Cretan-homes, Crete property estate agents

SAMARIA GORGE

BY ANN LISNEY

Towards the end of our first summer in Crete, my friend Hannah from the UK came to stay, very keen to walk the Samaria Gorge.  My partner Rob and I had been meaning to do it, so this was our incentive. We booked an all-in trip, with a pick-up locally that delivered us to the Xyloskala (the wooden steps at the entrance to the Gorge), included a boat trip from Aghia Roumeli at the bottom of the Gorge to Sougia, and coach delivery from there back to our starting point.

On the coach, our athletic-looking young guide assured us that it was a ‘moderately easy’ walk and should take four hours or so. She said that no one could get left behind or get into trouble because she would follow us down. Foolproof, or what? 

The three of us set off down the steps at 8 am, along with hordes of others who had been waiting for the off. Hannah and I were careful on the steps as lots of younger and fitter people were racing past us, and Rob waited for us to catch up, part way down. He said that the slow pace was hard on his back and that he would go on ahead and meet up with us - either at the first toilet stop or at the ruined village. I was carrying a small daypack which he kindly offered to carry for me. I kept my water bottle, and off we set once more.

The first toilet stop seemed a long time coming, but there was no sign of Rob – we waited in case it had been his turn in the cubicle, but after a few minutes we set off again. I was already wishing I had kept my sunglasses out of my pack, as the sun on the white stones was giving me a headache, but I needed to keep cheerful, as Hannah seemed to be finding the going difficult. I took over her pack, but we seemed to be making very slow progress. I kept thinking that we would catch up with Rob around the next bend, but had my thoughts fixed on the abandoned village at the halfway point where we would rendezvous.

Our pace was getting ever slower and I kept taking quick looks at my watch – we had set off at 8 am and we were supposed to pick up our boat tickets at 4 pm in Aghia Roumeli – that meant we had eight hours in total.  By my reckoning, we should have been at the halfway point by 12 noon at the latest. It was actually almost 2 pm by the time we arrived.  I was worried about Hannah, anxious about the time, needed reassurance and was desperate to see Rob.

So where the hell was he? No sign of him anywhere! After a ten-minute break I urged Hannah to her feet again and we set off once more. I felt sure that each time we turned a bend he would be waiting there for us, but each time there was just more path and more rocks.

I eventually had to say to Hannah that I thought we were probably going to miss our boat, but that Rob would have worked something out and would be waiting for us at the exit to the park. By this time she was almost past caring and was just determinedly putting one foot slowly in front of the other – refusing to give up, refusing to allow me to try and contact one of the rangers to get her a ride on a mule, just gritting her teeth and keeping going.

We must have been the last out of the park that afternoon – we passed the exit at about half past five. And no, there was no sign of Rob there either.

We hobbled the rest of the way to Aghia Roumeli to find out what to do and to see what had happened to Rob.

I parked Hannah on a wall in the shade and did a recce around the village – no sign of Rob.  I went to the ticket office and found the only other boat that night went to Chora Sfakion – which was due east. We wanted to go west.  Eventually I went to the taverna where we had been supposed to meet our guide and collect our boat tickets and asked if there was a message for us. Surprise! There was a (short) note from Rob, including our boat tickets, telling us to catch the next boat to Chora Sfakion and try to get back to Chania!  I was incandescent with rage and hobbled back to Hannah to consult. Our other option might have been to stay at Aghia Roumeli overnight, but all my money was in the daypack which was now with Rob. The sum total that Hannah had about her person was 21 Euros, which was not enough for a room.  Our only option seemed to be to go to Chora Sfakion.

The now-useless boat tickets to Sougia were exchanged at the ticket office, but we had to pay a further 4 Euros each for the longer journey. That left us with 13 Euros. We duly got the boat to Chora Sfakion, where I dimly remembered a KTEL bus met the boat – and hoped it was going to Chania. As soon as the boat docked, I sprinted up the road towards the bus and asked where it was going. Chania! And the fare? Merciful God, it was 5.5 Euros each. That left us with 2 Euros.

We got to the bus station in Chania at about 10 pm, well after the last bus in our direction.  Neither Hannah nor I had our reading glasses (guess where mine were?), but we managed to find a coin and a working telephone and rang home. I was speechless to discover that Rob was angry with me for some reason, and hung up on him in fury. We would take a taxi home and he could pay!

No taxi driver was keen on going into the wilderness with two foreign women at that hour of the night, but by a combination of bravado and blackmail I managed to persuade one to take us. We eventually screeched to a halt outside our door and I staggered out, followed by a tottering Hannah. Rob appeared and I snarled: “Pay the man,” and went in, slamming the door.

Now – Rob’s story.  He had spent ages in the queue at the first toilets so he assumed we had gone past, so set off again. He got to the deserted village at about 11.45 and waited for us until 1 pm. He was about to set off when someone who had been on our coach walked up and Rob asked them if they had seen two women walking slowly. He was told that one of us had ‘been injured and was not coming down the gorge’. He waited a while longer and saw others from the coach, who gave him the same story. He decided that it would be better to continue on down than to try and go back up, so went on to Aghia Roumeli to meet the guide.

At Aghia Roumeli Rob was told that the guide was not coming down after all, and was handed the tickets by a waiter in the taverna. He started to worry about what might be happening – if the guide did not come down, how would the injured one of us be able to get back out? He went back to the ranger office at the exit to the park and told them someone injured might be coming down slowly. He was assured that the rangers would be told and that everything would be fine. He went back to taverna and left a message for us, but then was told by someone else that we had made it through the gorge and had gone straight onto the boat. Much relieved, Rob got on the boat and went looking for us. Not surprisingly, we weren’t there.

When the boat arrived at Sougia, Rob told the coach driver that two people were missing. The coach driver radioed base, who contacted the park rangers and the boat company, and Rob was assured that an announcement would be made on the next boat, asking us to identify ourselves. He finally got home, worried sick, and spent a couple of anxious hours on the phone berating the tour company. Then to put the tin hat on it, I telephoned in a rage for being abandoned.

Talk about a catalogue of disasters!

But there was an up side. Because Hannah and I were so far behind the others, we saw lots of kri-kris who came out when all the noise had died down – so we had the last laugh.  Rob and I soon made things up and have decided to do the walk again sometime – roped together!

In the meantime, don’t mention the Gorge!