dolphin swimming alongside the ferry

We postpone getting up, having absolutely no desire to pack and leave this place. When we do, eventually, it’s because we want to be kissed by the sea again.

We pack and have a pleasant breakfast on the balcony, accompanied by butterflies and singing cicadas, while the sheep in the neighboring garden are silent this morning.

We carry our luggage and stuff it in the car, then head to our favorite beach in the south – Lakkoma. I’m holding up through the swim and the first few minutes on the beach beds, but then sadness and a feeling of longing and lack creep inside and I give in.

“I don’t want to go…” I complain, rolling on to one side. And then, trying to keep it all together and struggling for a more positive attitude, I add:

“Let’s make our life beautiful every day. Let’s do beautiful things that make us happy. So that we are not sad about having to go back home.”

I can feel the water evaporating from my darkening skin as when we get out of the car in the harbor and look for the ticket office. We have already purchased the ferryboat tickets online and we need to have them printed there. The sun is cruel.

We eventually find the office, following the directions of a beautiful islander. We get in and stand in line for a few minutes, to benefit from the impoliteness of the clerk, an overweight middle aged man, of course, who can speak only Greek. He is very rude and shows us how bothered he is by the electronic tickets we show on the mobile phone screen. He finds it difficult to read the ticket number and, when he manages to, he keys it in on his computer and prints our tickets, which he throws on the counter in front of us without a word. I secretly think it is life’s way of making leaving easier on us.

We then send postcards to our family and ourselves, which we have written on the beach after the swim. Hoping for the best, I take them out of my turquoise purse and slip them in the yellow box on the side of the road in the harbor.

I desperately need to go to the toilet and choose the taverna I have been admiring the whole week but never gone to. It’s an old, wooden one, traditionally looking, with the walls of the tight space inside full of old black and white photographs of the island and its people. The overweight middle aged guy (of course) sitting by the side of the door cries out:

“Provlima!” When I ask about using their toilet and points across the street, directing me to the public toilet in the harbor, which I haven’t noticed before. That makes it even easier to get on the ferry.

We later board the ferry, shuffling our feet to the outside deck and spend almost the entire 2.5 hour trip standing, all the time looking at the island we are sailing away from and at the beautiful shades of blue of the waves the ferry is cutting through my beloved sea. I wish I could kiss her a thousand times more before I turn my back and go on my way, before I dream of her, before we meet again.

samothrakis from the ferry in the harbour

We want to see dolphins (not a dolphin, this time), and our wish is granted. A lovely school of dolphins comes close to the ferry, playing with their babies, starting a competition with the fast going boat and surprising us with their swift moves and quickly changing directions.

The little fruitarian runner starts a series of strong kicks right before we get off, making us wonder if he’s actually more of a martial arts fighter than a runner.

After trying unsuccessfully to find a supermarket open in Alexandroupolis (“No, is closed, is Monday today”, we are explained), we go to the camping without any fruit for the little fruitarian runner, except for the glass of fruit juice we got from a juice bar on the way.

We choose our camping spot, check in, park the car and head straight to the beach. It’s big, crowded and a little dirty and the water is even more unpleasant, with an uncertain shade of dirty green, algae, feathers and unidentified fragments floating in it. It all makes it easier to go back home… But we can still see Samothrakis rising in the middle of the sea, straight ahead.

“You know, this island is the first thing we saw when we got here a week ago and we had no idea that was where we were going… And here we are, a week later, after having explored it, still looking at it.” I remark pensively, and I feel this sense of protection from the high mountain that allowed us to climb its highest peak. It’s still watching over us and I get a lump in my throat and goosebumps at the thought.

“Thank you.” I send out the thought with a deep bow.

I miss it already.

For more photos from this journey, follow “A lover of the road” on Instagram and Facebook.

The next day I am woken by the stiffness in my back and the rain tapping on the tent. The little fruitarian runner performs a soft but lengthy training and then seems to go back to his usual meditative state.

