Zeus cave unbound

 

Today, which seems so long ago now, was supposed to be a relax, drive, chill day.  I had another shitty night of sleep and was terribly gassy throughout the night, but netherteless up at 8 and off to get the coffee, and pay the bill and wish Georios at the Oceanus a good summer and promise we’ll be back and pack the shit and away we went, except some German dude hiking on the road waved us down still inside the town.  What is it with us and hitch hikers?  And a lousy German no less, though this guy had a good story to tell and he was going to hike the Agia Irini Gorge, like we did yesterday, so it was along the way, and so we agreed.  He was a psychologist or something, been coming to Sougia for 40 years, which tends to be the case, and blah blah, we dropped him off and didnt mention we paid a cab 30 bucks for that ride.

Anyways, at this juncture, we’re practically over the top and begin the slow winding road to the see, and then past Chanda for the last time and off to Rethymno.

We arrived not much longer after, and headed straight away to Faros Beach, our hotel n the port.  We wer greeted by a strange lady and after checking in realized they had done a little remodeling.  We found out later they wer under new ownership, but the showers still sucked.

After dropping off our things, we hopped in the car and headed up into the mountains to the village of Anogia, where we had had a lovely meal in 2017, but when we arrived at the taverna, they were not open,, so we drove around and found one that was open, and they were good too.

After lunch we ventured further up the mountain, leaving most of humanity behind except for thousands of goats and sheep, and the Shepard’s who watched them.  The ultimate location, the Nida Plateau, and there on the edge of the white mountains, Ideaon Andon, the historically significant to the Minoans cave, which was covered in 20 feet of snow and ice the last time we came.  We spiraled around the edge of the plateau and reached the shabby gravel path that lead up the mountainside.  At one point we realized the car was not meant for this abuse and pulled over next to a chapel, and hiked the rest of the way.

There was no guard and the gate was open, so in we went, the gapping hole, with a rail tracking going in, and multiple birds flying around both in and outside.  I walked down into the cave and looked around, but really, there was not much to see, and the wooden platform at the botttom was completely rotted away.  So up I went, and out we went, and back down the hill o the car, and drove away almost entirely satisfied with the effort.  The adventure is not the conclusion to the journey, but the journey itself

After th harrowing ride down the mountain, we reached the highway, and straight back to Rethymno, where we bought our gifts suitcase and had a lovely dinner at our favorite spot 1600 Raki Ba Raki.