Bullet holes

Already since I bought my van, I took some Adria stickers away and added some of my own ones. I needed some street attitude, hahaha! One of the stickers are like bullet holes, how girly!

I was a small player when I found this truck in Italy where the whole cabin was decorated (!) and a really small player when I reached Crete, see the photos!

These are my bullet holes, impressive don´t you think?

The truck beside me in Italy, wowowowow!

Hahaha and in Crete they are real cowboys!

Birthdays, baby goats and petanque

It is always so nice to be in Frangokastello, such a nice stop with beautiful beach and of course meeting always the nice Greek family from here! This time my English camper friends were here too, as they also like to come back and back to this spot.

We celebrated Linda´s birthday, I watch the petanque, played with team UK, Greek and France and had a chance to feed a baby goat! Many nice moments and conversations with Linda, the woman who can talk non-stop, in a good way :). Most of days she was coming to my camper for a few hours chat, she has so many stories to tell, I miss her already since they left on Friday.

Monday should come better weather with plenty of sun, so we will stick around still a while in Frangokastello.

Rain from Sahara?

When I woke up this morning and saw how dirty my van was, It was clear that I need to clean atleast the solar panels! My whole van was covered with this reddish sand and lucky there is a church nearby and I could go to give a small washing to my home. My guess is that this one came directly from the Sahara, horrible stuff!

Yesterday was an awful weather, solar panels had already plenty of work to try to charge my batteries and today when we got some sun again was time to clean the panels that I would have some energy and can hang on the internet a bit :)

See the difference, other panel is already cleaned

Today is about +23 c , wind from the south east, sun and clouds, nice weather :)

Treasures from the sea

Sea treasures or you just might call it Sea Rubbish, would be maybe more justified. Not that I just photograph lost shoes, I also like to look and find sea treasures from the beach. How exciting is that!
I love floated wood and the soft surface on it when the sea has done its job.

My camper friends from UK are also having this odd thing, who finds the most precious object or in some cases the most odd, it is a funny game, there are more of us to do it and actually collecting them up. They mostly like to keep the object as decoration and put it back on its place after some days as you can understand the place is limited in the camper, we can not keep all of them! 

In December I found this plastic flower with a frog on it, I was giving it a "new life" on the beach, I attached it on a brunch and let it blossom again.. and thought I would never see it again...

Triopetra - the three stones

We were getting to Triopetra via Agios Pavlos, located in the south coast, about 50 km from Rethymnon. Triopetra with its magical three rocks is a beach I really liked! You can walk from Agios Pavlos or vice versa to Triopetra and enjoy from the beautiful landscapes, endless beaches and rocks. I can see why the energy is good to keep yoga retrets in here.

Agios Pavlos felt a nice spot too, but not with a camper, not too much space to park, so we took direction Triopetra to check it out. Few nice looking tavernas (off season all closed) and rooms for rent, peace and tranquility is all you can find in this place.

Weather and road conditions

This winter has been so different from last year, we have had snow, hails, rain, wind (not talking about small gusts!), sun and plenty of many cold days which are unusual in Crete. I can say that if this would have been my first winter trip in Crete, I would say I would never come back. Last winter was fabulous and yes, the local people here say that this year really hasn´t been the usual one. Some say that they have never lived such a winter, some say that it was 20 years ago last time so bad, some says 10 years ago. Nature says of course thank you (!), but it has caused many problems to the roads and lands. I guess all these roads will not be cleaned up / repaired before the season starts, but I am hoping the good warm days arrives by then :)

First BBQ 2015!

The first BBQ party done:), last year the first one was already on the first January, but better later than ever! Like always we were again presented by many nationalities; Greece, Germany, Spain, USA, Israel,  Czech Republic, Slovenia, France, Switzerland, Ireland, England, Italy, Austria, Palestine, Finland and many many doggies (not quite sure if there weren´t in somepoint more dogs than people..)

The big suprise was that Linda and Sergio gave a suprise visit to  Matala . We met them already last year in here and now they just came back for some days since they were in Athens and on the way back home to Spain. Was extremely nice to see this cutest couple in the world again :)

Kastri - beads, port, sea and walking

We have passed by this village before, but this was the first time we stopped there and had a wonderful week! It is located in the South, between Mires and Ierapetra, 12 km south from Ano Viannos. Kastri is a tiny fishing village with some tavernas, port, beaches, no hotels but there are rooms to rent. Supermarket is also open all year around and its runned by a friendly man, Manolis. Actually everyone I met were so friendly and in one week time, I learned to know many people and when I made the walks with the doggy it felt that I would actually live in the village.

I made a nice friendship with Jorgos, the bead artist. He is handicapped and he is working from his wheelchair, living and working in his studio on the beach road - easy to find him. I´ve been doing myself also glass beads and hoping to make them next time together with Jorgos, would be fun. I had such a good laugh with him and he also wanted to give me a ride, how cool is that!

Clean Monday in Crete

This is the day you see Greek people flying kites, bu this year the weather was quite against it. I spotted just this small girl outside, while I was happily staying inside of my van, instead outside!

Clean Monday comes after the carnival, also known as Pure Monday or Ash Monday. From this day on you should be leaving behind you sinful attitudes and non-fasting food until Easter.

Many Greek people do still fasting, they stop eating meat, eggs and dairy products and eat fish and vegetables instead (how easy for me!).

Clean Monday is a public holiday in Greece and on this day they make this special kind of "azyme" bread, baked only on that day, named "lagana". My dear camper friends kindly bought one for me to have a taste :).

Now we are waiting Easter to come and in the meanwhile we are enjoying finally some more sunny days!

Carnival in Crete

In Greece the carnival dates  are tied to Greek Orthodox Easter which is usually different from Western Easter. Every few years, both calendars will coincide, but this year it is one week later. Greece has long traditions with carnivals, for example in Patras (in mainland) ranks in the top three carnival celebrations in the world with it´s 180 years traditions.

So it was nice to me see this, even in this smaller city of Ierapetra. People were cheerful and enjoying the time as much as I did with the doggy :)