snake vs. cat and a terrifying drive

After such a full on day yesterday, we decided on a morning and early afternoon of relaxation, followed by checking out some of the key sights on the west coast, and what we hoped would be an epic sunset.

Our need for some relaxation time was compounded by the fact that our hotel was a nightmare, full of loud, rude Eastern Europeans, a barking dog owned by the hotel manager that wouldn't shut up, music playing at the pool bar until 2am, a door that wouldn't lock, and Gina getting bites that looked suspiciously like bed bugs. Our first activity for the morning was to find a new hotel as we were just really unhappy with our accommodation.

We traipsed around Pefkos for an hour or so, checking out a few options that we remembered from when we first decided to go to Rhodes, and got a good deal at a great hotel which, ironically, was the other one we were trying to decide between when booking the original holiday. We got a two bedroom apartment in a super quiet area which was fantastic, and then it was time to tell our old hotel that we were leaving. 

When asked by the hotel receptionist why we were leaving, and after rattling off the reasons above along with a handful more, she just kind of shrugged her shoulders and offered no apology - she stopped short of laughing when we asked for a refund for the four nights we would not be staying there. The experience did teach us a valuable lesson though - if in doubt, check Trip Advisor, as the reviews for this hotel were terrible. We all thought the other person had checked, but apparently none of us had.

Anyway, we settled into our lovely apartment and headed to the Oasis Pool Bar which was becoming our home away from home. After spending a few hours getting ridiculously hot in the sun and reading books in the paddling pool, we headed to the west side of the island to check out a couple of castle ruins, in Monolithos and Kritinia.

Monolithos Castle

Monolithos Castle was beautiful, and it was awesome to stand amongst the ruins and imagine what the castle used to be. Both castles were set in prime position with gorgeous sea views, and by the time we reached Kritinia the sun was just setting, which was even more beautiful. The trip wasn't without drama though, as we were driving along the highway we saw a ginger cat sitting on the other side of the road, looking intently at what I thought was a coiled up piece of tubing. I slowed down because I didn't want the cat to get hit by a car coming the opposite direction, but we kept driving and about 10 seconds later, at the same time it hits both Gina and me... "SNAKE!". We turn around and head back to get a better look but by the time I can turn the car around, both the snake, and the cat, were gone.... The car behind us had also stopped and the German guy who had been in the car said he was pretty sure the cat got away, I sure hope so! 

It was so crazy seeing such a massive snake in the wild! We learned later from a local that it was most likely a constrictor snake. She said they aren't usually aggressive, unless they are hungry, so fingers crossed the ginger kitty got away.

Watching the sunset was just lovely and once the sun had gone down, we made our way back to Pefkos, taking a different (more direct) route than the one we initially took to get to the west coast. Using Google Maps and a normal map, we started down what we thought was a main road but which could have only been a road that had been closed for road works. NO street lights, NO paving whatsoever, not even proper gravel, just clay, rocks and earth movers everywhere. We were determined to continue down our shortcut and after about 10-15 minutes it started to get scary, especially when the car got very, very close to bottoming out on a section of road that had been cut up by huge lorry tracks. The mood in the car got very tense as we had no idea whether the road was going to just suddenly come to an end and with no phone or internet credit and only a vague sense of where we were going, we were all freaking out a little bit, but none of us wanted to show it. We breathed a collective sigh of relief when, after about 20-25 minutes, we came across a real paved road with street lighting!