Crete day 2

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Woke up sometime around 9am after a somewhat uncomfortable yet peaceful night of sleeping on the sand. Ate a bit of feta and bread that we had bought the night before and packed up our stuff. We then drove a bit further down the beach towards where there were some ruins that dated to 1000 bc. The ruins were pretty nice but not very elaborate, most of the structures had wore away with time. There were huge thistles in a few spots with large purple blooms which were quite cool. Scary part was that quite a few of the flowers were covered with bumble bees and massive multi-hued wasps that had to be an inch to 1.5 inches long. In one area they were on both sides of a path we had to walk and josh decided the best way to make it was to sprint to prevent getting stung. It was pretty hilarious to watch him running through the flowers trying to avoid the wasps. A little ways from the ruins we found this sweet little rocky cove with a partially submerged rock platform thing in the center. From the submerged area the water dropped away to 20 or 30 feet and it looked amazing as you could see the bottom easily through the blue water. We jumped in from the submerged rock and snorkelled around finding sweet underwater caves and further coves along the coast line. There were tons of sea urchins and cool fish swimming close to the shore. I also spotted a starfish probably 50 feet deep or so which was pretty rad. On the way back we also noticed that near the cove where we jumped in at there were lots of centipede things that were red and white and maybe 3 inches long. Pretty amazing snorkelling definitely an unforgettable experience. The only bad part dealing with the cove was getting out of the water onto the partially submerged rock. The rock was made from what appeared to be cooled lava and was really sharp. Both Josh and I cut our shins pretty badly trying to get out of the water. I also sliced my foot pretty well somehow in the process which combined with sand and salt water to make a painful injury. After snorkelling we got back in the car and headed off to the other remote beach called Elafonisi. It was my turn to drive this time and I can honestly say it was the funnest cruise ive ever taken. The roads were extremely narrow (even more so than the previous drive to falasarna). They were also both uphill and down with crazy sharp turns through little villages and one way tunnels along the cliffside. It basically felt like I was driving a racecar through the mountains even though in reality I wasnt going all that fast. We made it to Elafonisi after about an hour and found it to be nice but not quite as sweet as expected. The beach was a bit crowded and although extremely large, not as breathtaking as falasarna. The water was quite nice though so we chilled until around 6 or so before heading off to Rethmyno. Once there we found a sweet little hostel and relaxed a bit before a night out with a few others staying at the hostel. It was a relatively tame night even though we didnt make it back until around 4am or so.

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Comments

[Debbie]

wow...
sounds like you and Aaron are having a time of your life.. the snorkling sounded like an experience.... you are going places that most of us have never heard of.. good for you.. you two have a good time, just come home safe...Debbie in MN

[bethany]

sweet
you guys keep having fun, im super jealous. can't wait to read more about what yall are up to. dont forget your gibson homedogs, keeping it rough in the west end. we all miss you. ps- if you are with josh, make sure to take a photo when his hair cut starts growing out. cheers mate.