Kritsa Gorge

Today we went to Kritsa Gorge. We got there by bus to Kritsa and then used our legs.

It was only a short bus ride and on the way to the bus stop I carried Toby’s backpack which had all our picnic lunch stuff and I didn’t think it was that heavy, but baba thought I was being very brave.

Today is a sort of special day because it is mummy’s and baba’s anniversary. They have been married 12 years. They were only married for two years when they first had kids.
At the gorge there were lots of cliffs and overhangs. We did a lot of rock climbing which we really love to do. I made it up all the steep parts even with the backpack on.

Once there was a rock and there were metal things to hold onto on the sides.

There was like a passageway almost like a slide cause it was so slippery. I wouldn’t dare anyone to use it like a slide cause it lead into a hole. This hole was a rock hole that looked like a well and it had some water in it. I would not use the water to drink cause you could die and it was black water with a goats skull in it.

This is the end of summer so there’s not much water around. Now do you see why you shouldn’t use it as a water slide?
We stopped for lunch after about an hour of walking in the gorge and we had a picnic – veggies and homemade falafel tuna patties and homemade professional tzatziki made by Sandy King (it’s the best) and feta cheese and olives. I found the the top two – well the only two really- relaxing rocks at lunch break.

I also found the best rock to climb. I love finding climbing rocks. Nobody else (who tried) could get up and down with no help. Of course before we left from that spot we had some of mummy’s delicious home made apple and banana and chocolate cake. We also had a chubbachup- mine was a lemon lime and watermelon. Mine was from El Questro which I got for my birthday in May from a girl that picked us up hitching from Amalia gorge back to our campsite. I’ve had it so long cause we only keep them for hiking when we really deserve them and we haven’t really done any real hiking since China.
Climbing Kritsa gorge was really fun except at the end when we went out of Kritsa gorge it was a nightmare cause we couldn’t find the right path and it was hot. I had to give the big kids the backpack for about 4mins to give my shoulders a rest. We kept walking up a path which was the wrong path then mum found a small goat path down the mountain – I slipped twice on this goat path and one time I got blood on my knee – we followed the path until we found a made road and then a man was walking who pointed to the road that lead back to the village.

However it was 3-4km away but at least we knew where we were going. When we were walking into the village we were carried away by some dogs that were in someone’s yard – there was no way out but dogs find ways – the biggest dog of the two little ones was squashed behind a cushion half against the wall and half against the cushion. They were just adorable especially the smallest puppy. The mother was worried about us hurting her little pups but she couldn’t stop us because she was on a lead, she just barked and jumped. Now we are sitting at a cafe in Kritsa because the next bus back isn’t for another two hours – because it is Sunday. I got a Calippo – a lemon-lime Calippo which was yummy. All the kids except Emilio had a Callippo cause it makes you cool – Emilio had a vanilla ice cream with chocolate on top. Baba had a frappe like he always does cause he loves them and mummy had an iced-choc and they got a baklava to share but us kids ate most of it.

School
This week we had our second week at school and I have figured out how to spell ‘Ελα’ all by myself. In English it would be spelt epsilon, lambda then alpha. The word in English would be ‘ela’ which means ‘come’. I’ve also got some other words that I typed up which I’ll put into this blog if you would like to learn some. Actually I was thinking of putting that into a separate blog so I’ll do that next so its easy to look up.
My teacher is named Kiria Soula. She is a good teacher cause she just is. She checks if I’m ok.

Every single night I get so much homework. Two pages. One of Greek language and one of maths. Mummy mainly helps me cause she’s learning Greek too but sometimes baba has to help with the words.

My favourite subject at school is English cause it is really easy and our English teacher is a super doper fantastic teacher.

I also like Sport stuff we do outside but it makes you really ζεστη (hot). I have to carry about 16 books in my backpack and it is really heavy.

Acqua Pool – Water Park
Last weekend we took a bus to Hersonissos which is on the way to Heraklion which is the capital of Crete. There we had to wait half an hour for the Acqua pool’s shuttle bus to come pick us up. It was worth the wait. We loved the tsunami slide lots.

It was like a vertical drop but we were on a donut. Then you go right up the other side and you keep doing this but you eventually slow down.
There is also a racing slide which is an ordinary racing slide with four separate slides like normal slides and you can race each other.

The girl up top who checked if everything was safe made a secret handshake with us which she did each time we went down.

Toby never beat me in the races. I was skilled. He kept pushing me as we ran up the stairs because he doesn’t like losing. He thought that his shorts created more friction.
There was a covered slide and when you came out you went into a bowl – it looked like a cereal bowl and the slide lead to this cereal bowl.

You kept going around this bowl until you fell into the opening which was quite scary but the only way out of this slide. You fell head first into a pool that was 2.75m deep.

There’s also a Black covered slide which is completely dark and you came out on a curve not straight. When I was in the middle I saw tiny lights and I said in my head ‘Oh oh, who turned the party lights on?’ It was about 10 seconds later and I dropped into the pool.
There was also the blue water slide and it was a pool at the start of it which you hopped into the pool and you got yourself into the water slide by pulling on a rope.

This water slide was not covered. After a bit you would find a pool and then you would have to keep trying to get back into the current to keep going – it was hard cause we were on this huge donut. Then you went down on the water slide and reached another pool which always had a person to help you – the person made us do donuts on our donut by pulling our legs and spinning us. Then we got to this third pool after which it was really hard to get back to the water slide. Once I was almost on the water slide again when I got stuck on the edge but eventually I got back onto the slide and soon after that I dropped into the main pool where all of those water slides drop into (on that slide lots of people lose their donuts and I was one of them – I went on the water slide again bare bottomed but Toby saved the donut by catching it by its handle and we all went down the water slide to the main pool.)
We also went on the ‘Lazy river’ which was way too lazy so we had to do things like donuts, walk, swim while mama and baba where being lazy and just lying on their donut floating along. They were lazy enough not to notice us coming up to them. I gave baba a big surprise by sneaking up to him and not making a sound.

There was even a little kids area.
I went on every single ride and it was awesome. We went to the water park cause it was on the weekend after our first week of school and we were lucky kids and mama and baba were really proud of us on our first day of school.
By ΚΑΛΙΚΑ