Samaria Gorge 20 Oct 2008

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Day 20 Samaria Gorge

Both of us bright and early this morning. We were more or less sure of our route to the Gorge, left at 7 am and arrived at 2 hours later. I was a little nervous about this drive! You know how when you are driving and you have a close call with danger and that little moment kind of stays in your mind, and you have flashbacks? Well…when I was driving us to Paleohora on Sat we were on I think the wildest roads yet, with construction thrown in to boot. We were just leaving this little village when I met this dump truck kind of vehicle on a curve. We weren’t even on a part of the road where it drops off 200 feet, this part was maybe only a 50 foot drop and looked so innocent being that it was shady and there were a few trees!…anyway, I moved over to the right to give big guy more room to pass (the roads, in places, are incredibly narrow) and realized that the edge of the road just dropped off into oblivion. I am not sure how close I was to the edge, being that my spacial awareness sucks, but I will never forget what the edge of the pavement and what was beyond it (nothing) looked like.

The last part of the trip took forever, cuz just when we knew we were actually where we thought we were, and within a few km’s of the start of the trail, we came upon herd after herd of goats and sheep just sleeping on the road, and they were in no mood to wake up and move in a hurry! Anyway, my faithful sidekick took my picture buying the ticket for the Gorge and off we went on our separate adventures for the day. I think we were both equally worried about the other guy…I hoped Gord would find his way back to Paleohora eventually and he hoped I wouldn’t fall on my head in the gorge because I was gocking around, not looking where I was going!!

The Gorge…Within the first 3 Km’s the trail drops 800 metres as stairs, constructed of rocks and a lot of tree roots in most places and a sweet little rail fence to keep you from falling to your death, switchback you down to the bottom of the Gorge and the actual start of the trail. I now understand why I never could get an accurate read of just how long this trail is because it depends on if the trail before and after the actual “gorge” part is included in the calculation. I had no idea how long it was going to take me to walk this thing (I had read between 4.5hrs for sprinters and 6 hours for strollers), and there was only one way home from where the trail ends at Agio Romouli and that was by ferry that left at 430 pm (no road access to this village). There is also no sleeping in the Gorge, one way or the other, you have to complete the walk within the hours the Gorge is open. I wished I had along one of my gadget gals, either Penny or Kelley, to help me gauge my speed!

I keep forgetting to mention the thing that have pervaded every one of my goat trail jaunts and that is the fragrance of the air. This stairs wind their way down through calabrian pine trees and was a challenge because this is no pebble path, but rock where you had to watch your step. I had to remind myself to stop and look around…and you did have to look all the way around because above, below and to every side there was something absolutely gorgeous to look at. I confess though, that I made like a German tourist on the way down the stairs…every time I could here voices I hurried along until it was quiet again (my quads didn’t like that I guess!!hahaha). But even at this point, I was already feeling kind of sad that part of the trek was already passed.

I knew I was close to the bottom when I started to hear water running, and sure enough I came upon the very small stream, the first fresh water I have seen since coming here, that was once the mighty river that carved out the Gorge. By then, the pine trees are joined by Olive trees, Cyprus trees and others. I have tried time and time again to capture in pictures soft, glowy green colour that the Olive trees give off, without success I am afraid. After placing a rock around one of the many Anoshtatooks (or whatever that word is to describe the pile of rocks made to look like a person to say “I was here”…) that I was to see throughout the course of the gorge, I started walking on more or less flat ground for a while. Again I have to say that except for the odd part of the trail that was a lovely pebble path, you had to watch pretty well every step you took, and, therefore, remind yourself to stop and look around.

There were plenty of rest stops, always with a spring to refill your water bottle. At the first, about 4 kms into the trail, I saw a bunch of the Gorge rangers and their donkeys. These people and beasts of burden go up and down the Gorge all day, watching for fires and broken down tourists! This was also the first place I used the WC (water closet) which you can see in the pictures!

Around 1130 I think it was, I was getting near to the site of the town of Samaria, the people of which had been relocated in 1962 (now that was a good yr!) when the Gorge was designated a protected area. I walked a bit with an Auzzies couple and the guy told me we were almost half way there, having just passed the 7 km point. I asked him how he knew that and he said, “didn’t you see the km posts?”…ah no, I hadn’t noticed that actually (never did notice another one until 10 km post)!! This was also when I found out that the walk was around 16 not 18 km’s. Stopped for a wee snack at Old Samaria and decided that I had done the first half of the trail way to quickly, and I really took my time on the next part, stopping at one point and to put my feet in the lovely cold water for a bit while sitting on the rock I’ve dubbed “butt-rock” in the photos. Sitting there watching people go by I was shocked to see the kind of footwear some people had on…you could tell the inadequately attired by their distinctive hobble! Gord and I actually watched this young couple start out and she had on little flip-flops for goodness sake!! Never did see those people after that….course maybe he had her boots in his pack or something and I didn’t notice them. My only problem was this little gouge I had on the knob on my right ankle which I had cut on some underbrush on the goat trail I did in Matala. I kept kicking it with the sole of my left shoe, particularily when I was trying to find footing and look around at the same time. I opened that thing up over and over and finally had the sense to put a bandaid on it….of course I had brought a few bandaids along…I was a Girly Guide once you know!!

