The Old Man and the Libyan Sea

The Old Man and the Libyan Sea

 

Grasping my feet like stony tentacles

Waterworn jewels churn around toes

Daughters of Nereus dance the depths

Inviting and enticing

With each receding wave

To swim

Beneath ancient horizons

Forever in heavenly pools

 

The Cretan moon sparkles

On silver silken threads

Wild thyme woven with endless time

Their tight mesh wound around my heart

Paralysing body and mind

Thwarts escape

Mœræ whisper, my fate lies here

On Sougia beach

 

From shoulders

My heavy cloak dropped

Kissed by sun and salt

A captive of land and sea

Both had won me

 

Flying away

I vow to return

My spirit having stayed

 

1 September, Sunday

The final third of 2024 kicked off with a leaden sky and intermittent tiddly piddly rain of use to neither man nor hydrangea. Such a rapid change in the weather, as if summer had suddenly realised what damage it was doing and slammed on the brakes. 

For cheeriness I donned my sparkly 1970s disco outfit and sang Earth, Wind & Fire’s super smash hit song September. The only words I remember are the bit where they go Ba-du-da, ba-du-da, ba-du-da, ba-du. Ba-du-da, ba-du, ba-du-da, ba-du. But I got that spot on… repeatedly!

A candle lit for our birthday Siren girl.

 

2 September, Monday

Summer returned. Hurroo! Under the bluest sky it was 10° hotter than yesterday. I felt a need for afternoon refreshment at Malkia Inter. This month I’d averaged half a beer per day. I felt I was on a slippery kaleidoscope.

Previously I’d have lazed with cat Crado but the siesta sofa’s a lonely place since he’s been gone. New cat Penka dozes with the dogs. Seven others have special places under bushes where I’d feel neither comfortable nor welcome.

A big-eyed feline, too old and too content to rescue, sat near me in the bar. Perhaps we’ll meet there again.

 

3 September, Tuesday

Only Great Yarmouth remains unticked on my bucket and spade list, so this seasoned traveller should glide through the rucksack packing routine. However, having been nowhere since last November’s great Stockport trek, I’m rusty.

Tomorrow I’m on the road again and without a grownup. A visa isn’t necessary for visiting Crete but I’ve a note from Priyatelkata telling them I can only eat kaltsounia with the crusts cut off.

I’d never experienced homesickness until Bulgaria became home. I’ll miss this place and the flora, fauna and folk that I love, but Greek Zorba already dances in my head. Excitement abounds!

 

4 September, Wednesday

I woke up in Malki Chiflik and went to sleep in Irakleio. Was I still in the Balkans? My nose wasn’t bleeding and everything around me was in that ancient ruins or not-quite-finished style, so I must have been.

A seventy-minute aeroplane ride had whisked me between northern and southern extremes of Greek mythology territory to where they spell rakia as raki. A complimentary after-dinner mini-carafe at the Lato Hotel’s rooftop restaurant following intensive in-flight studying of the Greek alphabet already had me feeling bi-lingual.  

Fine food and fine views of a Venetian harbour. It was grand to be back.

 

5 September, Thursday

The free map’s suggested walk guided me through Irakleio’s cultural bits; the Venetian port complete with fortress, the Catholic Church (my Papal loyalty card coming in handy yet again), St Tito’s Cathedral (dedicated to the first East European Communist leader to be beatified), seventy-four fridge magnet shops, the Venetian Town Hall with people queueing to pay their Venetian council tax, and Four Lions Square blessed with lashings of pizza and ice cream vendors, and more people from Croydon than you could ever wish for. The ancient city ramparts were particularly impressive. Oh you just can’t beat a good solid bastion!

 

6 September, Friday

Kissamos didn’t have a hop-on-hop-off open-top tourist bus (essential for the one-legged visitor) so I walked the sun-kissed route into town to discover quiet streets, ancient buildings and kind vendors of good books and chilled wines hidden behind the façade of the busy E65 trunk road.

It’s a very old town but no one knows its precise age. It’s one of several settlements in the region to have been chronicled but frequent name changes have made it impossible to know in modern times which was which. Today it’s a port, a fishing village and my home for the next fortnight.

 

7 September, Saturday

At Falasarna, way beyond the ‘secluded’ beach where it was €30 a pop for one of those dreaded sunbeds which, unbelievably, were all occupied, I found the lagoons my guide book had recommended. They all had very few footprints (some human and some caprine). Some were completely inaccessible. I chose a spot near four snorkelers snorkelling and swam in the beautiful cool, but not too cool, blue waters of the Aegean, looking landwards to admire the magnificence of the volcanogenic landscape.

