Summer Travel

Expect a zombified arrival at LAX. Due to the rumbling of the boat and the Red Bull I had at the cafe, I couldn't sleep a minute on the overnight ferry from Chania to Piraeus.

14 kilometer hike through the Samarian Gorge . . . from the top of a mountain all the way to the Libyan Sea. Downhill all the way.

Cypress forest, water from mountain springs . . . semi-tame agrimia eating bits of squashed sandwiches, griffin vultures launching themselves from the cliffs.

No thorns this time, the heavy jeans I wore for protection did nothing but make me hotter as I hiked through the narrow passes in the afternoon sun.

My companions were Alex, a nice guy from Apple Valley who was am Eagle Scout, and Yiorgia, the student of a friend of John Lee's, who came along on the hike to take GPS coordinates in the gorge and to practice her English.

We talked mostly about other hikes and trips we had been on, stopping frequently to rest and drink water.

Oh, did I mention we had a time limit? We entered the gorge at 8:40 a.m., and were expected to make it through by 3 p.m., so we could catch the 4 pm ferry which would take us to where we were meeting our bus. Things did not work out as planned. Alex had been told to set the pace, but a large group passed him by while he was in a WC, and he ended up right in the middle of our party with me. We took a long lunch and were passed by more people, leaving that rest stop at 12:30, just as John, who was staying in the back with the slowest walkers, arrived. He gave Alex the money to buy the ferry tickets then--an illogical move, because he and I were in the back by then. We left them behind, and forged ahead kilometer by kilometer!

I kept my eyes on my feet so I wouldn't fall down and must have wasted acres of beautiful scenery, but what I could see when I looked around made it worth it completely.

Alex, Yiorgia, and I made it out into the town of Ayia Roumeli on the south coast at 3:30 pm, almost the last of the Santa Barbarians. The others were scattered in the town and on the beach, and John, Peggy, and their companions were, as far as we knew, still in the park. So there was no way we could catch the 4 o'clock ferry--and only John had Yiannis the bus driver's phone number. We were debating whether to buy tickets to the 6 pm ferry when JL appeared alone. Soon the transportation problems were solved, but we then had a tense wait for the members of the party who had been left behind in the gorge, and even put in a phone call to the cafe at the exit of the park. ("They just left 20 minutes ago," we learned.) They weren't far behind, but were moving very slow.

I could not stand my long pants for a minute longer, so I bought a sarong and stuffed the jeans away in my bag. Then Alex and I got our feet wet in the Libyan Sea, which felt heavenly. We caught the ferry at six and floated off to Sfarikon, a tiny south coast resort. Yiannis was waiting for us, and we drove back to Rethymno more tired than we had ever been.

Trail food:
Me: Tsourekia, Mini Pick Crackers (like Ritz Bits), Kellog's Fruit and Fiber Bars, cheese sandwiches with Alex's mustard
Alex: Potato chips, sandwiches made of hard bread and Greek spam, with mustard
Yiorgia: ??

Drink:
1.75 liter water bottle, always being topped up; 1 L Gatorade, 1 Nescaffe frappe in Ayia Roumeli, 1 liter of water for the ride home

Wildlife:
Sheep, goats, wild goats (agrimia), griffon vultures, jay

Would you do it again?:
Alison and Alex: Yes, it was great! Worth the pain!
Mitzi and Sidney: No! It wasn't worth it!
Peggy [who had done it before alone]: Yes, if I went with friends again.
John: I don't know. There was no archaeology...

salata choriatiki kai kotopoulo fileto for dinner!

I wrote this day before yesterday, but it didn't post. Livejournal saved the draft for me.

Mm, I should sleep well this evening--today I climbed down a steep gorge for over a kilometer, looking for a Hellenistic bridge. Every plant along the way was covered with thorns: first the dead weeds that looked like they were covered with spikes, then the tall white flowers with stabby leaves, then the wild roses which snagged my shirt, and then--why what could those be? I do believe they are blackberry vines! There were amazing sights along the way, though. Cretan archaeologists were working on digging up an early Christian basilica at the very top. Along the way were rock-cut Roman tombs, some of them just cavelike spaces in the cliffs, some of them filled with modern icons. Five or six common buzzards soared on thermals above the cliffs, and we heard the jangling of goat-bells.

