Samaria Gorge

This day definately began very early! At 430 am our alarm clock went off. We quickly got up and grabbed our things. Then we headed downstairs for breakfast at 5:00 am. Since we were not going to be around for regular breakfast and dinner hours, the hotel had agreed to open the breakfast room early and they were going to put a cold plste of supper in our room fridge

for when we returned.

We met our bus at 5:30 and then we started the journey to the gorge. After driving forever...and taking the most twisted road up the side of the mountain....we finally arrived at the gorge and our guide reminded us to let her know about any "healthy problems" we had before she let us "jump in the gorge". We thought that it was funny that she kept saying "jump in the gorge" but that is basically what we did. The first part of the hike involved decsending 1200 metres in to gorge. The descent was very steep and rocky. It was very slow going. One thing that makes Greece different than any other tropical place we have visited is that there are palm trees and pine trees growing sides by side. In the gorge there is a special type of pine tree and as we were trekking your could smell the sweat smell of the pine needles. It was like smelling cedar wood in a sauna.

Once in the gorge...the terrain remained very rocky throughout the hike. He stopped about halfway at a old village that is now only inhabited by the ranger and a doctor. The inhabitants of the village were relocated during the 1960's I think. The remains of the village buildings and stone fences still remain. There were also many other old churches and stone walls throughout the hike. Near the 11 km...the stone walls of rock on either side of the gorge began to narrow. Signs along the path warned us the walk quickly and quietly to avoid rock falls. The walls cane as close together as 3.5 meters and up to 500 metres high. The scenery was truly amazing.

Oh....and we also saw the kri kri....(goat featured in the pictures). This mountain goat is endangered. The Samaria Gorge is one of the few places to see this goat in the wild. The gorge was made into a national park to protect this goat.

Well it took us 10:20 until 4:00 to hike the gorge with a few 10 - 15 minute breaks to eat and get water from the natural springs. Before boarding the ferry to our bus we took advantage of the opportunity to swim in the Lybian Sea where the beach was made from black pebbles. The water was so clear and warm!

At 10:30 pm we finally arrived back at our hotel. We ate our cold plates and took a hot bath and went straight to bed. I was glad that we decided to do the Samaria Gorge hike. It was a ong day but the scenary was definately worth it. According to our guide..."We made many pictures of the Samaria Gorge"...on our cameras and in our minds.

1st Day in Crete

Well, I thought I would do a post finally - its better than the alternative (C is doing laundry in the hotel sink...).

Last night we landed in Crete and took a very quick taxi ride to our airport. The taxi was a VW Passat, that averaged 130 pretty much the whole way. The best part was that he didn't shift into 6th gear until he hit 140 km/hr. I will definitely have to test drive one of these when I get back to PA!!!

We checked into our hotel and because it was so late, we ended up getting a free upgrade to a superior room. That means our room is in the renovated wing, larger than normal, and very nice.

This morning we met with the Transat rep and discussed our excursion options. The one we wanted to do, they didn't offer. So, we walked down the street to some travel agents and ended up getting an excursion to hike the Samarian Gorge tomorrow for about 25% less than their posted price and 60% less than the travel company's prices...lesson learned...So, tomorrow we head to the Samarian Gorge - we have a wake up call for 4:30 a.m., breakfast at 5:00, then get on a bus and do 3 hours to the Gorge. The Gorge is a 16 km walk (down hill mostly) and then end up at the ocean. There we will swim and then take a boat to the highway and do the 3 hour trip home. Sounds like fun, right?

Today we then took the public bus to Hraklion, and went to Knossos, the palace of the Minonian, the reportedly first civilization started 4000 years ago. The palace wasn't actually that spectacular because the guy who excavated it basically made a bunch of assumptions and then rebuilt it with cement...however, both C and I believe that the neatest part was their plumbing system - they had water flowing through clay pipes from miles away up a mountain, going through the 5 story palace, then had dirty water channels in the floors of each level, and then had collection troughs for rain water than flowed throughout the palace. They even used toilets and bath tubs!!!

After Knossos, we returned to Hraklion and toured the fortress that protected the city. It didn't look that big from the outside, or even from the top, but inside it was pretty big and impressive. I will put pictures on tomorrow or the next day after the Gorge trip.

