I arrived in Sfakia today, forty something years older than when I first came in 1974 (see intro). I’m having a beer sat outside the taverna we used to frequent, run by three brothers, Ari, Giorgis and Stavros Perrakis.

A few years before, in 1969, their father, Stavros, had started to rent out a few small rooms above his shoe repair shop and mini market, responding to a trickle of visitors, then mostly hippies, that would one day turn into a torrent.

When he died, according to custom, they and their sister, Eleni, wore black for a year, and they grew their hair and beards. Their mother, Thespina, wore black for the the rest of her life.

The enterprise of Stavros snr, who had no idea how things might progress, was evident in Ari’s spirit back in the 70s, or it may have been intrigue and/or girls. He used to fill his boat with beer, wine and other essentials, and join us under the stars on Sweetwater beach, a remote, starlit enclave where a small handful of similarly aged travellers hung out, grateful for his service and company. These days he and the wider family have over 60 rooms, studios and apartments in Sfakia, and 24 more along the coast in nearby Frangokastello.

Although not exactly untouched, Sfakia’s geography spared it from the tsunami of tourism that eventually swept over many parts of the island. It was the same during the Venetian and Ottoman occupations. In nearby gorges Cretan rebels fought fierce battles with Ottoman forces to prevent them from entering. To the north, the towering, impenetrable Lefka Ori, the White Mountains, through which I passed today, and the rocky coastline of the south, beside which I sat later in the evening, ensured that invaders were easily repelled. Tourists make it through but not so many; it’s a long haul.

Sfakians have a reputation as fierce defenders of their independence and culture. Any mention of going there always prompts raised eyebrows and a respectful reference to their reputation, mixed with a faint whiff of ‘rather you than me’. You don’t cross a Sfakian. It’s not a good place to be a road sign either, as the picture at the top of this post shows. The boys like their guns.

In the intervening years we’ve all ploughed different furrows and shared the highs and lows that come with the march of time. Ari, Giorgis, Stavros and their families have ridden the tide that lapped at their father’s feet in 69 and have done well from it. I met Stavros and Giorgis this afternoon, and hope to catch up with Ari in the coming days. He lives next door to where I’m staying and his wife, Sophia, has said that sharing a raki or two is on the cards.

I also caught up with Eleni Amiradakis. I worked for her late husband, Patelli, in 77. Fifteen years ago he and his truck went over a cliff and her life changed forever. The taverna in which I worked became a mini supermarket and gift shop from where the child she was carrying at the time, Sifis, now runs a taxi business with their second son, Nikos.

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Sweetwater Beach

Today (all that was yesterday but posted today, Tuesday), I got up early to walk to Γλυκό νερό, Sweetwater beach avoiding the heat. It was a sweltering haul even so, with a long, winding trudge along the road from which Patelli drove his truck, then one lane of gravel and now two of tarmac with cliff-side barriers all along. It came too late for him. You can just make it out on the picture below, snaking its way up towards the village of Anopolis, the birthplace of Daskalogiannis, a local hero who led a Cretan revolt against Ottoman rule in the 18th century. I walked up there once from the village of Loutro, of which there are ‘then and now’ pictures on the intro page, an even steeper, almost cliff-like climb, well worth it for the summit view of Loutro far below, as if from a plane, and of the fertile plateau that greets you on the other side.

Sweetwater beach is so named because you can scoop out a bowl-shaped hole in its pebbles and cool, sweet drinking water flows. In 74 when I first stayed here for a while, locals from Loutro, where there was then only brackish well water, used to come in boats with huge containers and take it away. A plentiful supply of fresh water made the beach a perfect place to stay, as a few of us did, beside a shade-giving cave, now fenced off and shored up after several landslides.

The towering cliffs and mountains behind the beach, as well as being a source of water, also presented a bit of a risk. Goats, who occasionally used to come down on mass to drink, spent most of their time foraging above and regularly sent rocks crashing down. Because of this we used to sleep close to the shore but often heard a thump in the night as another came down. I heard that someone was once killed by one but I don’t know if that’s true.

The thing I remember most about my time there, apart from the 24/7 roll of pebbles and the rhythm of the waves, and the good times that we had, was waking in the dead of night to see thousands and thousands of stars. As I’ve said before, there were times when it seemed that there were more of them than actual sky. I’d love to experience that again but I’m not up to sleeping on pebbles these days, so I’ll just have to savour the memory for now.

More later – signal’s gone. I’ll post some pictures of the walk down from the road later, beautiful but quite hairy at times. I thought of Pip as I hugged the cliff walls with a sheer drop to the sea on the other side. She wouldn’t have liked it one bit, which made me smile. Most thoughts of her do these days, although wishing she was with me doesn’t. I’ll never not miss her but I also know that there’s nothing at all I can do about it, so I try not to dwell, preferring the happy, smile-inducing moments instead. There are more of them.

And I’m smiling now, grumbling to myself at being unable to update my posts here on a remote beach where I can only get 3G. The entire planet was 0G back then and we were ok.

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Hopped on a boat home and from the calm of the beach there’s a sudden wind whipped up that’s blowing hats, branches, shop and restaurant signs etc. all over the place. But I’m in Wifi land now so here are a few pics of the path, if you can call it that, to the beach.

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There was a rock we called the diving rock because we’d go and sit there in the morning have a fag and chat for a while, then dive off and go have some breakfast. It’s underneath that taverna now.

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Update/correction?

I think I may have got in a muddle with dates. I got the telegram below from my good friend Jim, who was on his way to India with Brigitte. They were both working in Sfakia, Jim in Patelli’s taverna and Brigitte in Ari’s cleaning rooms. A job had come up for me and he sent me this telegram, dated 1979, so I might be wrong in thinking it was 77. Or am I? Was that another time Jim/Brigitte? It was a long time ago.

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Man on a wall

A random addition. Looking for the telegram photo I came across this one of a hurried biro sketch I did of someone who’s name I’ve forgotten, although I remember the moment clearly. It was in the back of a notebook in which I kept a tally on my spending and where I’d been, which I binned at some point. I fear that I’ve since lost the page that I ripped out but at least I have this photo.

It was a still, windless morning in Loutro in 1974 and the bay was as smooth as a pond, cigarette smoke drifting ever so slowly. Whoever he was must have been a friend at the time and I remember being struck by how the scene pretty much summed up how I felt about life as he lay there smoking and looking out to sea, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. For all I know he was in quiet turmoil, grappling with horrendously complex issues behind the chilled look as he lay there on a wall, but that’s not how I saw it.

Today I’d probably have reached for my phone instead of a biro. I think I treasure this more, even though I’ve probably lost it, and it’s now on a phone anyway, which I realise makes no sense at all!