Some places make me sad so I avoid them. Elafonisos is one
of them. Located in the far south-west of Crete, Elafonisos
used to be....paradise. You hardly ever saw anyone and the
only thing you needed was drinking water and lemon to sprinkle
on the fish you caught. Actually, not being much of a fisherman
I used to take my friend Giorgos (and his spear). He'd go in
the sea and would not come out until he had several kilos of
fish. We'd make a fire, cook it and ate and ate and ate then
collapsed under the stars. The next day, we'd repeat the same.
Nowadays you get a lot of day trippers who come with rented cars, tour buses
and excursion boats from Paleochora. You get umbrellas and sunbeds, car parks,
rubbish (thankfully that seems to be handled a little better recently), the smell
of suncream....need I say more. So I avoid Elafonisos because I cannot stop thinking
of how it was....quite a few years ago.
But today, I spent the whole day there. It's still winter...no
tourists. In fact I was the only one on the island and didn't
see another person on it for the 4 hours I was there. Just
like the old days...unfortunately I forgot to bring Giorgos
and his spear...and the lemon.
