June 30 – Day Three
We were to meet the car rental representative in the hotel lobby at 9:00 a.m., so we arrived bright and early at 8:55. He showed up promptly, and there was no problem signing all the paperwork. Honestly, one of the easiest car rentals I’ve ever done. The only issue came when we had to pay for it, and he couldn’t take cards. Of course, they never told us this. If they had, we could have gotten the money while we were out the day before (or even brought it with us). Instead, I took the car into town, following our rep to an ATM. I got the cash, paid for the car and headed back to the resort. The fun here was that I don’t usually drive. Rasa is the driver in our family. It had probably been a couple of years since I’d been behind a wheel, so driving a manual transmission up the narrow, windy 2km back to our place was a little nerve-wracking (not as nerve-wracking as driving in the UK a few years ago, but still…). I made it back safely and met the girls in the restaurant for breakfast.
Then it was finally time to go exploring! We’d done a little bit of research into some of things we wanted to see and so we spent a little time organizing and studying the map. We decided on day one with the car, since Rasa had never driven in a foreign country before, to take it a bit easy and to start with the Melidoni Cave.
Oh my!
Unlike the journey last year when Mom, Dad, and I went to the Cave of Zeus, the walk to the entrance was pretty easy. Going into the cave, though, was another matter. Neither Monki nor Rasa had ever been to a cavern like this and so there was a little trepidation from the little one about going in (something about darkness and spiders). It took a little while but eventually, we all did climb down into the darkness (while not as many stairs as into the Cave of Zeus, it was still not an insignificant number).
The drive there was insane. GPS took us through some serious backroads (where we were held up at one point by a large truck blocking the singular dirt lane) and then up and up along more narrow roads (where we discovered the Opel we had rented was severely lacking in uphill torque and even floored, never got much above 80kph) until we finally made it to the entrance of the caves.
Before leaving we grabbed a tourist map of the area and examined it over ice cream in the attached snack shop. There were a couple of nearby things to see, one of which sounded the most cool – Reptisland. At first we passed right by it, but then doubled back and went inside. It was basically just a large, single room with a lot of lizards and snakes and things in tanks. But then the guy who owned and ran the place, took a snake out of a cage, handed it to me, and went on to talk to some other folks. For the hour or so we were there, that’s how it was. He would just hand off animals, exchanging them with animals other people had been petting, answering questions and giving mini-lectures about whatever you were holding. At times, we traded with other people who were visiting. It was fun and surreal and Rasa even held a few critters!
We didn’t stop at the honey museum on the way out of that area since we were hungry, opting instead to try and find a lunch spot in the nearby larger town of Rethymno. Ultimately, we found a lovely pizzeria close to the beach and Monki was very excited when the grandpa who was our server called her a princess. We had a delicious pizza and all ordered specialty, fruit-based drinks. Of course, they were delivered while I was in the toilet so by the time I returned, the girls had tasted theirs and various swaps were made. I’m not sure what I ended up with, but it certainly wasn’t what I ordered. But they all had plastic monkeys so it was okay.
We tried to go to the beach afterwards, but the wind was blowing so hard red flags were blowing and no one was in the water past their ankles. We waded for a few minutes before stopping at a nearby grocery store to get some snacks for the room and car and then heading back to the hotel. Another couple of hours in the pool followed, with Monki getting good at snorkeling.
After dinner, we did indeed get a magician for the evening entertainment: Tetelos-The Professional. He was okay. Monki really wanted to be called as his assistant and so she was. She also made a young friend that night. My only issue with his performance was the same bone I keep picking on, which is the need for a director. He wasn’t a bad magician, but a couple of slight changes could have made his show so much tighter. I bet he’s never heard of Jon Armstrong’s How to Win and he really could use its advice.
In the end, though, Monki was fooled and impressed and that’s all that mattered.
July 1 – Day Four
After breakfast, we decided today would be the day to attempt the Heart Shaped Rock. According to the map, the parking area was a bit of a hike from the beach where the rock was located but that was okay… we were ready (readers, we were not ready, but that comes later).
One of the things we discovered as we were doing our research this time around was that Crete is actually well known as a hiking and nature destination, as well as for gorgeous beaches. There are several gorges and waterfalls which are listed as fabulous places to see and some of them were near to the Heart Shaped Rock on Preveli beach, so we figured we’d be able to knock out a couple of these in one day.
