It Was To Be Just a Hike...

When sailing and adventuring you often listen to the advise of fellow explorers who have previously visited the lands and waters to which you are about to embark. Often this will illuminate the way to paths less traveled. Places where English is seldom heard and "locals" abound. These places often are hard to get to and this case tough to extricate from. Our well traveled cruising brethren of the S/V Emerald Lady, Paul and Marty, had suggested that while we were in Crete, we simply "must " go to the Samaria Gorge. So, since the winds were adverse for our departure towards Sicily, we rented a car and off we went.

The seasonal named wind, "the Meltimi", found us hiding from its gusty breath in Heraklion. Yup, still Herklion. After fixing the forward the forward hatches, a several day (insert favorite expletive) project, the winds started creating heavy seas from the direction we intended to go. Since gentlemen never go to weather... It can be nasty, never mind slow and exhausting. Thus we hung out on the outer quay. It was lumpy with a nasty surge but WAY better than the square, house size waves that were breaking over the headlands. I mention this because this quest is best started from a port some 40 miles eastward. It is from there, and there alone, a series of bus and ferry tickets can provide a reasonable round trip experience, but what the hey. We had Euros, a rental car and I had just finished studying the book "The Worst-Case Scenario, Survival Handbook - Travel"... What could go wrong? We would hum a few bars and fake it.

We left Heraklion at 06:00 (that's AM for you normal folk) and drove for a couple of hours east to Hania (oh yeah, where we were supposed to start). We then turned south and climbed into the mountains, which make the backbone of Crete. We climbed to an altitude of 1236 meters (that's slightly over 4000 ft for us) to the "guardian post / trail head". It looked like steep wilds of Zion, Utah or perhaps even a bit like Yosemite in miniature. We had been sweating to death at sea level to freezing our butts here (and guess what, no extra clothes... great prep work). So we decide to March off down the gorge with no real plan just to warm our brain. The problem is, when the brain warms up and looks upward, its natural response is... "What was I thinking??

So, enjoy the moment. Like "carpe diem" and all that. After all we are intrepid explorers. So we continued down with the idea we would turn back at the halfway point. The only thing is exactly where is this point of no return? Is it the mid point relative to the time we have? Well no, because one way is easy downhill. Is it one third down and two thirds back? Perhaps. Is it an arbitrary place you at least want to see? Always. And typically, that is too far to return from.

So you do what like Shackelton and all great explorers... press on.

So we hiked some 18 km (11+ mi) and 1200 meters to sea level to a village that has no roads in and a few ferries to neighboring villages that have roads. Oh, we don't have any tickets and when is the last one out? Luck was with us. There were a few tickets left and enough time for a gyros plate and a couple of COLD beers (cokes for the younger members of the Donner Party).

So we made it to the town of Hora Sfaklion were there was no room on any bus to the other side of the mountains. So, get a taxi, right. Wrong. The cabbie quoted us 150 Euros to return to our starting point. That's over 225 USD. Lets say I don't negotiate with pirates (Its an old sea thing). Go to plan "B". Rent a car to get your rental car. So we camp out at the only rental car agency in town. The door is open, the lights are on, the computer is on Goggle's homepage, but nobody's home. So we wait. Oh and "the Natives" are hot, dry, and hungry (again). So I dispatch them to the Traverna and I wait for the master of the car stable. Meanwhile, a couple of graduate students form Paris show up also looking for a car (If there is even one to be had, high season and all). We strike up a conversation. It turns out she is Greek and he is Italian and their common language (besides English) is French (bien sur). After a while I suggest that if there is a car perhaps I could pay for the days rental and they could drop us at the trailhead. Both Aggeliki and her boyfriend, Alessandro were willing even though I had to convince him to let me pay. After all it was forever and gone out of the way. The "car meister" appeared and after first indicating there were no cars, he decided that their was a tiny one available after all. We grabbed it circled the corner and picked up "the Natives" (I'm pretty sure he would not have rented us the car if he knew we were going to cram in a total of six (even if two were compact). This car was only slightly larger that a "Smart Car" or Hagrid's boot. So off we went. The roads were so tight that you did not care the car engine was... limited.

We enjoyed the conversation with our "hosts" and arrived at the trailhead just past dusk. We said our goodbyes. Offered them a sail on the Gone Native and began our journey back to Heraklion. The two hours on the way back seemed like days (the fact that the headlights on our car were aimed at the ground only 10 feet forward of the bumper did not help in the least). We got back to the boat around midnight. Our legs were so worn we could barely stand when we first got out of the car.

I dropped the car back at 08:00 and thanked the agency owner for his willingness to wait until the morning to receive it. He listened to my story and laughed. He had wondered how we had planned to pull off the trip when we had departed yesterday but ya know, leave it to that American ingenuity.

So was it worth, of course. The canyon was magnificent. The walls sheer, hundreds of feet high and less than 8 meters across at the streambed. The walk had springs for a cool drink, wildflowers, towering cypress and history from Neolithic to Modern. I would recommend it in a second... but might I recommend... better planning.

A few other pictures...http://web.mac.com/gonenative/iWeb/Samari/Samari.html