Greece - Kasos

It was time to leave Crete and go to Kasos, an island we visited three years ago and loved. To get there we caught our first ferry of the trip. There's something special about catching ferries in Greece. They feel so Greek-islandy to me. The trip took six hours and wasn't completely smooth, but we were ok.

Last time we stayed at Kasos, we stayed in a place run by a rather nasty woman. We left her place that time and moved to the village of Avanitochori, further inland. We loved it there. Our simple hotel room was huge and the people running it took a bit of warming up but we ended up getting on very well with them.

Kostas #1, the hotel owner, met us at the ferry, his grey handlebar moustache failing to hide his smile at seeing us again. He drove us to the hotel and I felt like I was coming home as we drove through the dry, terraced land. I don't know why this landscape appeals to me so much. Maybe I just associate it with great memories. It's so much drier here than Crete.

Kostas #1 took us to our room and opened the door. We were hit by a wave of hot, musty air that reeked of cigarette smoke. I detest cigarette smoke smells but I figured it would be ok once we aired the room. We opened up the place then went straight out for dinner at the nearby taverna, the only one in the village. To our disappointment, Kostas #2, a much younger guy than Kostas #1, wasn't working there any more. He still lived somewhere nearby though so we put the word out to let him know we were here.

We had a lovely dinner and returned to our room to find that the room hadn't aired well at all. It was too late to do anything about it so we put up with it and went to bed. The pillows were rubbish so I used some jumpers as a pillow instead. Every time I rolled over, wafts of smoke rose up from the sheets. It was awful and I had the worst sleep I'd had since I left home. To cut a long story short, we ended up staying in the room and just did some serious airing every day.

Part of the reason I enjoyed Kasos so much three years ago is that it had a network of marked hiking trails. This was so helpful for me when I was walking on my own as John had a bike then. Now that we're walking together, the marked trails have still been great.

I thought we were reasonably fit but our first walk took a fair bit longer than the map said it should. It was a great walk though! The villages around here maintain their stone walls well, and these are often quite high. 

We smelt this billy goat and his mates well before we saw them. They stink!

It's such a big landscape.

The island is dotted with thousands of thyme plants and they were in full flower. It was superb! One of my most special things about Greece is the smell of thyme. When you walk on it, which is impossible not to do as it's all over the rocky paths, the air is filled with the wonderful scent. I absolutely love it!

An amazing stone wall climbed up a steep hill in the distance.

We went to a small cave that had stalagmites and stalactites. I remember being blown away by this last time as I had no idea that there was anything in the cave.

The entrance to it was tiny!

From near the cave we could see all the way to stunning blue sea.

Profitas Illias church was on top of a high hill. There seems to be at least one Profitas Illias (Prophet Elias) church on every island.

The views from the church were amazing.

Another reo fence but at least this one had a gate we could go through!

Pink thyme, brown dirt and blue sea.

We had planned to finish our walk at the island's main village for lunch but we were too tired to walk that far. Google said a gyros place was open in a closer village so we gave that a go.
It wasn't open.
There were three ladies sitting inside though so we asked when it would open. "Lunchtime" we were told. It was 12.30pm. "You know, 2 or 3 o'clock" was the clarification! We decided to just take a seat while we made plans. One of the ladies from inside starting chatting to us. She was born in Adelaide to Greek parents but, like many people from this island, moved to the Bronx when she was 6 years old. She was an enthusiastic conversationalist and we stayed for a while. One thing led to another we found ourselves with a simple lunch of omelette and vegies. Yum!

There was yet another amazing view from the cafe.

We slept like logs that night and did a shorter walk the next day. There were plenty of beehives, no doubt holding plenty of thyme honey. An old windmill sat on the hill in background.

There were many beautiful churches.

Some of the trails we walked on were ancient, with old steps carved into the rocks in places.

Huge spiderwebs criss-crossed the tracks. The webs were surprisingly strong, which we found out every time we walked into one. There were many of them but only once did John end up with a spider dangling from his hat! The spiders were mostly pretty large.

We finally reached the coast. This ruined watermill sat on a small peninsula.

We organised a rental car with the same lovely lady we rented one from last time. This time she was accompanied by a truly horrible toddler. She admitted he was crazy but did nothing to pull him into line.

We ate lunch at a great seafood restaurant opposite a beach. We had been there before. The owner told us he had jumped ship in Australia many years ago and lived there illegally until he relocated to - you guessed it - The Bronx. 

At last it was time for a swim! At Emborios Beach, just near the main town of Fry, the water was cool but not cold and the beach was actually sandy, not rocky. Amazingly, we were swimming in the water when we bumped into the American woman we had met at the cafe the day before. We spent a really lovely 15 minutes or so just bobbing around in the water chatting. We only got out as we were starting to get too much sun. It was a really lovely time.

As usual, we returned to the local village square for dinner. We love sitting at the tables under the brilliant pink bougainvillea in the lovely evening air. we had the best dolmadakias (stuffed vine leaves) ever here!

