Week Two in Heraklion and Santorini

We checked out of Triopetra for a whirlwind day moving us through to the lovely traditional village of Spili in the morning for a short visit, then on to Heraklion. Spili is, in my mind, a wonderfully iconoclastic Cretan village, where you will see beautiful bouganvillea-laden houses, roses and morning glories and trumpet flowers, and the scent of herbs like thyme sparsely coming up from the dry, craggy land surrounding the road as you enter this charming village. There are lots of traditional textile shops, fruit markets, and tavernas each with their own lovingly rendered personality and all family-run. The one or two-story buildings feature hand carved woodwork on banisters, windows, ceiling beams and lots of beautiful tile work and thick sturdy flagstone floors.
With me behind the wheel of one rented car and another taxi in tow we made our way from Spili to Heraklion to see the Palace of Knossos together. We picked up a lovely couple from New York who were joining us on the second half of the trip and jaunted off merrily to Knossos in the building heat of the day.
At a shady taverna we had lunch and then took a 2-hour guided tour of the site. I appreciated the information given by the tour guide to our group but was reviled by the way she superimposed her own Christian belief system onto the interpretation of an ancient society that existed 3,000 years before Christ. Oh well. She had alot of good historical information until she began speculating on the "barbaric Pagan customs" that a find at one room in Knossos may indicate Minoans performed human sacrifice. And how wonderful it was by the time Christianity happened to wipe out these practices. And asserted that the Goddess wasn't such a big deal to these people (!) , and that Heaven is male and the Father, and earth is the lowly subjugate Mother principle...very against the grain of what I have found to be true through most anthropologists writing about Minoans of that time, or neighboring Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures, in which the paradigm is reversed...as in the Queen of Heaven known as Isis to the Egyptians and Inanna to the Sumer, and the fertile Gods Osiris and Dumuzi of the Earth male principle...it was intellectually as well as personally insulting to my own beliefs. I guess I thought I was paying for her to give us a more diverse appreciation for the finds and process of archaeology at the site. Next year I will be on guard for the "extras" like those unsolicited opinions that guides provide. I held my tongue after debating with her a bit for the sake of getting through our tour which took restraint...and special consideration to extend to her a bit of religious tolerance that she had not extended to me or my group!
Everyone was really impressed with Knossos nonetheless, it can do nothing less than stimulate your imagination (at best...or for worse according to many archaeologist who disagree with Arthur Evans large-scale reconstructing of the site based on his educated vision of what it may have looked like). We checked into a hotel in the Gouves beach area of Heraklion, out of the soot and heat of the city, where the sea again welcomed us in beryl and turqoise tones and black gravelly shores.
After morning practice the retreatants had a free day and many opted to rent a car (it is quite easy to drive in Crete, thankfully) and tour another part of the island on their own. They went to some beautiful beaches near Ierapetra and had a great and long day.
We were off to Santorini the next morning by ferry, bounding along teal waters at a high clip, and were awed by the approaching horns of the island from afar as we approached.
Stepping off of the high-speed ferry to the new port at the southern end of the island, your eyes are met by the staggering cliff walls and massive strength of the island. Before we prematurely could take in very much we were carried off safely up a windy, windy road by our taxi driver to our hotel on the beach side of the island in an area called Kamari. The driver was actually the owner of our hotel, which was a delightful and highly recommended place called the Boathouse. Kamari has great beach access and is a largely pedestrian area of pensions (family-run lodgings) and hotels facing the sea, with many great snorkelling opportunities as the avid swimmers in our group reported to me. There was a large rock that Paul nicknamed "the Grotto" where he swam around and found a sea cave. For people who love to swim and explore, the islands are a treasure trove of discovery. I have made it my personal commitment to transcend a fear of being out deep in the ocean given the tales that Paul has share of what he gets to see way out there with his nifty prescription goggles!
Our days in Santorini were vast and full and only five: we had morning practice outdoors in the hard-sought menial shade of the taverna patio (they are completing their community lounge / yoga room at the end of the summer, an issue I and the retreatants had to make "do" with, but without much difficulty). After morning practice and breakfast, we made a trip on one day to the volcano, Nea Kameni, which continues to erupt as recently as 1956, and whose eruption was among the largest in the world's history when it blew in 1650BC, destroying Minoan settlements here and in Crete. We took a colorful, vintage-looking schooner sailboat with about fifty other people to the volcano and enjoyed the wind in our hair and views of the inner caldera of the island as we made our way to the still-smoldering volcano for a hike. Participants also got to swim in the ocean right after, jumping off of the boat gratefully after the hot hike, to the source of some geothermal water, a hotsprings rich and iron-red, along the side of the volcano. Afterwards we had lunch at an adjacent part of the island, what used to be connected to Santorini and is now known as Thirasia. There were more wonderful swimming opportunities to be had here. I realized the depth of Cathleen's optimistic troubador spirit when she stepped on an urchin and had to have around twenty small spines removed from her foot by her partner Adam here, without complaint!
Next day was an amazing and restful morning on the beach after practice for several people, while I picked up a rental van to take us out to some swim spots at the northern end of the island. We visited the black stony beach with red and charred sea caves called Cape Eloundou, then continued our sea-basking tour to Ammoudi Bay, the old port of Santorini where you can walk around beyond the touristy tavernas and stunningly beautiful cliff walls to a swimming nook facing a ruin of a Venetian fort. The waters here were exceptional, emerald green, with some interesting rocks we could see twenty feet down below us as the water (have I not mentioned this yet?) around Santorini is clearer than that of the Bahamas.
That evening we went to Oia to watch the sunset and have dinner. Oia is a cascading stairwell of shops, unique sea-facing tavernas and apartments, and high-end art boutiques. It is a place you just have to see to believe, the views are arresting. This is the Santorini of postcard legend, the haven for photographers from beginning to advanced, you just cannot take a bad picture here. It remains true to the local rhythm though, despite its' popularity, there is a relaxed pace here and there are so many places to walk around to, sit and watch the moon rise. Paul and I were witness to a rather auspicious Jupiter-Moon-Venus interplay from the northernmost point of Oia, perched precariously on a brick balcony over a two story drop below, overlooking the sea as the sun was setting and the crescent moon was appearing, poised between the two lustrous and aforementioned luminaries. Here in Oia is the pronounced truth of self-determination in landscape...the spiralling flagstone paths and occasional stairways around the neighborhoods compel you to be increasingly self-aware and self-responsible as they are hardly ever furnished with handrails, and you may have to suddenly step over the ridge of where an unseen alcove roof begins to meet the land level you are walking on, as everything is built literally intothe side of the caldera, and stacked on graceful and cascading levels to allow for as many little businesses as possible to thrive there. It is a statement also of the perseverance and "carpe diem"spirit of people who live on this island in the face of the activity of the volcano, which only 60 years ago completely destroyed the development of Oia at this side of the island as it shot 200 kilometers of ash into the air for everyone to see. And what a sight it must have been.