I nearly visit a monstery

On this stretch, between Plaka and Sitia/Setia, I nearly visit a monastery, that of Gournia.

It's the first one I've seen which is clearly sign-posted, so, having not the faintest idea what I might meet at the end of the trail, I start off following the sign-post. I drive for about 20 minutes, across a bridge under construction, past heath and dried up bushes, upwards and upwards and ever upwards...

click for a larger view!

I pass a fenced-in bit of stony ground, with goats and sheep in their barren and lifeless prisons

no sign of human habitation, unless it's the little concrete blockhouse apparently left over from the war, though three dogs start barking at me. Finally I can see the monastery higher up still, perched on a crag about as high again as I've already come.

I don't usually give up very easily, but something inside me says with increasing conviction, that this is not the kind of thing I've taken 10 days holiday for; and I bravely face defeat and turn the car round. Driving down these hair-rising tracks is of course even worse that driving up them, but there's no other way back to humanity and its life-supporting systems.

On the way I pass (even that a major achievement) a Toyota pick-up with the fourth dog and a couple of bales of hay, greener than anything I'd seen actually growing in this desolate country, but still horribly dry, and my heart bleeds for that great gang of sheep and goats that are going to have to fight over those few grassy crumbs ...