Brascos Rethymnon

... and we had about one hour before the ship was scheduled to sail at 8 pm. Sandra was nursing a cold (blame the bus air conditioning), so she headed back to the ship with David and Holly while the rest of us strolled the shops that were still open. I found a couple of reasonable souvenirs among the stores offering traditional Cretan artwork, copies of pieces from different archaeological museums, jewelry and embroidery. And Yahoo! I found an ATM ...

Well I suppose we were pretty spoilt in Santorini. But I have to say Crete wasn't exactly what we had in mind!

We left Santorini on the slow boat (took about 3 hours) to Crete (which we heard was fabulous) and were sorely disappointed!

The weather was grey and pouring with rain - like really p!ssing down - and neither of us had any wet weather gear (or cagoules). Bugger. Not such good weather for people with yucky head colds!

Anyway, we ...

... irresistible to leave and we spent all day on the beach, or in the water, lunching at a hill top café looking out over the small cove surrounded by cliffs that forms Matala. The cliffs have natural caves which people climb up to and leap from into the water. Matala beach has plenty of cafes and shops to rehydrate on beer, wine, water or gelati. It was another hot day, and did not cool down till late afternoon as we were leaving. There ...

After the usual big brekkie (for me anyhow) we got a taxi to Athens airport arriving two hours before the flight. Aegean Air had great inflight service – coffee, juice or other drinks plus snacks (all no charge) for a 35 hour flight. Imagine that Air New Zealand.

We arrived at Chania and waited to be contacted by the Economy Car Rental agent, who proved to be a lovely blonde Cretan who spoke excellent English. The car we had ...

... donkeys wait to take any unlucky hiker who couldn't finish and had to be taken back.

At the end of the hike, we only had to walk 2 km more to get to the Libyan Sea, the perfect place to jump in after a long, sweaty hike. This end of the island was super remote and we ended up in one of the tiniest villages I've ever seen. There wasn't an ATM either, so luckily Brenden had cash, otherwise we would've missed the last boat to the last bus in Chania.

... stores with an underwhelming waterfront. We were glad in a way that we had gone though, if only to affirm that Chania was the best city to stay in. We got back to Chania for another late dinner -people eat so freaking late in Europe...I even saw a woman in sequinned booty shorts pushing a baby carriage around 11pm. Anyway, we went to bed early, but still dead tired, to get up for the 7:30am bus to Samaria Gorge.

... i want some new greek sandals!!! I am taking the over ngiht ferry to Athens on thursday arrivi9ng at 6 AM aghhhh I am going to ehad over to the hostel right away and leave my bag there I am so excited to walk down the streets I walked for 5 weeks and to smell the smells and to eat the food and to see if I recognize anyone!

I am getting so ridiculously excited to come home!!!! YAYYYY!!! I am ready now ...

... MAYBE this would deter weirdass pakistan but nope he then was asking Gareth (who is from Belfast and ok lets face it strict religion- not that he is) if he could be his "special" friend (whatever that means) and that he was asking if there was any women that he could ahve SEX TIME WITH- yeah so FREAK! Group consensus NOPE WEIRD. so he was going to the bathroom every 20 min we were like small bladder?? so I would use the bathroom when I saw him coming back from it ...

... are sitting on a terrace sipping fresh orange juice, enjoying baklava and listening to Grecian radio. Nex t week we will try to take a ferr to Italy so whish us good luck! I hope you are well and not becoming too jealous *g*

~*~

SMS from mum

- Liesel are you wlaking through the (Samarian) Gorge now? At the end you can take a boat. Love mama

... want to wake him up over a bug! So I stayed quiet, went back to sleep for a while, and then got Ivan to come in and get it! He explained that they do all they can to prevent bug there, spray and everything, but with the windows open they crawl in that way. I explored the Venetian Fortress, but didn't get much out of it because like at most ruins, there is nothing posted to tell you about what you are looking at , the only info given usually is regarding ...