Hope everyone back home is doing well.

TTYL8R...

Rhodes Beach Day

Today was a beach day. Keith ended up working last night until 3 am on work to be done for Thursday. He was pretty tired so we decided to enjoy the beach. It turned out to be a good day for this. There was hardly any wind at all making the sea and the beach quite calm.

Again the weather was very hot so we would often take a swim in the sea which we found to be warmer than the hotel pool. I received my very first sting from a jelly fish....or at least I think it was a jelly fish. We were in the water for a swim and all of a sudden I felt a sting on the top of my foot. I got out of the water right away to find my foot red and small blisters starting to form. I had read about bites from ocean critters in one of my trusty Greece books so I began to find this reference. We narrowed it down to a jelly fish and the book said to pour vinegar on the bite to ease the sting. Keith ran up to the hotel and got a glass of vinegar. By the time he got back, the sting was starting to wear off but we poured vinegar on anyway and it went away right away. Yet another experience hear in Greece! At least no one needed to urinate on my foot....this is waht they do for jelly fish stings in the movies!

Well, we are packed up and waiting for our taxi to the airport. Keith is checking his work email one last time before we head to the airport. Next time we write, it will be in Crete!

Take care out there!

Pictures:

Keith reading a book on the beach in Rhodes

The jelly fish bites on my foot...small red areas...not a big deal really....I thought these bites would be worse...maybe it was a small jelly fish

Rhodes Town

Today we spent the day in Rhodes Old and New Town. The Old Town is protected by 13 metres of walls and moat. With all this protection, you would think it was safe....but apparently it wasn't. I think the Ottomans were able to get into the town.



We walked along the top of the wall and had some great views of the sea and the town. We also sepnt a few hours wandering around the town...looking at the buildings that the knights of Rhodes lived in, the market, the synagogues, and the mosques. The streets were really interesting....small smooth stones layed in patterns.

After that we walked up the Acopolis of Rhodes....not much left...but there was also a ancient stadium and a theatre that were interesting. The view from the Acropolis was amazing!

Then we hiked back to our hotel along a path by the sea...carefully watching for lizards and snakes. We were then very hot and tired....today I am sure the temperature was in the 30's. We headed directly for the hotel swimming pool where we cooled off and relaxed with a book.

Tomorrow we are just going to hang out around the pool. We check out at 5:30 pm and head to the airport for Crete....Goodbye Rhodes!

Pictures:

Photo taken at the Acropolis at Rhodes....see the town and sea behind...amazing view

Pointing to our hotel room at the Belair Beach hotel in Rhodes...photo taken from the beach

Sunset from beach at ourn hotel in Rhodes

First Day in Greece Actually Spent in Turkey

Well our first day in Greece was actually spent in Turkey. We woke up at 6 am and met the bus at 7:30 am. It was really windy out so I was really worried about getting sea sick on the boat. I avoided breakfast and became good friends with Gravol. Luckily the boat was quite large so there were no problems even though the sea was rough.

Upon arriving in Turkey we went to the Turkish Bazarre where we were first toured around a carpet and jewllery shop. It is the end of the season for tourists in Marmaris so the shops are desperate to sell their goods. The carpets and gold were good prices but still outside our budget.

We then toured around the other 2 500 shops containing purses, leather goods, Turkish delight, Apple Turkish Tea, spices, pottery, and "Genuine Fake" purses, shoes....you name it! When it was all said and done we came away with some Turkish Delight and some Turkish Apple Tea.

In busy season...July and August....it gets to be 53 degrees Celsius. Today it was 27 degrees Celsisus. Perfect weather. We went for lunch and had the famous Turkish kebab....meat shaped off a spit...along with fries, salad, and rice. It was very good. We then went to the beach for a swim and some R and R. Someone said that there are no words to describe how blue the Agean sea is and I must agree they are absolutly right!

Our day ended with a tour of a leather store...once again....no purchases for us. We are now sitting down at the lounge in our hotel listening to Greek music and watching Greek dancing and of course...Keith is still working. On that note...I think he is getting antsy to use the computer again so I will sign off.

