Respite In Crete

On the dry south coast, overlooking the Libyan Sea. I came across from the west, motorcycling on dirt roads looking for a monastary on a cliff that I heard accepts travelers in its spartan cells. I thought I would go there for 9/11 to meditate on war with the fighting monks of Crete, but I passed by an intensely beautiful cove with booming surf and wild-looking nudists and a small village with terraced taverns serving mugs of Mythos beer and so decided instead to kick it with the euro-freaks.

This was my second bike, which I rented in Iraklion on the north coast. My first bike was rented in Hania but I crashed it and snapped the clutch lever and its bracket. I was inland in the middle of the mountains after crossing over a spectacular high dirt road from the west coast, had come down through a canyon of big plane and chestnut trees, into a narrow valley of olive trees and apiaries, crossing back and forth a rivulet, trying to find a shortcut to the route through Topalino Gorge. It was classic...2:00 in the pm without lunch and nothing but a protein bar and espresso for breakfast; in a hurry and losing focus...then, a tricky downhill section of steep loose dirt not easily reversed (the line crossed)...then real trouble; a steep rocky hill climb turned into loose rock the size of baby heads and down I went. Those "shortcuts" always mess me up! After determining that the bike was unrideable, I hiked to a village, found a cafe, found a phone, found a truck that could handle it, got back to the bike, ran away from some bees that got excited, loaded the bike in the truck, blasted up the steep dirt hill that I should never have gone down, and finally returned the bike to the shop.

The people are very tough; not openly friendly, but fairminded. I guess that's to be expected after 3000+ yrs of periodic invasions, usually involving horrendous brutality. Greeks, Turks, Arabs, Venicians, Genoans, Saracen pirates, Nazis: everybody's had a shot at this strategic island. On the otherwise uninhabitable peninsula of Rodopos, I visited a monastary which the monks built on a cliff like a fort and defended for centuries. There's an old cannonball imbedded in the chapel wall, commemorated with surrounding tiles and inside, a 17th century painting of Judgement Day that can curl your hair. One of the most renowned monks in Crete is revered for barricading himself in his inland fortress/monastary after killing a Turk who insulted his sister and then fighting off the occupying Turk forces for weeks until his ammunition ran out. The Greek Orthodox church has won a special place in the hearts of the people as time and time again their monastaries have been their refuge of last resort.




Respite