Hania - Crete

I arrived in Crete this morning and decided to go to the camping. Well.... the guide book says that I take a bus to Stavros and it leaves every twenty minutes. You know Greek directions... It took asking a good six people before I actually found the bus station. 7:30, I asked the guy about the bus to Stavros. He said "10:00". There goes the every twenty minutes! I decided it would be faster to walk there then sit around with nothing open! So I walked... and walked... and walked, loaded down with 2 backpacks. Finally, about an hour later, I made it to the camp site. When I walked into the reception area, the girl looked at me and said that she thought she had seen me walking up the road. I told her that indeed, that was me! Wow! Her eyes bulged and she said, "you walked 3 km from Hania? Why didn't you take the bus 21, it runs every 20 min." At least I made it before 10:00, and now I don't have to walk back and forth to and from town, like in Kalabaka!!! That is when I didn't have a drive from Kostas, or at least when he didn't forget me at the internet.

[aside: Kostas likes tall, blonde, blue eyed, well proportioned women. If interested e-mail him with picture at kliolios@kalampaka.com Did I mention he climbs rocks?]

I have never seen so much backgammon played! All you hear walking down the street is rolling dice. And they don't play the way Joachim plays backgammon. May I congratulate Joachim who, not only when he goes to Athens for Christmas to visit family, will be attending the weddings of bothe of his brothers, and will be an uncle in the new year!!! I saw Dennis and Iro before I left Athens and she told me the awesome news. Dennis wants a boy, of course, but its a girl and I predicted it first!

Crete is nice and hot!!! Like August. I have to constantly remind myself that it's October. The campground I'm at is a lot smaller than Kastraki's. You don't know how good you've got it until it's gone. Here, there is hard rocky ground, the kitchen is in a small hut, there are no communal dining areas, and the bathrooms, although they are clean have only those bloody holes in the ground and no toilet paper. At least I still have a couple half roles that I pilfered from Kastraki.

Now , there are varying degrees of bathrooms in Greece: 1st is the typical N american bathroom with a toilet and seat; 2nd is the bowl minus the seat; 3rd are the holes in the ground with steps on the side so you know where to place your feet. The holes confuse me the most. They are not so bad if you have a skirt on; but to maneuver with shorts and pants, trying not to pee or shit on your clothes while also attempting to aim your discarded materials somewhere near the hole, is an art that I am not yet the master of.

I bummed around Hania today. Tomorrow I am off to the Samaria Gorge for a 6 hr (the guide book says) which for me means 1o. At least I am hoping to leave on the early bus so that I don't have to sleep in the woods or on the beach again. At the end, the gorge empties into the ocean. I will swim and lay on the beach until the very last moment. I haven't really done any of that since I got here, 7 weeks ago.

There is also a nice beach by the campsite with short cliffs that I was eyeing. I might just take the shoes that Kostas gave me and the sling that Volker gave me and do some free/solo climbing. Don't worry, it's only like a III+. As if the Goddess of misplaced steps can't handle that.