Katakolon

This stop was amazing!!!! <Hey all sorry for the lack of entries we are in rome and have been here for a little over three days, internet cafes fill up pretty quick so it has been pretty hard to get on one so hopefully we will get a couple knocked out.
Katakolon is the port city to Olympia home of the first olympics. Jess and I had been looking a ruins for long enough so we walked around the little port which took about 15 minutes. Just about everything that could be converted to a tourist junk shop did, so we found some internet but pics did not download. anywaz the opposite direction from the city was a nice oceanside road with cliffs below it so Jess and I started a trek. the amount of wild flowers in greece kept impressing us at every turn and we came across wonderful views of the ocean. on one small trek to a nice view we came across a rat snake! i tried to get a pic then catch it but it got startled by a couple guys behind us so my pic of it is distant and i did not get a hold of it either! finally we reached a far out point of land with us surrouned by ocean. then we got adventurous and decided rather than taking the road back to drop down about 8 feet and walk along where the cliffs meet the ocean. (not as dangerous as it sounds).
what a great trip! about five minutes in our walk we spotted the biggest legless lizard i have ever seen in my life. he dove for the rocks but luckily they were small and we uncovered him. he was very calm and we really got a great look of him. we think he was about 3ft long hopefully you can tell from the pics.
we kept going on our trek and found a beatiful little bay we called our own. i went swimming for a little bit but it was really cold so i gave it up and sat with Jess on a rock and sunbathed. after our nice break i spotted a huge bouy sitting among some rocks. i told jess it was probably worth some money and we should take it back to the town and maybe get some free food out of it. she thought it was funny i was going to lug this huge bulbous thing back all the way to the town but it was not doing anybody good just sitting a couple miles from anywhere. so we trekked on, we climbed over some large boulders and what else did we come across but a very large turtle shell left from a hawksbill turtle. i took a lotta of pictures but it smelled so bad jess would not go near it.
So the three of us were almost back to the ship, jess, me and the bouy when we heard a yell from above us. an old man who lived near the beach saw the bouy and that it was not much use to us and hollard to us. i went up an embankment to talk with him and he said he would like the bouy, i could not think of a reason to object so i gave it to him and he invited us up to his property. this was a very old man who collected a lot of junk. he lived in a small traveltrailer right near the shore, and had a lot of farm animals (from chickens to a donkey) but no farm. but he was gracious and set us up a table and chairs overlooking the sea. he got out a bottle of wine he claimed to be very expensive (no lable on it) and some red olives which were also very expensive. we were drinking out of clear flimsey plastic cups he rinsed out in front of us a second before, but everything was excellent! the wine was some of the best we ever had. so we tried to converse in english for a while and relaxed with the sea wind blowing on our faces. finally it was time to head back to the ship so we bid our new friend farewell and got ready to go back to venice then toward rome!

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Part of trip: Europe 2009

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