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| Crete has nice beaches too, although not quite the caliber of Corfu! |
| Erin's Crete Journals 5-9-02 Thursday we decided to try Malia, a small town we'd passed through the day before and had thought looked nice. After once again enjoying the good hotel breakfast, we caught the 11:30am bus to Malia, which took about 90 minutes. Arriving around lunch time, we started walking through town to find the beach. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and we were pleased to be in a place to enjoy it! After walking past multiple British pubs, we surmised that Malia aims particularly at British tourists. Finally we reached the beach, and found it to be crowded with beach chairs (which you have to pay for). We wandered quite a way down the beach, politely declining all the anxious chair-pushers, till we found a spot to lay our towel. We only had one beach towel and I'd forgotten my sarong, so we spread our clothes out as well and shared the towel. The sand was very sticky and fine, and there were lots of tiny sand flies (one of them bit my ear, and it itches like a mosquito bite!), but I finally learned to ignore them. We applied our sunscreen liberally and lay out, and I had my first topless sunbathing experience. Glenn was happy that I was trying to fit in, and was even happier when a group of about 10 British girls in their early 20's came and lay out right next to us! He made sure to enjoy their observance of the topless policy for all his male friends back home! After a few lovely hours of sun, the clouds began rolling in over the mountains, and the wind picked up, which drove most of us off the beach. Glenn and I waited a while to see if the weather would pass, but after an hour or so we finished dressing and headed back to town to look for food. It was now 4pm, and there was a Mexican restaurant we'd passed on the way in that wouldn't open until 6pm. As I have been absolutely craving the good Mexican food from back home, I was adamant that we wait for that place to open for dinner, so we contented ourselves with a snack of ice cream and passed a couple of hours at a mini golf place nearby. (Glenn kicked my butt, though he professes not to be a golfer.) Finally the moment for Mexican food arrived, and we happily ordered our food. Of course it couldn't be anywhere near what we expected, and I had to ask for refried beans (they'd spread a bit on the bottom of my burrito like it was butter or something!!!) before I found eating it enjoyable, but it was a lot of food and we left feeling full. We went back up to the bus stop and waited for the 8:20pm bus, and Glenn bought a t-shirt to wear on Friday while we did laundry. Tired on the trip back, we crashed after a quick shower to remove the remaining sand. |