Wednesday 5 August 2015

Water City - Ouzo pretty boy, then?

turbo cyclone rubber ring waterslideBreakfast was an organised affair with the excursion ticket and the packed lunches safely stowed in the baggage compartment. There wasn't any spare time even though the coach pickup was 10am. The stray cats were absent, presumed strayed.
Our little bus took us to the good old Iraklion Old Road and up a lot of hills. In Crete, main routes have numbers. A few lesser routes have names, but most of the smaller metalled roads come up on Google Earth as "un-named road", and the un-metalled roads - well, don't even go there. (Unless you've got a very big Jeep).
Perched right at the top of an otherwise barren mountain top is "Water City". This is basically waterslide central with multiple pools and seating areas for water lovers of all sizes. It is a must on the tourist route, as could be seen by the size of the car park and hordes of organised coach touring parties of all nations, as long as that nation was Germany.
water city themed waterpark anopolis crete To be fair, we did meet Scots and Frenchies and Cyrillic types but we always seemed to end up in a queue behind the gay German guys or the 6 foot German girlie teenagers, had quite enough of that in Majorca last year. In fact in a watery location in such hot weather it was botties, botties all around but as I'm 9, I don't see them. There were also Poseidons and Minoans and bags of Greek deities and imagery of frolicking dolphins and stuff.
Jof is not particularly into waterslides and ziplines over big drops into deep pools so we tried not to abandon her but failed on numerous occasions as it's quite a big place. It was also quite slippery so after she'd plummeted and banged her butt on a staircase she found a less raucous place to sit gingerly and we went on almost all the rides in turn.
I liked the gentle boat ride in a big circuit and Jof tried the white ride with rubber rings and waystations (we call it the bus stop ride, like in Splashworld by Torquay) and the whizzy Body Vortex was frightening and I didn't go on all the Level 3 rides but Bud did. And the funny thing is, all those screams and hollers and F-words kinda reverberate back up the pipe towards me ...
water city themed waterpark anopolis crete Lunch was cheap and so were the jibes when I plummeted off an identical step and smacked my butt, I was not amused. I reverted to E-Z-boat ride and ice cream. As time ran out I consented to the 2-person spinning tub ride and we zoomed past 2 girlies that had got stuck in the landing zone and exited the sump drop backwards, but still with style and laughter.
On the way out I got 2 squashed pennies and 2 more commemorative medallions and the homeward journey seemed quieter.
I must report a strange thing about the towns and villages you pass through. Although Greece is arguably trying to be promoted into being a 3rd world country, it has a preponderance of luxury fur coat outlets. Mexa seems to be one of them and they have billboards of luxurious ladies prancing around in fur stoles with fur coats and fur hats which must be challenging in this very hot Mediterranean climate and in this very cold economic climate.
I'd been outside in water all day again so elected to stay in the room and read quietly but I'd finished all my books so went to Waterslide Pool (where else?) and shoot new friends with my watergun.
Jof has a very big bruise indeed on her bottom, it crosses time zones, nay, hemispheres, if you know what I mean, and is angry and purple like babies when they come out.
water city themed waterpark anopolis crete
One new gun-friend is SAM and we promised to meet at the kiddie-boogie before the advertised "Old School Rock" show. I co-opted a Spaniard and a Frenchman for some 3-way civil warring before showtime.
I must report that of all the usual suspects in the 'sore bits' stakes - burnt shoulders, banged botties etc - the unexpected wildcard entrant is the soles of the feet. Not only are the soles unused to any sun at all, you walk around a lot at the hotel complex and Water City etc and the roasting sun-baked bricks are rough in texture to avoid slippage. Thus you erode from the soles up and woe betide anyone who walks in sandy shoes, for there shall be gnashing of teeth and ashes upon the head and scratchiness of the tootsies. The evening entertainment was an 'Old School Rock'n'Roll' dance-a-thon to a clip-show. The 3 pleasantly shaped English ladies in their miniskirts we'd followed up the hill to supper were the dance troupe. I got my boogie with Sam (5) and there was the Tombola lottery and someone won a free week at the Stella Palace and the bottom prize was a CD of the dance tracks.
At the end, Bud and I walked right out onto the slippery causeway and spoke about the unreasonable distances to the nearest star and how parallax will not change the orientation of the North Star if you just drive down the coast a bit. I look forward to gaining my space engineering degree and driving down the galactic spiral arm to see if that makes a difference.
We all have sore bits, mine are nothing to do with playing Trou d'Amour with the French girls.

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