MATALA, CRETE -- What does the English student do if he wants to spend the summer abroad but is permitted by law to take only 65 pounds, or $182 dollars, out of England? One answer is to become a caveman.
At least thats what scores of English students are doing on the southern coast of Crete. Crete, along with a handful of Americans, Germans, French and Austrians.
They live in the ancient caves of Matala, which are cut into a sheer yellow cliff that reaches like a long, bending arm into the southern Mediterranean
Historians Report
Historians say the caves were first scratched out in Neolithic times and that subsequent tenants have ranged from pirates to lepers.
The present occupants -- mainly students on vacation -- come equipped with bedrolls, small sterno stoves and sturdy legs.
During the day they lounge about the beach at the foot of the cliffs, strum folk songs and sip four and a half cent lemonades at the Golden Fish Kaffe.
At night they retire to their dank and humble warrens or, if the flies become too aggressive, simply stretch out on the beach.
The parched accommodations at Matala vary considerably in quality. Jean, for instance, a French primary school teacher, occupies a two-room cave complete with a finished concrete and stone ceiling barely above head-level.
Someone -- perhaps a Roman -- took the trouble to carve out live stone beds that even slope upward at the head.
Jean -- last names have as little meaning as time here at Matala -- and his cavemates have supplemented this ancient comfort with dried brush from the nearby hillsides and their bedrolls.
Barbara and Margaret, on the other hand, two Britishers, occupy a considerably less glamorous walk-up about 32 yards higher. Theirs was a single sloping cave with an unfinished dusty floor.
Barbara explained that their main reason for coming to Matala was the current limit on how much money they could take out of England. "Some should tell Harold Wilson what were reduced to -- living in caves," she said.
"But its really quite nice, she added quickly. "Theres the sun and the swimming and its all very peaceful."
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