It's hard to take cave pictures that give a viewer any sense of scale because a camera flash is never strong enough to light up so much darkness - but on the way back out, near the mouth of the cave, there was enough natural light coming in and you can see how huge the place was!
This formation is called "flowstone." This one in particular was the guides' favorite because it looks like hundreds and hundreds of elephant heads (and if you know anything about the Thai, you know they love themselves some elephants).
Later on, things suddenly got not-so-quiet. Because there were thousands of bats alerted to our intruder-presence, making noise. I managed to snap this pic of this sleepy lil' critter.
So apparently there are few attractions in this area of Crete that aren't related to martyrs of the Turkish occupation. Turns out that in January of 1834, the Turks invaded the nearby village. 370 men, women and children refused to surrender and sought refuge in the nearby cave. The Turks found their hiding place, sealed the entrance with boulders, and then lit a huge fire behind them at the mouth of the cave. All 370 Cretans inside died of smoke inhalation. The box you see is a memorial sacrophagus that contains their bones.
...I claimed I wanted to get a picture of these three on their way down, but it was really just my sneaky was of getting them to go first in case there were any ScoobyDoo-esque villians waiting below.
Now the caves are a gated tourist attraction that you have to pay to be guided through. By the time we got there, the gates were closed so we weren't able to go up in them and explore. Fucking hippies. Always ruining it for everyone.
All the caves were carved in the rocks by the Romans and were used as a cemetery! In the late 1960s, a bunch of hippies found them and for two years the caves caves became a commune (Joni Mitchell actually spent six months here living in one of the caves). More and more hippies kept coming until the local authorities got fed up and kicked all of their dirty, patchouli-smelling asses the fuck off the beach. ("Take your guitar and MOVE IT, Harpo! Now!"). Boo-yah!
We parked the car and managed to get out on the beach with about fifteen minutes to spare before sunset. Matala is best known for the caves you see in the limestone rock in the background.
Down near the water there were all these neato caves, but we were losing light and didn't have time to climb down and go swimming in them (besides the fact that EVERYONE knows that giant octopi live in caves and if you went in there you'd totally be asking for it.) Oh, by the way, right before we left, while kidding around, I actually almost drove my scooter right off the edge of this cliff into the water. My last words (which were captured on videotape) would've been "My name is Rick!"
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