Lost Beyond Elounda...
Craig and I are lost - somewhere between Plaka and Milatos, in the thorny, mountain hinterland of East Crete where it feels as if you could tumble over the edge of the world…
We were following the instructions in one of our walking books from Epano Loumas, but we’ve either missed a path, or a waymarker is no longer where it was when the book was written 16 years ago. There is no signal on Craig’s phone - no way of checking exactly where we are. I’m planning the comments I’ll write when we get back home – and our book already has a lot of notes scrawled inside. Mostly words with four letters when we’ve encountered hazards not mentioned in the directions - unexpected climbs, disappearing footpaths, or my own particular nemesis - scree!
We’ve stopped to rehydrate in the sweltering heat, and we’re looking around for landmarks, trying to pretend our drinking water isn’t already body temperature - when, as if on cue, a herd of goats suddenly appears over the ridge above us, streaming down the hillside like flotsam on the leading edge of a wave.
We watch them lurch jerkily towards us, bells jangling with notes that warp and distort in the hot air. Their appearance is so magical, the din they make so startling after the blanket-heavy silence of a few moments ago, that they appear to have stumbled from another time.
Following the herd is a wiry, older man dressed in drooping, patched black trousers and a faded navy shirt that hangs limp on his spare frame. He has a stout, crooked stick in one gnarled hand and a traditional, beaded black scarf laced damply around his forehead against the sun.
His weathered face cracks into a curious smile as he comes closer, looking us over. He’s clearly surprised to meet us in the middle of nowhere – and even more surprised when I ask him where we are in Greek, and the way back to Epano Loumas and the tiny ‘Black Sheep’ (Mavro Provato) Italian café, near where we’ve left our car.
The man thinks and then gestures ahead with his stick. “You go this way,” he says, indicating a road that we can just glimpse far below us, which twists and writhes towards the never-ending hazy blue of the sea 700 metres down, “But it is very, very, very, very, very, very long”.
We hold our breath, hoping for the other option that’s dangling in the air..
“Or maybe you go that way -” he points down the mountain a little way - into the spiny undergrowth slightly behind where we’re standing, “but it is very, very, very, very, very, very, very -” he tilts his head to one side as he selects the right word “- Difficult”
Craig and I share a rueful glance. Long or difficult? Neither option is encouraging in this blistering sunshine.
“Long” on tarmac may be the easiest way to go, but the road is exposed, without shade and the abbreviated coils of bends we can make out are shimmering, silver and watery in the afternoon heat. “Difficult” has the advantage of being shorter and perhaps a little shadier, but we’re already scratched to hell from the ‘spina–longa’ thorns on the mountainside. Shorts turned out to be a bad choice, despite the sweaty humidity of the day.
We convince ourselves that the footpath doesn’t look too bad - if we squint slightly. ‘Difficult’ wins.
We thank our amused guide with nods, smiles and waves - and he watches, his eyes gleaming like the sky as we pick our way down to the faint scrawl of path at the edge of a ruined stockyard…
Then, just as suddenly as he arrived, the shepherd is gone – as if the hillside has swallowed him up – a trickster spirit in a folk legend.
This is actually the second time we’ve been lost today, and we’re joking about our adventures, as we scramble on through the gritty afternoon heatwave… This morning, we over-shot the starting place for our walk and found ourselves on a winding track downhill towards Vlihadia Beach, a hidden, pocket handkerchief-sized bay with a shrine, a caravan, a wooden cabin, one slipway and an optimistically-sited (but well-reviewed, we discover later), fish taverna - all ‘socially distanced’ around a crumbling, low cliff. Lured on by the bluest of all Crete’s blue waters – the bluest blue either of us has ever seen - we ate our picnic lunch early beside the ocean - a weathered, wooden cable drum standing in for a table.
Now - suddenly - Craig jerks out his arm - “Stop!”
I pull up as he retreats from the tree that’s drooping over the path – his movements, slow, deliberate and careful.
“What the hell?” I follow his gaze to one of the branches, broken and dangling at face height. Except that it isn’t a branch -
It’s a snake!
We’ve seen snakes in Greece before – lazy, fat, unhurried things – confidently sunning themselves on rocky paths or coiled into the hollow of a stone wall. They’ve always been easy to spot and simple to avoid, but this one – the first we’ve seen in Crete - is about a metre long, thin and patterned like tree bark. It’s perfectly camouflaged amongst dry branches.
“Flippin’ eck!”1 I step back and we edge off and around the path.
And then the snake drops to the ground with a SLAP - and shoots away – shattering its way through the dry undergrowth
We show it our heels as we hop over thorns and scrub, swearing and giggling at the same time - hoping that our noise will scare away any other creatures that might be lurking – and only sidle our way back towards the path when the scrubby thorn trees run out.
Back in the safety of our favourite cake and coffee shop on the way home - the Milo Patisserie in Neapoli - we google and discover that our afternoon encounter was with either a Cat Snake or a Balkan Whip Snake – we didn’t stick around long enough to be perfectly sure of the identification. Both, we learn, like all of Crete’s snakes, are considered harmless to humans, with venom too weak to be poisonous. Still, we’re happy not to have put this to the test - and resolve to keep our eyes on overhanging trees as well as on paths in the future.
Do you think that was why the way was ‘difficult’? Craig asks - ‘Snakes?’
“Maybe. Or maybe the snake was our ‘helper’ in disguise, checking we got back safely?” I offer. “Snakes here are meant to be signs of good fortune - divine protection. Remember all those Minoan Snake Goddesses?”
“You read too many stories.”
“I don’t think we were really lost today, though.” I say
“No?”
“Well, we didn’t know where we were going in the first place – so we can’t have been lost, can we? We were just exploring.”
Craig considers for a moment, then laughs and shakes his head.
Later, I consider my notes for our walking book, wondering about a description that will sum today up perfectly…
Eventually I just scrawl, ‘S-N-A-K-E’ - five letters not four for a change - and our new catchphrase:
‘Not lost, just exploring…’
‘Claire In Crete’ publishes new articles every two weeks about Crete’s people, history, culture, places, walks, wildlife and more. It’s free to subscribe to receive each new post directly, and they’re all public, so do feel free to share.
You should find the archive of stories from my whole year here on the Substack website claireleesingham.substack.com. If you like this story, you may also enjoy an earlier post:
'Bloody Scary Road!'
When the mountain road winds out of the trees, and then narrows, with a dizzying drop on both sides - I feel my heart squeeze to a fist in my chest...
And - if you like Claire in Crete, you may enjoy my award-winning short story, Ann Hilder - a mystery inspired by the work of the artist LS Lowry and his shadowy ‘godchild’ Ann. The story is published as a small book and ebook on Amazon at https://amzn.eu/d/bMidwmh
… Or words to that effect. Flippin’ ‘eck may not be a completely accurate quote!
And the goat herder walks away, chuckling to himself and thinking ‘those guys are very very very very very very very silly wandering around out here in this heat with a 16 year old walking book and a bottle of hot drinking water. Just wait until they meet the snake 🤣’
Really enjoyed reading this! We're planning a walk from Mavro Provato to Vrouchas and back, later this month, so thanks for the heads up about old routes, missing signs ... and snakes, argh! A really enjoyable and funny read 😊.