Beach bums

I have enjoyed the past week camping beside the sea, there are just a handful of guests, (three including myself as I write this) occasionally someone passes through, but they're on their way somewhere and only stay for a night. The two more permanent residents have something in common with me, both have left their regular jobs and come south to where you can still go sunbathing in November. Both are older than me and this lifestyle is part of the 'final plan' so to speak, they've figured out that in one case migrating south for the winter is good for all sorts of health reasons and can work enough via the internet to keep earning just enough. The other case involves a desire to make distance between lives here and at home in order to bring quiet to the soul. 
The animal inhabitants of the site are far more lively, especially two little characters who I have grown very fond of in the past seven days...

The puppies.

I'm not sure how old they are, where exactly they are from or for that matter who actually owns them but these two little troublemakers have made my stay here quite special. Over the week I've learned that (something that sounds like) 'Lookie' and 'Bookie' were found as abandoned puppies living in the closed beachside kantina by some campers over the summer and brought back to the site. These campers subsequently left and the puppies were 'adopted' by the owners, the workers and the campers on a communal basis. In short everyone feeds these dogs. The picture above is the typical turnout when anyone is eating.

I'm sooooo huuuuuunnnggrryyyyyyy, feed me plz?

The funny thing is, in spite of finding the neediness irritating and being kind of allergic to them, the puppies have really grown on me, the larger one has even adopted me and comes for long walks along the nearby peninsula. Last night she even tried to follow me along the 3km dark and dangerous main road to the supermarket and whimpered when I took her back.
So aside from the hungry pleadingly desperate countenance every time I as much as think about food and they way they try to break through the fabric into my tent in the night to make a puppy cuddle-pile with me I've grown really rather fond of them and them of me.

 They are either eating, playing or sleeping. Most games involve chasing after each other to gain possession of an object that is invariably some decomposing matter they found along the beach or under a bush. There are several stages to this game: the presentation of the object by one party, the acknowledgement of its value by the other, this is done by a series of nods. Finally the chase is initiated by the holder of the item waving the item and beginning to run. Wrestling and barking at strangers is also popular.

Then there's the gifts, in the past few days I have been presented with a rotting fish, an old sponge, a dead toad, two apparently drowned rats and the skin of a hedgehog. Usually these are presented outside my tent or on the kitchen step when I'm cooking.

I will be sad to leave these two behind tomorrow, the affection they show in exchange for the odd pat, kind word or a morsel of food is astounding. In a world that seems very daunting and unforgiving right now, the companionship of the puppies has been most therapeutic and no doubt has changed me a little.

Goodnight!

The first week.

It is one week to the day that I set out on my travels, though it feels like a month of normal time. I've experienced this shift in perceived time before and I've always been sceptical of the 'time dilation' phenomenon outside of a few set circumstances such as having an immediate threat to one's existence. I've always felt that the apparent lengthening of travelling days was due to some kind of heightened emotional/hormonal state or simply doing more with each day.

Looking at the photographs I took a week ago time seems to have stretched considerably.

For a start, when I landed it was summer, now it is definitely winter; as I write this a storm is raging across the beach from me, cold spray whipped into the air and made into a temporary sea mist that scatters light from the failing sun. 

Has time stretched or has the memory of the week's events taken more than it's regularly allotted space in my mind? Is this normal? It feels normal, and if it is indeed the norm and I assume it is as I can tell you what I was doing on Saturday morning for instance, then what is state of mind that I have left behind where I couldn't remember what I was doing yesterday of even what I had for lunch?

The answer is probably something to do with levels of consciousness and perceptions of external stimuli, I'm not sure what, yet.

From Heraklion I took the bus to Chania were I stayed for a few days with some couchsurfers. I was pleasantly surprised that I only had to send six requests to find some CSers willing to host me. I have been to Chania before, but a few years ago and only for a few hours so it was nice to explore and find I recognised a few places.

Chania harbour

I spent a lot of time wandering and exploring by accident, but also a lot of time resting my ankle which still resists if I walk for too long. Happily there was an excellent cafe in the park near my host's house. It made fantastic waffles and even better had free WiFi...

Waffle of the yoghurt and honey variety

Chania old town is a very picturesque city, having a history going back to the Minoan period but in it's current form displaying Venetian and Ottoman heritage in its architecture. I look for parallels and perhaps cultural continuity and saw some interesting glimpses of earlier times. Mostly however I saw a tourist economy in operation with large numbers of cafes and tavernas (has anyone worked out how many Chanians there are for each taverna/restaurant? Could the native population of the city all go out at once and get a table?) together with the time of my visit being very much at the end of the season gave the city a melancholic feel much like an amusement park at the end of the day when most people have gone home and all the rides are shutting down.

(nearly) Deserted streets

So after a few days of this I felt done with Chania and decided to head to the south coast of Crete to try camping. Wild camping (without permission) is illegal in Greece and a quick look around on Google Earth showed that most of the coast has some kind of settlement whose inhabitants could report me to the police. I decided that a good coastal campsite was the way to go (and to be honest, I'm enjoying the showers and electricity) and found one pretty quickly. The bus ride south through the mountain passes was breathtaking, I walked to the campsite with my two packs weighing around 25kg which sounds like a bad idea but is was good to soak up the scenery along the way.

The bus ride south

The temperature on the day was about 25 degrees Celsius which meant lots of breaks and lots of water over the 7km and luckily for you lots of photographs.

It was a nice feeling to arrive! The campsite is beautiful and located in a spectacular part of the world. The layout allows me to feel as if I'm living on the beach somewhere but with electricity and sanitation.
I have always wanted to do this part of the trip. There was a romantic notion of pitching a tent near the sea, going swimming twice a day, eating the local fresh produce and generally enjoying myself.

My camp before the calamity 

Breakfast view

This situation lasted approximately two days. See that little concrete wall on the last picture? Well, in exceptionally heavy rain water runs off the surrounding hills and through the campsite, this isn't a problem in the summer due to there being no rain, in the autumn however...
I was having my evening swim (in the rain) and having a lot of fun too as it happens, when the storm got much more intense, so much so that the splashes from the rain on the sea surface made it impossible for me to see. I ran back to the campsite (think 6 foot man running across 400m of open beach in a lightning storm covered in lots of lovely conductive salty water) to find the tent standing in a small lake held in by that cute little concrete wall. I made it just in time, the water was just below the join between the waterproof ground sheet and the water permeable fly sheet.  After carrying my backpack and front-pack to a dry place I pulled up the tent pegs and pulled the tent to higher ground saving my sleeping bag and other loose possessions in the process.
Disaster averted.
There has been a storm here for the past two days, the sound of the waves is terrific and has even drowned out an earthquake! 

The calm

The storm

So, not exactly what I had in mind for this week, but fun and definitely an experience! Soon I will head north and to the Peloponnese by ferry, before then I will post again about my new friends here.