The bridge, the only one surviving on Crete, was fantastic. It was quite sturdy, and we all went across it and checked it out underneath. It had a pointed arch and was deliciously cool and shady below. A small trickling river ended in a streamfall just past the bridge, falling into a little pond.

The hike back up the gorge was strenuous. I was dripping with sweat and the blood was pounding in my ears. But we had a peaceful outdoor lunch in the potters' village of Margarites and found more cool and quiet later on, when we all went underground! We visited the cave of Melidonhi, the first water-formed, dripping, limestone cave I've ever seen. We entered only the first of many rooms, a large space with an open floor, dominated by the white tomb of 400 Christians, killed in the cave by Turkish soldiers in 1824. The walls of the cave glistened with water, and were covered by folds and ripples and flutes of stone. Here and there a stalagmite rose up out of the ground like a short stump, and in one place a stalactite and stalagmite met and formed a column. We took pictures of each other in the eerie green light of the lamps, and then we got on our bus and Yiannis took us home.

I am now in Rethymno, a two hour drive from Ayios Nikolaos. Yiannis was of the opinion that this was a long haul, but we Californians know better!

This is just a quick update, from a portside net cafe in Ayios Nikolaos. We're in eastern Crete, but tomorrow is our long bus ride to Rethymno in the west.

Whirlwind of site-visiting lately! I edited my last entry to spell some of the names correctly. We've been to another palace (Malia), the Minoan town of Gortyn, the Archaic/Classical town of Lato (where I climbed up one of the two akropoleis), and the sites on the island of Mochlos. Had a great lunch back on Crete across the channel from the island--Greek country salad (salata choriatikis), veal with tomatoes and onions, and a plate of artichoke hearts. John Lee and I shared these awesome entrees, while our table companions stuck to souvlaki and baked feta.

I've been a lot of places in the last few days, so I think I'll start with my solo trip to the CretAquarium (Thalassokosmos!) yesterday. It's a great little aquarium, apparently named the best in the Mediterranean. The Heraklion area is very proud of it, and well they should be! They have a lovely collection focusing on the Mediterranean, including a small loggerhead sea turtle, only around ten years old, who was rescued from a beach and returned to health. I was also enchanted by the flatfish/flounder (= "glossa" or "tongue" in Greek) and by the tank of seahorses. Everything was labelled in Greek, English, French, German, and Russian, and believe me, there were speakers of all those languages there at the time. I love walking through aquariums, and everything about this one was great.

Now, today was a major site-visiting day. We struck out south early in the morning, leaving the plain around Heraklion for mountainous country. The driver of our chartered bus, Yiannis, likes to play only soft rock and hip-hop from the 1990s, which makes me want to scream a little. Our driver in Athens, another Yiannis, played the Doors, Boston, and Pink Floyd. Our first stop was a site called Prinias, where we met Sicilian archaeologists working on the area behind an Archaic temple. The area commanded a hillside, but was never very important--sometime in the Hellenistic period, it was absorbed by either Knossos in the north or Gortyn in the south.

Gortyn, the former capital of Crete when it was a Roman province, was next. Paul's disciple Titus set up his church here, and it was an important early Christian center which I know almost nothing about! The current church of St. Titus is a ruined 7th century basilica, full of nesting pigeons. There was also a Roman odeon, where the blocks carved with the famous Law Code of Gortyn have ended up. (when they were discovered in the 19th century, they were actually part of a water mill, but they've been put back where they belonged). We judged it too hot to walk to Gortyn's Akropolis, but that didn't stop us from trying for the Tomb of Kamilari further down to road. One sweltering walk through an olive grove later, and we found both the Minoan tholos and our first views of the Libyan Sea!

