photo of a morning swim: from the sleeping bag to the ocean

Saying goodbye to my little beach

Back on the road my destination was Aghia Galini, a little town nestled into a steep hillside. I found enough of a park to hide my stuff and then ran up and down the hills searching for whatever there was to find. An old game trail led me to some crumbling cliffs and dramatic views up and down the accordion-like shoreline. I jumped in the ocean and swam a bit, but without a companion I lacked the courage to explore the arches and caves beneath the cliffs. That night I dined alone with the melodies of Bob Dylan’s album “Blood on The Tracks” playing from a British ex-pat bar and I slept like a bum in the park, dirty but happy.

A priest I met waiting for the bus

Aghia Galini, a charming hillside town with a great park for covert camping

The next evening, several bus rides and messy leftover salami cheese and bread meals later I was in another town with the sun setting and not much sign of a free place to sleep. It turned out that there was no connecting bus to my intended destination for several days so at dusk I found my own peninsula to call home for the night. My only guest was a skittish cat hiding in the moonlit grass. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized I was just a couple hundred feet from the excavated remains of a Minoan village.

Another impromptu camping site on a grassy headland

Excavated remains of a Minoan Settlement

After a day of hitching rides from a Cretan and a Frenchman and a lovely German woman I found the sleepy town of Kato Zakros with its stunning position at the very Eastern tip of Crete. This was a landscape scoured by eons of wind and waves, rough and unforgiving yet still hiding softness in the protected spots where olive and fig trees thrived. I suppose it was fitting then that the best place I could find to camp was in a cave. I will admit I was a bit unsure at first about what kinds of invertebrates I might find or should I say might find me. But the spot turned out to be a perfect refuge from the wind and the view was stupendous!

At the Eastern tip of Crete searching for another place to camp

Found it! It may look like a sketchy place to sleep
from the outside

But look at the view from the inside, better than all the hotels in town
no doubt (those buildings in the distance are the town of Kato Zakros)

When the winds came in the body surfing got really good

Some canyon exploration near Kato Zakros

After two days sampling the three restaurants in town and singing myself to sleep in my cave it was time to catch a ride back to civilization and to the ferry passage that would take me on East towards Turkey. My luck was good again with an old farmer giving me a lift to the main road and a French couple driving the rest of the way to the harbor town of Sitia. To make a long portion of my already long story short, the ferry that was supposed to depart at 6:30 p.m. was delayed to 2:30 a.m. (annoying) but didn’t arrive until 5:30 a.m. (very annoying in an exhausting way) so I sat on the dock taking pictures to distract myself and when the boat finally arrived I made a nice nest underneath the stairwell where I slept for no more than three hours.

Had some time on my hands waiting and waiting for the Ferry

Cruising past Karpathos island on my way to Rhodes

That aint no cave accommodation but it will do

Many many hours on the boat

As you can well imagine, by the time I arrived on Rhodes Island late in the afternoon, I was ready for a real bed and as fate would have it, the proprietor of the cheapest backpacker hostel in town drove right past me on my walk from the ferry. Just like that I had a new home. The town of Rhodes is similar to Dubrovnik in it’s castle-enclosed enchanted world feel but it is a bit overrun by tourists. Lucky for me, the hostel provided all the entertainment I could have asked for. The whole thing was like being in a Shakespearean comedy. There was a long-haired Israeli minstrel named Johnny who played classical tunes on his guitar, and a dishevelled Dane named Allen who was always crossing himself, and a slightly frightening mile-a-minute talking ex-military oaf of a man from Poland, and a 6 foot 5 snaggle-toothed tattoo-covered  thickly accented bloke from Newcastle who reported his name as James Bond without a hint of a smile. Seriously, that’s just scratching the surface of the clientele at this hostel and all I had to do was sit around the main courtyard and wait for adventure to come my way.

The moat guarding the city of Rhodes

One of many castles in Rhodes

I walked all over this maze of a town

Showing off that stunning Chaco tan and one of my four shirts

I will write out the story in much longer form at some point but my time in Rhodes was highlighted by a visit, with some of the above-mentioned characters, to a baptism for a 17 year-old Albanian girl at a tiny Greek Orthodox Church. No, it wasn’t one of those quaint far away from home cultural experiences; it was a strange gathering that seemed to be mostly about gossip and exchanging expensive gifts and only accidentally occurred in a place of worship. The contrast of the ancient frescoes with the tiffany blue wrapped presents and gold watch clad priest was all a bit much. When it was all said and done I found myself at dinner with Michele, an Italian Archaeologist who works in Izmir, Turkey. Michele was just in Rhodes for a couple days to renew his Turkish Visa and we had one of those gifts of an evening when you meet a kindred spirit travelling and you know you have just a few hours together. After several days alone it was a welcome connection to make on my last night in Greece and when I left the next morning bound for Turkey, my spirits were high.

Early morning in Rhodes: the only time this street was free of tourists

My new friend Michele trying (unsuccessfully) not to blink from the bright sun