Living in Crete: Plastic fantastic

I'm going to spread the good word!

If you haven't already heard of The Plastiki Expedition, shame on you, and go have a look now (http://www.theplastiki.com). The brain child of one the Rothschild clan, one of these guys you want to hate, but annoyingly he's doing good things with his privileged position, so fair play.

A brief run-down for those who can't be arsed clicking on the link: said Rothschild clan member headed up a team which designed a boat made from 12500 plastic bottles. These made up most of the boat but the superstructure was made of newly designed, completely biodegradable next generation fibreglass. The other main structures were made from recycled aluminium and additional recyclable plastics. They even invented their own glue from cashew nuts and sugar. Anyway, the point is the whole boat was completely recyclable and used naturally produced materials or reused others. The link is there, check it out for yourself, it's fascinating stuff.

The idea behind all of this is to increase awareness about human waste in general, but particularly plastic. If you read the Plastiki website it contains some scary marine pollution to plastic ratio statistics. The Plastiki undertook a voyage across the Pacific retracing the steps of an old voyage in the 1940's, the main reason for this was to raise awareness of the 'plastic soup': an approximately 200km square garbage patch of microscopic bits of plastic floating just below the surface. Their journey took them from San Francisco to Sydney right through the garbage patch. This phenomenon of human stupidity and disregard is a result of the ocean's currents all converging at this point, thus collecting all our waste in one big floating garbage pile.

The reason I'm saying all this is because I live next to the sea and walk along it every day. I would love to say that this particular part of Crete is a paradise. I understand it is a relatively big town with a working port and isn't a beach clad shore line of palm trees and bronzed bodies, but it brought home the Plastiki message for me.

In general this society seem wasteful and relatively short sited, I've often witnessed rubbish being tossed on the street, supermarkets throwing perfectly good plastic baskets in the general waste, and just not a lot of care for outside spaces. The traffic cutting measures are laughable, everywhere you go there are no parking signs yet you struggle to see them for the mountain of cars. We recently got a ticket on our car, I'm astonished the system actually worked that well to be able to issue a ticket. It was a justified ticket; the car was parked in a disabled spot. I could accept this were it not for the fact the disabled parking space is on an obscure back alley near no shops, doctors, physiotherapists, in fact anything of any note at all. And it is placed on a corner of a very narrow road on a steep incline. I would love to, without laughing of course, see a wheelchair user get into their chair from their car in this situation - another thing that stinks of box ticking, bureaucratic corruption.

I digress. Back to the walking along the sea front; the shore has been recently redeveloped, the seawall redone, a couple of park benches, some suspect landscaping (mostly using concrete or brick) and a few palm trees (which i learned recently the mayor got done for; he was buying them through his son's company. A very profitable business on a windy island where people can't drive properly.) Overall this face lift lacks something, there's no care, no maintenance, no usefulness, in short it's rubbish. Bringing me nicely on to my main point; all along the sea front on the rocks the result of human wastefulness and disregard is all too obvious. It's such a shame that somewhere so beautiful is treated in such a way. To be fair the other places on the island I have visited are beautiful and clean, but why then not keep your capital in the same way? For an island seemingly trapped in the past in many ways I hope this is one attitude they can drag into the future along with the rest of the world.

Living in Crete: Top Driving Tips in Crete

I apologise in advance, for this may very well be my first proper rant.

While being on Crete I have taken the decision to drive, more through necessity than a driving urge...sorry. I started driving pretty early on and have since driven continuously. Having experienced the roads many a time from the passenger seat I had some confidence regarding the 'rules' and directions before taking to the wheel. Over the past few weeks I have been thinking about writing about it, but after my experience at the weekend I've been angered into writing something.

I drive the road between Heraklion and Rethymno every weekend. It's called The National Road, I would describe it as a main road. It's somewhere between an A road and a dual carriageway without the bit in the middle, but definitely not a motorway. If you are still with me, well done. Anyway, the main reason for this not being a motorway is that it winds through the mountainous landscape along the North coast of Crete, therefore space is of a premium and corners and bends are of a maximum. It is wide enough for two lanes with something akin to a hardshoulder on either side but the road surface doesn't change unlike the UK. This allows cars to use it as an over-taking lane - the slower cars move over to the right to let other cars over-take them. So more often than not most people drive half in and half out both lanes, you are essentially following a racing line. The result of this is you have to drive with one eye in your side mirror. The over-taking technique is, shall we say, not very British-like. It would appear people think it is the slower car's responsibility to move when the faster car comes up behind them. If this doesn't happen they are bullied to the side, a combination of flashing lights and blasting horns follow while they drive literally 30cm from your rear bumper at speeds of 60-70 mph. That in itself is idiotic enough, but what I witnessed at the weekend and have done so several other times is moronic and worthy of a slow painful death. My biggest driving tip to any foreigners, infact, anybody driving on the roads in Crete is to keep as far to the outside of corners and bends as possible because they feel it is absolutely acceptable to over-take on corners. Although there are two lanes they aren't quite wide enough to accomodate two cars comfortably, this results in cars coming over into the other lane. I have twice had to swerve while going round bends to avoid cars over-taking, at ridiculous speeds. There are rules that are supposed to keep people right, but when you witness the police breaking them regularly (that is, when you actually see any police) it doesn't give you much hope.

You might think I'm over reacting a bit, but two weeks ago a Russian family were killed on this very road, a Grandmother, Mother and two children. Whilst, on, literally, every corner, you can see small memorials that look like bird houses. These represent the people who have died on the road.  I am being absolutely truthful when I say every corner. Not all of these will have been caused by other people, there certainly will have been cases of speeding and misjudgement.

Anyway, for what it's worth here are my top driving tips in Crete:

Give yourself plenty of time to slow down before corners and bends, some of them are very deceiving, especially going down hill.

When driving round corners stay as far to the outside (the righ-hand side) as possible, stay away from the centre.

Drive slightly to the right at all times and be vigilant of your wing mirrors at all times. Let idiots pass. The biggest mistake foreigners tend to make is not doing this. It is ok to drive in the hardshoulder here.

Give yourself plenty of breaking distance from other cars, native drives apparantly don't believe in this. They are happy to drive at two feet intervals from each other at 70 mph. And people tend to indicate very late if at all.

When the lines in the middle of the road are solid you can't over take, when they are dotted on your side you can.

There endth the rant. Now, where's my soap box?