Day 10 – The sandpocalypse and a proper goodbye
Crete, you magnificent, sandy beast.
You know it’s time to leave when the island itself starts coughing you out like a goat hacking up a hairball of raki-soaked tourists and dead sea urchins. Day 10 in Crete, and Mother Nature decided to throw a party of her own. Not the good kind with souvlaki, retsina, and late-night dancing on tables—but the kind where the guest of honour is a sandstorm from hell that rolled in like a biblical punishment for all those dirty Greek cocktails I drank.
Picture it: dawn breaks, the wind settles, and what’s left looks like the morning after Zeus himself threw a rager. Sand. Not just a light dusting, mind you—this was Pompeii-level. Caked on windows, solar panels, inside coffee cups left on balconies, and somehow, inside the pool. The poor staff at the hotel looked like a post-apocalyptic clean-up crew. Power washers fired up at 7 a.m., hotel workers were draining pools like they were prepping for a sharknado, and every flat surface had turned to a crusty, cement-like crust of sand paste that laughs in the face of mops and brooms.
Apparently, if you get this sand wet and let it dry, it becomes harder than marriage counseling. Watching it being scrubbed off was like watching someone try to exfoliate a bronze statue with a loofah and prayer.
But even sandstorms can’t ruin a trip like this.
Crete—this place is an intoxicating mix of the ancient, the delicious, the wild, and the weird. You can hike gorges that’ll leave you breathless, dive into tavernas with octopus so fresh it probably still has opinions, and spend lazy hours on beaches that make your Instagram followers burn with envy. Whether you’re chasing culture, a tan, or the best damned tzatziki on the planet, this island’s got you.
Today we stayed close to home base to spend one last hurrah with our new favorite humans—George, Daria, Nikos, and a rotating cast of other hotel characters you only get to know after a few nights of too much raki and oversharing. Katy the chef—take a bow. That tzatziki? It could start a religion. Lunch was, in a word, divine.
Andy, ever the trooper, survived a bee sting and the burden of managing a pickled girlfriend with grace and mild exasperation. (He deserves a medal, or at least a strong drink and a foot rub.)
And now, we fly. Back to the UK, cleaner than the solar panels but probably still trailing some sand in our shoes and luggage and… soul?
Next up: a road trip through France and Spain to Portugal with our two ridiculously fluffy Old English Sheepdogs. Because why not? Life’s too short not to drag your dogs across the continent in search of wine, cheese, and God knows what else.
Thanks for reading, laughing, drooling over food pics, and sticking with us through the chaos. For more misadventures, questionable decisions, and stories with too much garlic, head over to our new blog: www.julieharris.co.uk.
Until then—keep eating, keep moving, and for God’s sake, don’t get sand in your tzatziki.
Love you all.
—Julie and Andy
