A slice of island paradise!
The water is beautiful, the weather cooler than Athens, the brown desolate looking islands highlight the sparkling white-washed buildings with blue doors that match the water and sky. Wow, Greece has been holding back on us!
Derrell is of a mind to move here already, but I imagine that will wane as the reality of the dial-up network connections from these islands sinks in. 33k modems or IP over satellite, mostly the former… either way when shared with others at an Internet cafe… refreshes go slower than your ice melting.
We aren’t the only Americans who think this island is fantastic. An Austin-ite opened a Mexican bistro and is serving up fantastic chips and salsa, margaritas and fajitas. It rejuvenated our homesick tastebuds. Actually spicy food! And in a recognizable form!
No Americans have actually been overheard on this island (we didn’t actually meet the owner of the mexican bistro), but lots of Brits have been spotted. The age level has receded back to the 30 year old tourist set, punctuated by a very tan and leathery 45 year old German crowd. No white haired little old ladies (that aren’t Greek) are to be seen.
English is the common language in the tourist loop, street signs are in Greek and English, menus the same, and we are hearing Greeks switching back and forth between Greek and English as they are chatting (but not as mixed up as Morocco where the language switch was within a single sentence, sometimes several times). The island is relaxed, the tourists are relaxed. With only 18,000 total on the island and with these views, how else could it be?
Our trip over from Athens was by ferry. The ferry is the same size as the Washington State ferries. The interior is more like a cruise ship, though. And the exterior was painted with a full end to end, glaringly red Vodaphone advertisement, so in that sense it didn’t look anthing like a Puget Sound ferry from the outside, either. The ads all over the ferry must have had an effect. Derrell is now mumbling about “needing” a new camera phone…
I tried out a Greek coffee at the on-board cafe. Woof! The first sip was grit-city chalky and by the end, the espresso grounds were sticking along my teeth, not the most pristine of morning sensations. It tasted great being the Italian Illy coffee, but I’ll stick with espresso and enjoy the invention of filtration that doesn’t destroy that post-toothbrushing sensation of clean teeth so sadistically. I suppose knowing that it used to be called Turkish coffee (until Turkey invaded Cyprus in the 70’s), really should have tipped me off. I’ve chewed my way through that teacup of grinds before.
Beyond beach time, we rented scooters and scooted our way around the island. What a fantastic way to travel. The scooter is narrow and so are the roads. Roads here are empty, curvy and erraticly maintained. You wind around a corner and there is a pile of dirt, rock or marble blocking a lane… or a very shaggy goat… or a donkey loaded with an old man and his booty of cut dried grass… or a herd of goats bleating their way across the road… or a large tour bus toting passengers to one of the two ’sights’ on the island.
The views as we scooted around were amazing. There were a ton of bees in the air that we kept having to avoid. Thyme honey is a specialty of the island and the bees were busy collecting from the wild clumps of purple that thoroughly speckled the brown and white hillsides. The countryside outright smells like a fresh bowl of Muselix! The highest point of the island is over 3000 feet, so we had vistas of small churches and shrines, complete with white-washed sides and rounded blue domes on remote cliffs with the sparking water reaching out forever from the island.
Derrell was pleased to note one of the tombstone like roadside shrines contained a Coca-Cola bottle along side a bronze challace and picture of the Virgin Mary. We couldn’t decide if it was intentional or not. He was convinced it was… cola being a holy substance in his mind on a hot day.
Now the downside of motor scootering is that you really should be careful on turns. Derrell is 0 for 2 on scooters now. He laid the little beast over when his kickstand caught on a slow roadside turn and threw the back wheel out. He now has a 6 inch bruise behind his knee and a set of skinned knees and hands that would make a 3-year old proud. Given salt water is a fine retaliation for open wounds, we dumped him into the ocean after the ride and he is now in whimpering, embarrassed recovery.
Beach time!
