Tastes of the Honey

The take on the latest travels is coming in the form of a Best Of/Number Of list. Hopefully the format is either entertaining or inoffensive. Pictures en route soon for the media mad. The following posts cover the last week in Santorini and Crete in the company of Emily and Kate. More to come tomorrow, but here's the first batch. If you have any numbers you'd like to see compiled drop me a note and let me know.

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Best sunrise: Over the pebbles on Perissa Beach
- First there was a false dawn, strange glow against the bluing of the night horizon. Then, a rainbow sherbet spectrum streamed across the morning sky, as cool and pleasing as the soft wind blowing from the north.
- I’ll tell you when I see one.

Best Sunset: Pebble Beach, Rethymno Prefecture, Crete
- Watching the sun suddenly send out some last red fingers to paint the western sky, even though it had been setting behind clouds for about an hour. We followed the sun’s hidden descent atop a hillock splitting two beaches on the road between Rethymno and Iraklion. They were the beaches, one black and one red (at least in terms of the color of the flanking cliffs, I stopped at in the Davemoo on my first visit to Crete, and were even more beautiful this time around. Kate collected a pile of goat bones, I skipped a stone that hopped seven times, and Emmy found a vicious looking flower. The sun painted vermillion swathes across the darkening water that nearly mirrored the aerial magma dripping from the low-lying (and fast-moving) clouds above us.

Best Time Spent on Two Wheels: Rethymno (and environs), Crete
- We popped into Stavros’ Moto and got the unpowered bicycles that wouldn’t be a red page offense (see CYA handbook). Rolling to the east of town, we found only sandy beaches and touristy tavernas. So we headed west, braving the bustling buses and racing cars. We found a rocky point several kilometers outside of town that begged to be explored. I swam out and climbed up on the rocks, after delving into some submarine caves, ultimately finding a fun place to leap off of, much to Emmy’s surprise (or terror I should say). The girls had to squeeze past a topless sunbather who had taken up residence directly across the path around the petite peninsula, but it was worth it (worth the awkward moments, that is). The cliffside swarmed with plants waiting to plant their thorns in your feet, but once you got out around the first point, a carpet of bright violet blooming succulents carpeted the rock. The flowers beautified the land, but didn't have a parallel in the water. In my first attempt to make an amphibious landing and scale the heights, I managed to swim into a small flat of one and half feet of water or so, only to discover I had stumbled onto Sea Urchin Guantanomo Bay. I gently flailed my way back to deeper waters, having managed to imperil not just my feet (where I’ve been spined many times before), but my entire body.

Most Exhilarating Night Swim: Perissa Beach, Santorini
- Monday, long and hot, we hadn’t gone in the water, staying on land, and sweaty bus, to explore the town of Fira, towering some six hundred stairs above the water and the Old Port (its function now absorbed by Athinios, the new port). Returning to Perissa, where we were staying for the night, we had what was supposed to be a pre-dinner snack of salami, cheese, bread and olive oil. With the introduction of a small carafe of wine (courtesy of the carafe I purchased in the alpine town of Spili in central Crete, just before the sun went down), snack became dinner. Full of food and with memories of the heat of the day, having just passed as the sun disappeared behind the distant hills, it only made sense for me to leap in the water to cool down. Amazingly enough, I was right. The water was absolutely delightful, so much so that I swam out (not very far) and in... then had to leap back in the water, it was so refreshing. It was not quite dark, but the sun had been gone just long enough to make the swim an exciting enterprise. After about five minutes, though, the worn copy of Jaws (the book) that I’d read some summers ago (never seen the movie, thank Heaven) came to mind and I furiously headed back to shore, a phantom Mediterranean Great White right at my heels.

Number of beaches I leapt into the water: 6 (The Red Beach, Kamari, Elafonisi, Near Agia Photia, Rethymno, Perissa)
- The water was great. I couldn’t stay out of it. I could stay out of the shower, though... which led to much plant material remaining in my hair for several days.