With all that in mind and some resort “food” in our bellies, we headed off. Our drive started the in the same direction as the day before but this time, we were going to be driving pretty much across the whole width of the island. The south side of the island we were headed to, while beautiful, was not nearly as well inhabited as the north side. In fact, it seemed there was one highway in Crete, which ran along the northern coast, hitting all the major cities and urban areas, but as soon as you leave that main thoroughfare, you were rolling your dice and taking your chances as to road conditions and quality.
As we discovered on our way to the Melidoni Cave, these roads are not for the faint of heart, and Rasa certainly proved more than equal to the task. Monki was in the back seat, literally listening to the same three songs (from the K-Pop Demon Hunters Soundtrack) on her headphones so our drive was punctuated by her random singing. Since we didn’t have a set agenda, when we saw a few cars stopped at an overlook for the Kourtaliotiko Gorge, we decided to stop as well.
It was so windy we were having trouble staying on our feet… not a good thing when there was an overlook with a fairly steep drop off not far away. But hey, we’re on vacation and I’m trying to get a picture so get a little closer…and the wind grabs my hat and takes it as an offering. I am not going to give it up that easily, though, so I take off running after it – with my camera still recording in panorama mode! In the end, I got my hat back and some pretty funny pictures, and all it cost me was a slightly twisted ankle. No worries, I could recover as we continued on our way.
The GPS directions to the Preveli beach parking area kept getting sketchier, with Rasa exclaiming at several points “Oh, no way!” But eventually, we did find the lot and left our car to begin the trek to the beach.
The first sign of trouble was when we actually saw the heart-shaped rock from a distance…and about 500 feet up. Yeah, the hike down was mostly carved out, but it was still steep and pretty far. As we started down, Monki realized that for every step down we took, that meant a step on the way back up. However, since going down was relatively easy, she wasn’t too worried about it. Sure, a few times a bit of acrophobia kicked in, but we successfully navigated the mountain. Now it was time to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
The rock itself is pretty cool. To get there, you have to wade across a narrow, shallow river and then into the ocean, which was cold and a bit choppy. The beach itself had more rocks than sand, but once we made it out past the smaller waves, the bottom turned sandy. Monki and I made it all the way out to the base of the rock.
After playing in the cold water for a while, Monki was hungry so we went to the little food stand and grabbed some lunch before deciding to explore the nearby Palm Forest. The tree reserve is a lovely place, interesting and would make a great background for a jungle film. We didn’t go too far into the groves before figuring we should get a start on climbing back up the mountain to the car.
That walk up was torture.
We stopped every twenty feet to cajole and threaten Monki, who kept saying she just wanted to get to the top without having to climb. I didn’t enjoy it either, I’m horribly out of shape, but it was my job to keep going and to keep everyone else going as well (this, too, will come back later in the trip). We did eventually make it back to the top and to the car. We were all tired and there was the bribed promise of ice cream needing to be fulfilled, so off we went to our next destination.
The next place on our itinerary was The Big Waterfall. Yes, that’s its name. I plugged the coordinates into the GPS and off we went, agreeing to stop at the first place we saw selling ice cream.
That place turned out to be a taverna called Gefyra, home to a really old bridge. It was also on the same river we had just left, the one which flowed through the palm forest, and we crossed to get to the heart-shaped rock. So technically, we could have walked there, but we’re pretty glad we didn’t. They did have ice cream and some delicious fruit smoothies, so our obligation was completed. We even asked our server about the severity of the walk to the Big Waterfall. We were told it was an easy 200 meters or something. Okay then, we were off to try it.
Unfortunately, our plan was thwarted by faulty GPS or my own poor navigation. We probably needed to stop earlier than where the GPS was leading us and walk down, which we already knew was going to be a fight with the little one in the back seat. So once we realized we were past where we should be, we decided to just keep going and skip the waterfall.
We made it back to the hotel with the sun still in the sky and the pools still open (they closed at 7pm) so Monki forgave us and immediately jumped in. She was practicing her swimming and using both goggles and snorkel mask.
Then it was dinner and the evening’s entertainment, tonight being dancing. The thing is, though, I was starting to get anxious every time I went to the dining area because I knew I was going to have to deal with the bullshit “no shorts” rule. Regardless of the fact that I knew I was fine and that there were plenty of other guys wearing shorts, this tended to put a damper on my evenings in this place.
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 