On the other side of the road is the kafeneio area where the old men of the village sit. An older couple live in the double-story house on the left, with some of their adult kids, I suspect. Somewhere in the family is a baby girl. We saw the baby several times. Grandpa took it out with him to the kafeneio. Obviously he didn't have to go far. In Greek kafeneios, people just turn up and sit with whoever is there. They all know each other. The baby would get passed around to various men who turned up and they all oohed and ahhed over her. She was probably related to them all. Grandma would hover in the background, a huge loving small on her face. We only saw the mother once!

The World Cup was playing and John, then I, soon joined the blokes.

The walk the next day wasn't too hard but it was up very high and it was really windy in places. We felt like we were touching the sky when the clouds were rolling in over our heads.

The clouds were amazing. And John has to add a burp to every video!

Feeling small on such a big landscape.

The island of Karpathos, our next destination, stood incredibly high not far away.

An old threshing circle.

There were huge views in every direction.

Strangely, there were heaps of locusts here. Can you see them leaping away from John's footsteps?

Decidedly windswept, we returned to the car and drove down the hill to home. On the way we passed sheep sheltering in the shade of this boat up in the mountains a long way from the sea!

An old man on a donkey riding into our village! Last time I was here I passed an old woman on a donkey. I was walking then so it was easier to engage with her and get a great photo. I love that there are still places where people ride donkeys into town.

We drove to the other end of the island where we had visited a great beach last time. There were amazing views at every turn. That's the beach in the middle of this photo. Sadly, the cantina there wasn't open and the water was absolutely freezing so we got back in the car and went back to the beach at Emborios.

The next day was our last full day on Kasos. We got up early and had another lovely walk down to a shrine to remember all the people that died in the War of Independence in 1823. It's hard to get accurate figures but it seems like thousands of men were slain by the Ottomans and over 2,000 women and children were captured. These were mostly sent to the slave markets of Egypt and Crete. The population was decimated and today there are still far fewer people on the island that there were before the War of independence. Pretty grim stuff.

From the memorial, the view over the sea towards some outlying islands was stunning. I haven't done anything to this photo to make those colours pop. Nature did it all by herself. 

To my left was a very different story though - stark mountains and a dumped old air-conditioning unit.

We visited Hellinokamara Cave which was up a path from our track. I was looking up info on the cave and I found this description of the path.:
In 2009 a path was built to the cave, budgeted with € 325,000, of which 75% came from the EU. The result is a comfortable and beautiful flagstone walkway with steps, beginning at nowhere and leading up to the cave. It seems the whole effort was useless, as there are no open hours and almost no visitors at all.
This is all so true! There was a fancy flagstone path that started in the middle of nowhere. You had to go on the usual rocky path to reach the beginning of the flash path. 
At the top of the path we found a cave which was walled in by huge ancient blocks of limestone. You don't see a lot of this sort of stonework on the islands. We had to crawl in and out of a hole in the side. Inside there seemed to be the remains of a room. Maybe a temple?

I couldn't find any decent explanation of the place online. Who carved these huge blocks and put them there? Why and when did they do it?

We returned to our car and sat on a convenient wall nearby while we had a drink and took our hiking boots off. Suddenly, the wall shook heavily underneath us. Then it happened again. It was an earthquake! Coincidentally, I had a post pop up randomly in my Facebook feed just the day before saying that there was a 95% chance of an earthquake on Kasos that day. I didn't know they could predict these things so accurately. Someone in a supermarket told us later that they had some things fall off the shelves.

Continuing our routine, we had another wonderful swim at Emborios beach followed by lunch in the restaurant nearby. Life's tough!

We finally met up with Kostas #2 briefly and arranged to have dinner together at the village taverna at 7 - 7.30pm on our last night. We got there at 7, ordered a drink and got chatting to a lady from Athens at the next table. 7.30 came and went. At 8pm we ordered food. At 9pm we were just about to leave when Kostas turned up! He had his cousin with him. He mumbled something about his cousin delaying him then he sat down with the old men on the other side of the street. Clearly, we had been more excited about catching up than he had been!

We caught the ferry out in the morning. I still can't explain why this place has such a hold on me. Our hotel was run-down - paint was peeling from the handrails, the washing machine took multiple attempts to make it work and it emptied into the shower, the shower was small and the curtain didn't keep the water in. The room reeked of smoke and, on our last night, a piece of the rangehood fell off, crashing into the sink and waking us with a shock. But I felt so comfortable in that hotel. Maybe it's because it's a large room with large doors leading onto a balcony with a beautiful view. Or maybe its because it's out of the village a bit, so it's quiet. We both love the taverna in the village. It's such a great meeting place and a wonderful place to watch the comings and goings of Greek village life. And our walks and swims were wonderful. I was happy we had returned.

Eva (Heather is too hard for Greeks to pronounce!) and Yiannis