Caldera’s Viewed: 1
- Santorini, in its current iteration, is the detritus of a mighty volcano. At the height of Minoan civilization, the island mountain, with a volcano at its core, made like Mt. St. Helen’s and went sky-high. In 1650 BC, some thirty odd cubic kilometers of magma were vomited into the air, wiping out the thriving community on the island and creating a tidal wave that effectively destroyed most Minoan city centers as far as Crete (or so some experts argue). The center of the island collapsed upon itself (remember that much of the center had been in that magma that was making the wine-dark sea a white-hot sea) leaving only a hemisphere of the caldera still standing above the water. Later volcanic activity completed the job, separating a chunk of the southern tip from the rest of the caldera and that’s how the island stands today. The area remains volcanically active, with hot springs warming particular spots (routinely visited by tour boats) of the sea in the middle of the caldera. In 1956, the old volcano decided to remind everyone he was still present and launched a quake that destroyed most of the dwellings in Ia and Fira the two main towns. What remains and has been rebuilt is spectacular. On the outside of the island are long slopes, with regular, exotic beaches, mostly of black sand and pebbles, courtesy of the voolcanic heritage of the island. On the inside ring are amazingly sheer cliffs and a spectacular view of the dormant ring of fire created when the roof of Santorini fell into the basement...and then the basement flooded.

Goat Tracks Painfully Trodden: 1
- The Red Beach on Santorini is pretty awesome. But on the far side are rocky cliff faces that are almost as awesome and more fun than just lazing around on the sand. So, while the girls got their dose of skin cancer, I decided to clamber around on the rocks.

The faces of the rock were pretty sheer and it was a constant battle to find fingernail and toe grips. Below me were legions of urchins ready to spine my every limb should I lose my grip (with occasional open patch of sand). Above, nothing but more rock. With the exception of my one spectacular failure (when I tried to climb upside down) I made it around the point at the far edge of the beach unscathed. Coming back, though, was a different story altogether.

I decided to take the high road and paid the price. The winding tracks above the rocky point were dusty and weed-ridden, the kind of weeds that were created when God fell asleep at the nursery and Beezelbub snuck in for some impromtu deconstruction work in the field of botany. Without boring you with the details, by the time I made it back to the Red Beach, I had more burrs in my feet than have ever haunted the combined Hamilton family tree. If there’s one lesson to be learned from Santorini, it is this: grow lots of skin on your feet before you go. There it is.

Most Expensive Beer/Only Beer: 5 Euros, Cafe Classico, Cliffside Fira, Santorini
- Waiting for the bus down to Athnios, the new port of Santorni, we had to find someplace to kill time. I volunteered to sip on a beer and enjoy the view while the girls enjoyed the town. The price: 5 euros per cold one. Given the fact that I haven’t splurged on a beer the entire trip, it seemed like a good idea. After it was finished, though, only the aftertaste of guilt remained...as well as the waiter who stared at me rather menacingly, seeing as how I wasn’t eating or drinking anything and just sat, guarding a stack of bags that would have made any decent Sherpa lust for Camp 3.

Best Guidebook (no absolute best) Sunset: Ia, Santorini
- Lonely Planet promised and delivered; the textbook definition of a dramatic sunset over the water, complete with a small, adoring crowd, the occasional sailboat, tiny fishing trawler or ferry to break the horizon, along with periodic contrails to render the colors above that much more breathtaking. Quite amazing, and only slightly less than a perfect experience thanks to the volcanic activity of my bowels, doing their best to compete with Santorini's volcanic activity. Errr, right. Well then.

Cliffs leapt off of: 3 (Matala, Rethymno, Kamari)
- In addition to the old favorite of Matala -- that thirty foot wondrous monster of leaps -- I discovered a great jump on the black sand beach of Kamari, or rather, the glass strewn cliffs demarcating the end of the beach. A more personal discovery came down the road from Rethymno. Accessed via bike and then swimming, towards the far edge of a rocky point, I found a small spot of underwater sand wedged in between rocks that promised relatively safety for the falling body. Granted, I clipped my foot on a rock upon entry, but nothing more damaging than falling off a climb onto a rock beach (as happened while clambering around on the Red Beach on Santorini) would have done. A wonderful little spot, and a nice jump to sate the burning lust for stomach throttling falls I’ve become addicted to.

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More to come soon, but at the moment, I've got to probe the depths of the Nicomachean Ethics and come up with something brilliant to say.