I read a chapter of Zorba the Greek. Unfortunately, the beach was too pebbly to re-enact his dance routine.

 

8 September, Sunday

I abandoned my attempt at returning from the coast to Kissamos via the village of Elos (the guide book said it’s brilliant there) as the satnav beast wanted to send me along sturdy roads rather than scenic ones; a route four times longer than expected.

I’d visited Crete in 2009 without such gadgetry but with a map for companionship. I’d been a fool to later give it away but road layouts had changed since then. Many things had changed. It was no longer possible to buy straw beach mats in tourist tat shops. They only had them in Chinese plastic.

 

9 September, Monday

By the fishing jetty in Ravdoucha, I called in at Taverna Neratzia (a Greek word pronounced ‘nay rats here’). There I could shade from the still very warm rays of the evening sun whilst admiring the azure of the Gulf of Kissamos where I had bathed earlier.

My choice from the menu was seafood spaghetti. Served in my Nan’s 1960s vintage frying pan with burnt fat from a simpler age coating the handle, it was a dish I might describe as a set meal for four as the seafood component was probably equivalent to the contents of an average aquarium.

 

10 September, Tuesday

Trekking an hour through olive groves, goats and spikey shrubs to Ancient Falasarna, I found ruins of a Dorian city from the seventh century B.C. Unfortunately, the site was closed on Tuesdays. Was this a recent thing or had it been closed every Tuesday since the seventh century B.C.?

A nearby café served lukewarm cold drinks to match the welcome from the staff. Here I’d wait for threatening storm clouds to clear. I soon left as a man from Croydon asked if I was looking at his bird. I visualised a chaffinch but I think he meant tattooed Tottenham Tanya.

 

11 September, Wednesday

I enjoyed my evening stroll in Kissamos to buy postcards. I paste them into my journal because I’ve no friends to send them to. Tell me where you live and I’ll send you one next time. I also ate swordfish outside the restaurant by the 16^th century church. It was delicious, as was the Australian-made local craft beer. They’re lucky I don’t do that Tripadvisor malarkey as they forgot the free dessert of raki etc. that I’d become accustomed to each evening.

If pandas love bamboo so much, why were there none living in Kissamos where there’s bamboo growing everywhere? 

 

12 September, Thursday

A bracing breeze whipped up waves unconducive to swimming from Paleochora’s beach but a sandy bottom enabled bathers to wade out to watch other sandy bottoms being tossed about in the spume.

At the sands’ end, a hand-painted wooden sign stated ‘No nudism after this point’. I took this to mean there was nothing interesting to see but really it was because the diners at the nearby hippy beach café didn’t want to be looking at sausages while they were eating their sausages.

The café offered a variety of fresh fruit too but, to avoid embarrassment, I’ll say no more.

 

13 September, Friday

Having stayed in Sougia fifteen years earlier I already knew it to be paradise. I managed to get a room for a night at Pension El Greco where I had stayed on the previous trip. Antonia, the owner, explained that her mother, who had been a wonderful host in 2009, had passed. Otherwise nothing had changed.

Hiking’s the pastime in that gorgeous region but time was limited so I simply explored on foot this loveable village, its goat tracks and beaches.

A fellow El Greco resident, Marza from Kraków, joined me. Sougia was still a great place for making friends.

 

14 September, Saturday

Drifting around Sougia, comparing my memories with the present, chatting to more nice people. Apparently, non-hikers there all did yoga. Daytime exercise was essential for correcting the evening excesses enjoyed in seafront seafood restaurants.

Why was I based in Kissamos? Happy hippy Sougia was a million times better. I vowed to return sometime soon.

My Polish pal needed to travel towards Chania from where she’d fly home. Kissamos was in the right direction so I gave her a lift. She’d been in Sougia two weeks and cried as we left the village, just as I had done fifteen years earlier.

 

15 September, Sunday

Elafonisi gained popularity through its pink sand formed over centuries from the crushed crusty bits of millions of tiny red starfish. It also boasted beautiful dunes and wild plants on a desert island accessible only by wading through a waist-deep seawater lagoon. This extreme paddling is essential unless you’re happy rubbing shoulders etc. with tourist hordes.

I admired the sea daffodils (Pancratium Maritimum) that may have been a crocus-onion mix. Confusing sheep or goats I’d seen earlier may have been sheep or goats, or also a mix. Crossbreeding seemed rife in Crete. No wonder the Minotaur chose to live there.

 

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Image:

My own photograph of the Libyan Sea, taken from above the town of Paleochora in Western Crete.

 

Part Two:

Ex Crete