Possibly the most beautiful place to which I have ever been. Everyday only 200-400 people visit this bay on foot or boat(200 come by boat for 2 hours). There is no bathroom, shower, beach umbrellas, lounge chair, tour buses, cruise ships or reggae/hip hop music blasting from speakers. A little hut at the bottom of the bay will sell you watermelon and salad and you do nothing but stare, swim, eat, swim, stare. (And burn your shoulders bright red if you are me) After spending 5 hours on the beach, we climbed (I sweated and dripped actually) our way back up to the top and were thoroughly entertained by the goats running around the parking lot.
When we arrived around 10am there were only about 4 cars in the parking lot and ours was a rickety old rental which we got for 40 euros a day. When we returned hours later, the parking lot was full with other rentals and many four wheel jeeps that had been overtaken by goats looking for shade or food. As our car was particularly old and rickety our drive back was very slow and careful and many many cars would zip past us. Newer and safer looking we looked on in envy as they passed us in their AC cars with 4WD. And then all traffic stopped.
One of the jeeps went down the cliff and had to be dragged up the cliff by crane making terrible cracking, creaking sounds as they pulled it up. The passenger and driver side were completely smashed and as it was open at the top, the passengers either died upon impact or drowned in the water. Suddenly we were grateful for an old car that didn't make us take things for granted. Greece apparently has the most traffic accidents in all of Europe and watching how everybody drives we are not surprised. Frightened and tired we head back to Hania with our car but stop to see this scene.
Incredible natural beauty and yet death is so close by. Sometimes you forget how precious each moment is.
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