October 20: Sougia–Paleochora
Pou einai o Yannis?
We’d taken a ferry from Chora Sfakion to Sougia the previous evening. Trekking Hellas had emailed me Yannis’ contact information, and I texted him once we arrived in Sougia but didn’t hear back.
When we woke up, I still had no contact from Yannis. No matter, we thought, our departure is late, and he’d know where we’re staying so he could just meet us at the hotel.
Yeah… no. First, he thought we were at a different hotel. Second, our hotel was actually a collection of apartments without its own restaurant. It had an arrangement with one of the beachfront tavernas to supply us with breakfast, but that meant we were breakfasting about three blocks from where we had stayed.
We sat there. No Yannis. I called. No Yannis. I started to email Trekking Hellas’s office, and then Chris remembered WhatsApp.
We ought to have learned this by now. Our Trekking Hellas contacts in Rhodes used WhatsApp to communicate with us. Texts didn’t work with them. This was the rule with Greek contacts, and it was silly of us to forget it.
Chris messaged Yannis on WhatsApp, and Lo and Behold!, he was in Sougia! He was waiting for us at the lobby of a hotel that we were not staying at. He strolled down to the beach and we made our acquaintance over coffee.
The lateness of our meetup didn’t really matter because we’d already agreed with Trekking Hellas to arrange for us to start the day with a water taxi. The boat would take us around the bend to the west and drop us off in the ancient town of Lissos, saving us the first stiff climb and descent. And the boat sailed west at 10:00.
Lissos
Lissos is a lovely place to start a hike, especially after a lovely ten-minute boat ride to make up for a late start. Archaeologists, like the ancients before them, get there either by boat or on foot, walking over the mountains from Sougia.
It’s most famous for its Asclepion, a temple to Asclepius, the god of medicine. People used to come here to drink the waters of the spring and be healed in the asclepion. Suppliants would sometimes sleep overnight in the temple, and the sacred snakes would slither on them and take away their illness.
The scent of carobs was thick in the air, fruity with a hint of date and chocolate. Yannis had brought some carob pods for us to snack on. You peel the pods and chew/suck the flesh off the giant seeds. They’re surprisingly delicious.
From Lissos, we walked uphill to reach the high plateau. There we found ourselves in a literal boneyard!
Lammergeiers
Lammergeiers, or bearded vultures, or Gypaetus barbatus, are highly unusual scavengers. They eat carrion, like all vultures, but they do it in a different way. After an animal dies, the regular vultures and other scavengers devour its rotting flesh. Then the Lammergeiers swoop down, pick up the bones, transport them to great heights, and let them fall. The bones smash on the ground, and the lammergeiers eat the bones themselves. (They have very strong stomach acid—a pH of 1, equal to battery-acid, if you can believe that!)
The birds favor particular locations for their bone-dropping activities. These areas are known as ossuaries, due to their collections of scattered bones. Clearly a flat, high plateau such as we were on would be ideal for this kind of thing.
Lammergeiers are very rare. They occur throughout Eurasia, but farmers and shepherds have long killed them due to a mistaken belief that they prey on live sheep. The name “lammergeier” means “lamb vulture” in German. They’re currently listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN.
We saw a number of dead goats in the mountains. Yannis says they actually do fall from heights. You can tell when something has died by the vultures that assemble overhead in bigger and bigger crowds–regular vultures, not the specialized lammergeiers.
Paleochora
Up and over the plateau, we started descending toward Paleochora, our last stop on the south coast of Crete.
We stopped at the popular Gialiskari beach for a quick swim and snack break. The water was starting to feel cold! But it was clear as glass.
Yannis had bkought snacks to share–Cretan cookies made by his own mother! He bought us Greek coffees and read our fortunes in the coffee grounds. He has a gift for this, a charisma.
And then we strolled in to Paleochora. Paleochoea is unambiguously on the south coast, but it’s on a small peninsula or polyp. This gives it a clear western exposure and a fine view of the sunset.
The air was definitely feeling autumnal after sunset. Yannis showed us the town, which has the ubiquitous ruined Turkish fortress and a number of churches.
We dined at a seafood restaurant on the waterfront where we could watch passengers disembark from the ferry from Sougia. The proprietor, who knew Yannis, served us wine from his own vineyard.