22:00
Plakias, Crete, Greece
So I had heard about this thing from the very beginning called the "riverwalk". When I first checked into this hostel, I was laying on my back on the bench as the manager, Chris, explained all about the hostel. He said it was too bad I was hurt because although this would be a great place to recover, I wouldn't be able to do things like this--and then he showed me a picture of a guy swimming under a waterfall.
I was, in fact, a little sad that I knew I wasn't going to be able to do that riverwalk, but everything I heard about made it sound exactly like one of the adventures I would've jumped at in Maui (with some ancient ruins thrown in too). So when I finally started feeling better, I decided I was going to give it a try. I asked Jessica if she'd like to come along, but her foot was hurting her so she didn't want to. It probably worked out for the best that way, though, because I was able to go at my own pace, very slowly, very carefully, making sure I didn't jump slip or fall in a way that would re-injure my back, and I also love to stop constantly and take pictures (which typically irritates Jessica).
The hike started by going up the hill to the ruins of the first Old Mill. These ruins are basically only a couple of old walls that are still standing--not much too it anymore, I'm afraid.
When you keep going up the trail, you eventually run into yet another Old Mill. Also 400 years old, also built by the Venetians, and also based on Mesopotamian design. This Old Mill was in much better shape. It was actually quite amazing to see. What really surprised me was that you're allowed to just walk all over it. If we had anything 400 years old in America, it'd be encased in glass and nobody would be allowed near it. But you actually have to walk through it if you want to follow the trail up to the city of Myrthos above it. To get to the old mill, you have to cross an ancient Venetian bridge--which is just as old as the Mill.
From the mill, you could see a tiny little chapel half built into the cliff-side on the other side of the gorge.
It is at this point that you actually enter into the river, and hike the rest of the way up through the water. There's a lot of wading, a lot of carefully choosing rocks, a lot of scrambling up boulders and over small waterfalls, but it was just beautiful.
And they had very surprisingly beautiful bugs. I think this one was kind of like a dragonfly.
According to the directions, I was supposed to continue up the river for about an hour until I saw the "magic bridge". I wasn't really sure what this magic bridge was, and after having been going up the river for what I assumed was much more than an hour, I thought maybe I missed it. The directions also said something like "when you see a cement slab in the river, it's time to get out". Well, I saw what was a small cement slab, and a trail leading up the gorge away from it, so I just assumed that I missed the "magic bridge", and got out of the water and followed the trail.
As it turns out, I was actually supposed to keep going up the river a great deal more. I had maybe only made it half way, which was surprising to me since it felt like I was in that river forever. But I guess that just means I'll have to do it again sometime :)
Anyway, once I got out of the water, I followed what was very much like a goat trail, that eventually made its way up onto a road. That, luckily, was the right road that I would've met up with anyway had I continued all the way to the end of the riverwalk where I was supposed to go. The road provided some of the most amazing views of Plakias and the Crete coastline, before eventually descending back down to the town and Hostel.
One of the interesting things I noticed was that along the roadway there was an irrigation ditch very similar to those 100 year old irrigation channels you find on Maui. I doubt this irrigation ditch was 100 years old (though for all I know, maybe it was much older), but it was definitely reminiscent.
Oh, one other thing I didn't mention, a few days before I did this hike, I wanted to see how I was feeling and if I thought I could traverse the waters of this river. Because this river flows literally right beside the hostel, I hopped in and headed up the river. As I was walking carefully from rock to rock, one of the rocks I was about to step on moved. I took a little video with my underwater camera--you can just barely see him for a short part of it. Ignore the dialogue, it's pretty bad.
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