I leave Chora Sfakion on the road headed west, hiking along the coast. The road soon veers off inland and upwards, leaving me and the trail to hug the contours of the coastline. It’s much more arid here than on the western side of the mountains, with nothing but browbeaten shrubs clinging to the rocks, and in several places the path has all but disappeared due to rock falls into the turquoise sea far below, so it’s a perilous hike. My thoughts go to my friend M, who fell on a solo hike much like this and sustained severe brain injuries – not a cheery prospect.

The reward comes after a little less than an hour: Sweet Water Beach, which a colleague tipped me off about prior to the trip as “a hidden gem, mostly nudist”, lies splayed out in front of me. She was partially correct. It is undoubtedly beautiful, but as I have it entirely to myself I make it exclusively so.

The waters are cold, however, and since there is no Naussica to greet my Ulysses I soon set out again, following the coast past a deserted little chapel of that most archetypical Greek kind – a one bedroom affair with a bonsai bell tower next to it. Again, there is no one there apart from me and the goats, and I reflect that the difference between this place and yesterday’s cairns is just one of scale.

Even the Notre Dame (which burnt last week), whilst infinitely more elaborate, is still just an expression of humankind’s most fundamental trait: to change the landscape and imbue it with symbolism. The first ape to place one rock upon another for no other reason than to say “I was here, this has a meaning” was the first human. We give praise to the spirits of the gorges or the Greek Orthodox god of this chapel or the Catholic one in Paris for the same reasons: not because we believe in them, but because we know we are but passing through, and we want there to be a point to this, or, failing that, we want to leave something behind to mark our passage, at least. The goats – agnostics every last one – don’t care. And with that thought I move on.

I reach the tiny cluster of houses that is Lotho Bay after another half hour, and drink nearly a litre of freshly squeezed orange juice before setting out again, because I have realised that I have made an error: the trail from Lotho to Anopoli (literally “the high city”) doesn’t lead through a gorge, but serpentines its way up the rock face, all five hundred meters’ ascent of it. Midday is approaching, and the dust cloud from yesterday is gone, so the heat is relentless.

I gasp my way up the mountain, stopping to catch my breath and sip from my bottle every ten minutes. At three hundred meters’ elevation a buzzard vulture swoops by mere meters away. Given my usual luck with birds of pray I fear it’s coming for me, but it just sails on. At four hundred meters I become aware of another flying hazard: a drone hovers high above, its engine like that of a persistent bluebottle fly. When I finally reach the crest and the little church that is perched there, the owners of the drone – an overweight Brit and his Greek companion – greet me with disbelief. “You hiked all the way?” “Yep. Came from Chora.” “What, on foot?!” It’s enlightening to get a different perspective on your own normality sometimes. 😄

We part our ways and I hike the last part of the road into Anopoli, where I hope to hitch a ride back with a bus. Turns out there are none, but trail magic comes to the rescue: the drone guys show up at the same taverna I’ve chosen, and are so taken with my exploits (or possibly the foolishness thereof) that they not only ply me with beer but offer to drive me back down.

I gladly accept, and after a feast of a lunch we pile inside their car. Here again I quietly notice a difference in philosophy: the drone guys have a very Cretan approach to road safety – no seat belts, at least two beers each, we hurtle down the road, goats and gravel flying. It’s stomach-curdling. Add to that the fact that there is a whole cottage industry around making little mailbox-sized Greek churches to mark the spots where people have perished (all with faded photos of the diseased inside) and you can see just how lethal a stretch of road is… I count more than a dozen on the way back to Sfakion, and feel a distinct urge to build a cairn once I’ve waved the gentlemen goodbye.

Epheristopoli, kyrie!