Lunch was a welcome break--a restaurant with an open second floor and a lovely breeze and sea view. I ate with John and Michael, and talked about the caves in the cliffs of Matalla where hippies lived in the 1960s. Some of the group actually explored the caves while we were here, but I contented myself with only a quick run down to the beach. Where the waves hit the land the sand was actually gravel, almost all perfectly smooth. I grabbed a silky smooth beach pebble with a red-orange color which I believe may have begun life as a Roman pot. It has been worn by the waves just as if it was a rock, but it looks exactly like baked clay. I'm taking it home on the grounds that I don't think beach pebbles are covered by the laws against the removal of antiquities, and it could just as easily be modern pottery as Red-slip African Ware!

The last stop of the day was the palace of Phaistos, where the famous Disk was found. We were pretty worn out, but still scrambled all around. Peggy Lane has an obsession with the Phaistos Disk, and even though she has been here before, still wanted our help in finding the room where it had been found and the mysterious "lustral basins" of the palace. I found the first basin and Alex the second, following the plan of the palace. We were actually able to enter the second one, and I got my picture taken with Mercedes, Mitzi, Tamara, and Peggy--we were the Lustral Ladies, obviously. I wandered off to the gift shops before Peggy refound the room of the Disk's origin, however. I'm still aggravated that the museum in Heraklion is closed and I won't be able to see the beautiful, mysterious thing itself.

Will I ever get the sound of Greek cicadas out of my head? Tzi tzi tzi tzi tzi tzi!

I'm talking to Rachel online! Unbelievable!

Yesterday there were no field trips (still haven't written here about Arkhanes and Vathypetro, but oh well) so I went to the Natural History Museum, which the Blue Guide claims has an excellent display on the birds of prey of Crete. Unfortunately, the museum is still in the process of opening at its new location, and only two rooms were open: the kids' Discovery Center and a display they're doing in a trade with a Yale University museum--the biodiversity of Connecticut, USA. The man behind the counter was a little surprised that I said I still wanted to see it. He gave me an English-speaking tour guide: Mike, a half-Greek, half-British eleven or twelve-year-old. Mike's English was not as hot as he thought it was, nor did he know a lot about natural history. ("This animal" he said, pointing to a harmless fiddler crab on a diorama of a Connecticut beach, "can kill a man!" "Oh really?" I said. "How does it do that?" "In there," he pointed to the crab's one big claw, "it has like a snake has, to put it in, to kill you.") But he still did a very good job of showing me every exhibit, and I praised him to the man behind the counter, who unfortunately spoke even less English.

So then I had nothing to do, so I went to the beach at Amnissos (A-mi-ni-so, Linear B) with some of the UCSB folk. We swam for a bit and then sat on the cloudy beach and read. I finished "Master and Commander" and as you could have predicted, I love Stephen Maturin. The book's adventures were in the Mediterranean, and Stephen saw a hoopoe and a bearded vulture--maybe I shall see both as well! And I'll yell something like "O true joy!" like he would, too. Heh heh heh.

I took a long walk this evening, all the way to the Venetian walls. Ostensibly I was looking for somewhere to eat, but I knew all along I wouldn't be stepping into any of the locals' tavernas. Much as it's recommended to eat where the locals do, I don't feel like being the only American girl in a kaphe full of nothing else but arguing, drinking Cretan men. I navigated the streets back to the tourist friendly plataia with the Four Lions fountain, which has been bubbling away in the square since a man named Francesco Morosini put it there in the sixteenth century. Heraklion has so many reminders of the period when the Venetians held the city. We saw from a diorama in the historical museum that the layout of the streets has barely changed, and the Italian influence remains in the old buildings and fortifications. Today the streets are full of trendy clothing stores and places selling watches, knives, housewares, and lingerie, but even fifty years ago this wasn't the case.

Must find more books about Crete in WWII...

Surpassing even "International Ass"* and "What are you afraid of, Alison? They're just drug addicts!"** and "Ooh, I could surf that!"*** Translated from the Greek!

American professor in Crete sights tiny, black-clad woman carrying groceries.
Professor Lee, assuming he's adressing a local: Which way is the tomb of Nikos Kazantzakis?
Old Lady: I don't know. I'm from Albania.

*it was on a newstand!