It is just after the old town site where you enter the Gorge proper and it is spectacular to say the least. The water markings on the walls of the gorge…well I could go on and on. I stopped often and found myself a boulder to perch on and just took it all in. When I look at the pics now they again seem so feeble compared to the real thing…so this is yet another thing you will have to see for yourself. It took me ages to get through the first narrowing of the gorge because people kept coming up behind me and well, there seems to be certain languages that must be spoken at high volume and I wanted to walk certain places where I could hear the silence, so I pulled over again and waited for several small groups of people to pass before going on. I forgot to mention that the wee river/stream must go underground from time to time because sometimes it was there for us to cross and other times we walked across dry river bed. I meant to count the number of times the trail crosses the river but that didn’t last too long! Also, around this time I was passed by a couple I had seen along the way…the Dad had a toddler I guess she’s be in one of those handy-dandy babyholder packpacks. He must be one sure-footed guy! When they passed me the little girl was sleeping.

I actually wasn’t sure at that narrowing if I hadn’t just passed through the “iron gate” that marks the narrowest part of the gorge and is just 3 meteres wide because of course I have no concept what 3 metres wide means, even though Gord had paced it out for me in the hotel room that morning!! I walked a bit with a couple from Sweden (I think they were from Sweden, they sounded Swedish to me and were the blue-eyed blondes I associate with being a Swede (even though our fav Swede has dark hair and eyes!!!) and they didn’t know if that was the gate either….turned out it wasn’t…after the trail opened up a bit and you came around a long corner there was the gate, plain as day, and, I have to say, rather anti-climatic after the last narrowing I saw. Things finish up in a hurry after that with the “iron-gate” being located at km 11.5 and the trail ending at km 12.8. It wasn’t until I turned in my ticket stub at the exit/entrance (because of course you can start at the bottom and go up also, and many people do the trail that way or simply just walk the 3 k or so to the iron gate) that I realized there was a little map on the back of the other part showing the rest stops and their distances along the way. I seem to enjoy doing such things more when I don’t know how far I have to go, or what’s coming up.

Just past the end of the trail there are a few tavernas where one could get a beer or a snack…I started walking the 3 km to town with another solo walker called Penny who was from England. I got confused and tried to lead us up a goat path…I did this all the way along the trek…get a little side tracked by something I wanted to look at and then be off the path and realize that, sure enough, someone had followed me and we’d have to backtrack! We had lunch together and though I had thought I’d finish the trek with a celebratory beer, I thought better of it and Penny and I toasted our accomplishment with a Greek coffee for her, and a coffee frappe for me. We parted then, me to buy a souvenir t-shirt and she for a dip in the sea. We met up a bit later and exchanged e-mail addess’s to pass on photo’s we took of each other.

The ferry ride back to Paleohora was, what else?, spectacular…the scenery was, what else?…spectacular and once I escaped the conspiracy theorist from Canada that glommed onto me as soon as he heard me ask a couple if they wanted me to take a pic of them together just shortly after boarding, I just sat back in the setting sunshine and enjoyed the ride. I talked to the woman whose husband was packing their child down and asked her where he was…turned out they had driven to the top like we had, but he had to walk back up to get their car!!!...I can’t imagine ascending those stairs right at the end of a 25 km hike, half of which you did with a baby strapped to your back (she weighed about 30 lbs!). We ran into them a few days later on the street and he said it was pretty tough going at the end. It’s too bad there wasn’t a bulletin board where you could post for rides etc to the Gorge. As I mentioned before, there are excursions to the gorge and I had been told to turn up Mon morning and if there were at least 8 people the bus would go, if not…turn up Tues morning etc…I was so glad we decided just to have Gord take me because when I asked the excursion guy if a group went on Mon he said, no, we no go on Mondays!!!

As I said, I will do this Gorge again on our next trip here…any takers…I could be your very inept trail guide!!! A most excellent adventure all together.


Stay tuned for the next exciting blog and the conclusion of our trip..we are now home, safe and sound...B&G

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Photos

Great Signs
This part of Crete was the first place we saw both Greek and English on the same sign...usually the first sign was Greek followed by an English sign about 150 metres further along.

Xyloskalo-where you by your ticket
and also name of the steep stone pathway that gives access to the Gorge. Starting at about 1200 metres and ending at sea level, I descended about 800 metres in the first 3 kms of the walk down these stairs!!

This pic is not upside down
This was one of my favourite parts