Crazy kids. Probably the same ones that were up all night screaming outside our window. We had a little free breakfast and jumped on the road west. The same road we had gone on the day before towards Palekastro, and then on towards Zakros, where we went on our first trip, past Zakros and on towards Xerokampos. We have now been on all four corners of the island, which is quite a feet when you see some of these roads. In Xerokampos we stopped to see a minoan site, which we could not find, and stick our feet in the waters of the Lybian Sea.
With the great map reading of JuliaGoolia, we made it to our next stop, Ierapetra, where we actually just drove through. oh, did i mention, this was our 7 hour road trip day. It wasn't bad. We followed the southern coast for quite a ways, and it was very pretty, then to Myrtos to see another Minoan site that we couldn't find, and bah, kept going. finally leaving the southern coast behind and on into the middle of the island, and down a few roads that we'd seen before on our first trip. Stopped off at Gortyns, a roman site that we visited on our first trip, but JG forgot to take pictures of some really old olive trees. 1/2 the site was under construction, so our first visit was way better.
We continued down the road, and on to Mires, which was closed because they have a big market in the middle of town on Saturdays, it took us forever to get around it, and finally on through Timbaka, and into the hills below some crazy mountains where we stopped at a roadside taverna for lunch.
Finally we arrived at our highlight of the day, the Preveli Monestary and what was supposed to be a 30 minute hike down to the Preveli Beach, one of 2 Palm Tree beaches on the island, and supposedly the only ones in Europe. I guess we picked the wrong path though, because our trip lead us through some rather scary trails that were perched precariously on the side of the ravine that lead down to a little river that cut through the hills. Eventually we arrived above the beach looking down at it. I have some great pictures of this, but to make a long story short, we were hot and not feeling it when we arrived at the bottom of the trail and finally at the Preveli Beach, an hour later. I was assured by trip advisor (fuckhead) that if we took the trail back along the beach to the small taverna that one could get a ride back to our car. well that was pure horseshit, and they told us unequivocally that taxis no longer came down here because the road was too bad. we then went to the other taverna to ask the same question, and the very nice man there told us he was leaving in an hour and would take us back to our car. then an hour because 1/2 and hour while we were talking about the evils of america and the beauty of Crete with him and his mother. He told us his name a few times, but we just called him Kris. Kris was wonderful and talked to us about his little village and his wife and two kids and how he had to drive them an hour every day to school. He really saved our asses because we were dog tired and it probably would have taken us 2 hours to walk back up the way we came.
We finally got to our car and Kris refused any money for the beer we had at his taverna or for the ride. We hopped on the road towards Frangokastello, where we arrived an hour later, and took some great picts of the centuries old castle on the long beach.
We however saw no ghosts :(. then our last stop was a mere 1/2 an hour away, Chora Sfakia, a quaint little town where the hikers from Samaria catch the bus back to Chania. The main part of the town is carless, and we hiked through all of the restaurants to get to our meager hotel, and then after a hot shower we had dinner at 3 Brothers. It was the longest day of the trip, and disaster was averted by our new friend Kris. If you happen to go to Preveli Beach, make sure to stop by his Taverna and buy lots of stuff.
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