**Brenda's agrument for walking through a seriously sketchy park in Athens

***John Lee

I am in Crete! I am very much a fan of the super-fast ferry--it got us there in only five hours. I spent much of the time out on the deck in the sun, looking at the islands and the flat blue sea. The color is so deep--wine dark is all right with me.

Tomorrow is our orientation to Heraklion, where we will be spending ten days. I had dinner with my roommate, Veronica, at Goody's, which is a Greek fast food place (hamburgers, salad, and spaghetti). Then we found this Internet cafe, and also discovered a Marlboro Classics store, a J-Lo boutique, a Harley Davidson clothing place, and a Body Shop. Such local specialties!

Yesterday was our farewell dinner at Athens, which was a lot of fun. I met a girl who had studied with our Athenian professor when they were both in different programs. She is currently working on a dig in Ancient Corinth, excavating Roman and Byzantine chamber tombs. It sounds FANTASTIC. She and I talked for a long time over dinner and shared a waffle with ice cream. Then the whole group met at the tiny Byzantine church we walk past every day (SS. Asomatoi of Thesseion = the Bodiless Saints of Thissio) and our enormous troop went trooping over to a club, where we had overpriced Smirnoff drinks and sort of grooved to the peculiar greek/american house music. All in all, a very fun evening!

It's my last day of Athens, so I've done my studying, written my essay, and done my last bit of shopping. Tomorrow, off to Crete with me and my giant suitcase. Oh did I overpack!

Snapshot: a hoopoe landing under a tree in a park fifteen feet away, then flapping into the air and over my head. Its beak sticks out in front of it when it flies, like a long probe, and its wings flash black and white!

I have taken a dip in the Aegean at Sounion. Far from wine-dark that close to shore, the water was bright and blue. The beach sand was teriffically hot, but we had to sit on it without any shade to eat our sandwiches, then took a swim. It was shallow, warm, with only tiny little wavelets lapping the shore--I'm used to watching Santa Barbara's surf for hours at a time as I do my volunteer duty, so it seemed incredible! I found a souvnir seashell, the tiniest little thing you can imagine. A little clamshell that can fit on my pinky fingertip.

(Now where did I put it? Oh, no.)

I don't think I'm very good at keeping a travel journal, but I shall perservere.

I noticed in 2004, during the Olympics, that this hills of Greece look a lot like the hills of Southern California, from a distance. Bumps and slopes, rubble and chapparral--plus that "Mediterranean climate" thing that we've got in LA. Close to, however, Greece's hills have much redder soil, and the mountains jump from brushy hillsides into gigantic cliffs of stone, reaching for the sky. Herds of goats bounce along the sides, totally surefooted.

There are Roman staircases and paths at Delphi, the stones worn totally smooth. My shoes squeaked and slid as I climbed up the mountain.

And it's hot.

and I still don't know how to post pictures, so here is what I had for lunch!

(Hi Rachel)

salata of cucumbers and tomatoes
chicken and potatoes
some feta cheese belonging to my vegetarian roommate Mercedes
tiny bar of fudge (FUDGE!)

Now I need to go and seek dinner. Bye.

I'm back in LA for just a few more short hours, and I'm hoping to spend most of them asleep. My weeklong birding trip to Nome, Alaska with my dad has just ended, and all today's sunshine has felt a little surreal. Nome is a tough little town where the sun doesn't set for more than a few hours a night in the summer. It has beachfront property that comes with a price--a wind that blows straight from Siberia--but there is still gold dust to be found in the beaches and rivers. Rare specialty birds love the area around Nome, hiding in the willow thickets, the springy mats of tundra plants, the ponds and gravelly riverbanks. Then there are the ghost towns in the canyons, unmelted ice on the roadsides, the Native fishing camps, abandoned railroads, Cold War radar installations, and the more mosquitoes than you can shake two sticks at . . .

Alaska is another world.

56 species of birds seen
28 lifers for me
38 lifers for dad
229 miles of road
2 flat tires on consecutive days
1 moose

Nice new journal, totally blank!

Excuse me, I have to go. There are so many exams, and only one of me.