All in all...a good day...I guess you could say that we may have missed Thanksgiving but we still had a taste of Turkey!

PS...See the Amsterdam section for a few pictures.

PSS...Ignore the bad spelling...I am typing this as quick as possible so as not to waste Keith's internet minutes.

The Longest Day Part 2

Well we are finally in Greece!

Yesterday we spent our last afternoon with Sarah and Glenn at the Anne Frank Huis. We had both read a little bit of Anne's diary and we watched a very good documentary before we left home. It is hard to believe the family lived inside in hiding for two years! The museum was very moving.

Then we boarded the train for the airport and we flew to Athens at 8pm after a very expensive Burger King meal.

We arrived in Athens shortly after midnight. We tried to find the representative who had our tickets but she/he was no where to be found. When we asked about the travel company at the help desk, no one had ever heard of it. Then we were told that we had a flight to Rhodes but it had been cancelled. Since it was the middle of the night, we decided to get some sleep and call the tour company in the morning.

At 8:30 am we finally foudn our rep who gave us our tickets. We then got some more sleep in the ariprot before boarding our flight to Rhodes at 2:55 pm. Upon arrival our new rep hailed us a taxi that took us to our hotel. It is a nice little hotel...feels like an all inclusive in Mexico because breakfast and supper are included and there is a beach, pool, and planned activities. Keith keeps on wanting to say Gracious whenever we are trying to thank someone. We were really excited to find that our room faces the Agean Ocean!

Tomorrow we are off to Turkey for the day. We are taking an excursion to Marmaris. Wednesday we will take the bus to the Old Rhodes town and the archeological site of Lindos. We are considering renting a care instead of taking the bus as the island is 80 km long and 40 km wide....easily drivable in a day. However, I just read that Greece has the highest traffic accident death toll...hmmmmm

Take care everyone!

The Longest Day

Hey everyone! We made it, but it definatly was the longest day!

It all started when at 3 am when we got up and took a taxi from Uncles Reg's house in Saskatoon to the Saskatoon airport. As we are waiting in line to check our luggage...who do we run into...Rachelle Porter and her boyfriend who are also travelling to Minneapolis and Amsterdam on their way to the Ukraine. Needless to say we had company all the way to Amsterdam.

Once we arrived in Minneapolis, the four of us checked our bags and went to the Mall of America. It is an easy place to navigate but much smaller than the West Edmonton Mall. We looked around and ate Thai food for lunch. Before heading back to the airport we checked out the sea life exhibition. You walked in an underwater tunnel where sharks, rays, and turtle swam over top. It was very cool.

We then headed back to the airport. We sat down for a beer while Keith joined in a conference call happening back at the office while writing a letter for work....still working!

We then took the long eight hour flight to Amsterdam. Once we landed we said goodbye to Rachelle and her boyfriend and locked up our luggage before taking the train to Utretch. There we met Glen who took us to his place. After visiting with Glen and Sarah for a while we all went into Amsterdam where we went to the Van Gogh Museum, took a canal tour, took some pictures of the Heineken brewery, ate a traditional Dutch meal, and walked around the city and the Red Light District. We accomplished quite a bit considering we had no sleep!

Unfortunately Keith wasn't feeling to good after all of this so we went back to Glen and Sarah's place. We had what Glen referred to as "deep fried weirdness"...a traditional Dutch fast food and I think it made Keith sick.

Today, Keith stayed in bed to continue to recover. Glen and Sarah and I went for a bike ride to enjoy the canals and countryside around Utretch.

We are now back at the apartment to pick Keith up and head to Amsterdam to check out the Anne Frank Museum. We will probably walk around a bit and then head to the airport for our flight to Athens!

Talk to you again soon and I will add pictures next time!

Christina

Picture 4: Keith's arch nemisis...the Dutch Croquet.....AKA : Deep fried weirdness...you put money in and open a little oven to get out the goods.

Picture 3: Canal Cruise with Sarah and Glen

Picture 2: Canal houses....see the tops...very Dutch...made this way to hide the roof...they figured they were ugly

Picture 1: Bike racks....more bikes in Amsterdam than people....no kidding!