When we build up the courage to get out of the tent, we are greeted by a beautiful rainbow rising above the sea and the rain stops just in time for us to get our stuff back in the car, have a small breakfast standing next to the car and head for the harbor to catch our ferry. Not before we study the orange flowers of a small tree whose buds look like fruit. When they reach maturity, their shell cracks and the flower explodes in the outer world. I declare it a unique phenomenon: having fruit before the flower. My travel companion says they’re just buds.

The two and a half hour ferry ride is far from spectacular, except for the sight of a beautiful dolphin springing seemingly from under the ferry and swimming away. The cool breeze is relaxing and the clouds tucked into one another like sheep in a sleeping herd are a spectacular view accompanied by the intense ultramarine blue of the sea underneath.

We spend almost the entire trip outside on the deck, determined to resist the cold wind and spot dolphins and countless shades of blue both above and below. Up on the deck we seem to be in a state of limbo, suspended between two worlds, traveling from the continent to the island.

When the arrival time approaches, we move to the left side of the boat and finally see the island: a high mountain in the middle of the sea. A thick blanket of clouds is covering the shy peak, hiding it from that shameless touristic gaze cast by so many pairs of eyes on the ferry.

samothrakis harbour from the ferry

Our host, a dark skinned, thin Spanish lady in her forties, Carlota, has written to me on WhatsApp and is now waiting for us “by the big green container on the right of the harbor”.

“I came here nine years ago with Erasmus, fell in love with the island and never left. It’s a very powerful place”, she confesses and, noticing the blue scarab locket on her necklace and remembering her meditating clay frog picture on WhatsApp, it all makes sense. We are of the same kind.

We then follow her car to her husband’s family’s place and I immediately fall in love with the beautiful stone paved garden, with its two small tables, trees packed with ripe fruit and the huge geraniums and begonias in bloom everywhere. We get inside and she offers a studio with a kitchenette instead of the small room I booked online.

“I can give you something bigger for the same price. Since we are free, why not. Here, this one has a balcony and this one doesn’t. Choose the one that you like.”

We make the choice, but change our minds after she leaves and eventually move into the room with a balcony – it’s prettier and more luminous. The house has a kitchen and it looks like an old family house turned into a small motel. The owners, her parents-in-law, still live upstairs.

After she leaves, they arrive home and park their utility van next to our car. Her mother-in-law starts calling her name, so I take the opportunity to get out on the balcony and practice my Greek, since I have been warned by Carlota that she speaks no English at all. I say hello and explain that her daughter-in-law is not there. I am rewarded with delicious, freshly picked apricots and a big smile.

We later get out of the house, in between heavy showers, in search of the bakery. We find it much later and it is closed, like pretty much everything else around here, actually.

“It’s still low season”, Carlota warned us as soon as we stepped foot on the island.

Since we come across no open shops, we pick fruit from the trees lining the road, so by the time we get back to the house, still without a map or food, our stomachs are full of apricots and sour cherries. The little fruitarian runner is satisfied.

“What shall we do next?”

“I know, let’s take a nap!”

And, with the soothing sound of the heavy rain hitting the leaves in the garden, one third of us does just that while another third is meditating and the third third fixes the blog and starts posting.

At sunset the rain decides to give us a break and sheep are grazing peacefully in the neighboring garden and I realize for the first time we have a view of the sea from the balcony. It is not so obvious, since the eyes are tempted to stop at the trees separating the two gardens in front. The water is now shining under the setting sun and cannot escape my vigilance.

At sunset we get out and see how islandy it looks from the harbor. We eventually find some shops open and get what we need. The shopkeepers are bored and still have not activated their tourist-attracting mode.

We have dinner on the balcony – salad and cheese and make plans for the next day. It’s been a weird, rainy day. Perhaps sensing my uneasiness, the little fruitarian runner is very discreet with his evening training.

For more photos from this journey, follow “A lover of the road” on Instagram and Facebook.

Tag: dolphin swimming alongside the ferry

A journey with the little fruitarian runner on board. Day nine: Leaving the island

A journey with the little fruitarian runner on board. Day two: Alexandroupolis – Samothrakis