Stunning walk through Gorge

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  Samaria Gorge, Crete, Greece
Tuesday, September 14, 2010

After a couple of days in Chania, we left out backpacks at the hotel and took a bus to a wee town called Omalos. We stayed the night and early the next morning set out to hike the gorgeous Samaria Gorge. It`s 16 km long, starting at an altitude of 1250m and takes you all the way down to the gorge floor and then on to the shores of the Libyan sea in Agia Roumeli. The walk through the National Park of Samaria is 13 km but when you add the extra 3 km to Agia Roumeli from the exit of the National Park it ends up being 16.  The whole walk is beautiful but it`s really special when you get to the bottom and walk across the dried up river bed (the park and gorge are open only from the beginning of May to the end of October because in winter, high water makes the gorge dangerous and impassable) and then onto the very narrow passage near the end of the gorge called the "Iron Gates". Not sure why since there are no iron gates anywhere. 

More than halfway through, we arrived at the now abandoned, tiny village of Samaria. We ate our lunch there and grabbed some leaves from the trees to feed the curious and not so shy kri-kris (Cretan goats). After lunch we completed the trek and ended up at the port town of Agia Roumeli where I had a much deserved frosty mug of beer at a seaside taverna. Chisa and  I played some backgammon and watched the world go by ever so slowly and quietly until our ferry arrived.

Life is good.     

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let's go!	walk around Omalos town	grazing sheep and in the shade	Hotel Neos in Omalos
Hotel Neos in Omalos	Samaria Gorge-pose in front of nice mountain	Samaria Gorge-begin long walk down to gorge	Samaria Gorge - still going down
Samaria Gorge-getting spooky, stone balancing	Samaria Gorge - stone balancing	village of Samaria	feeding leaves to a kri-kri
Samaria Gorge-danger!	Samaria Gorge	Samaria Gorge	Samaria Gorge
Samaria Gorge	Iron Gates" (Sideroportes)	Samaria Gorge	Samaria Gorge lazboy
Samaria Gorge	Samaria Gorge	finally...Agia Roumeli	chilling in Agia Roumeli, waiting for ferry
chillin Chisa	chillin Mike	ferry to Sougia

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