Tag: traveling five months pregnant

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

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.

 

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A journey with the little fruitarian runner on board. Day seven: Chora and the beach

After yesterday’s adventure we are feeling tired and sleep more in the morning. Our desire to leave the house is insignificant, but since we still haven’t done all we set out to do, we eventually convince ourselves to get into the car and then do some more walking.

It’s a very hot day and our first stop is at the bakery. Being hungry, we buy more than what we strictly need and then, after having our usual morning ice-cream by the lavender bushes in the garden of the bakery, we head to Chora, the capital of the island, a high village up on a slope, built amfitheatrically and resembling a citadel, with its extremely narrow, steep streets and small, tiled roofed houses, with wooden blinds and dozens of colorful flowers.

We walk around and visit a shop where I get a nice pyrite pendant and then we pay a visit to the folkloric museum, which is really interesting to see, especially upstairs, where you can spend time inside a traditional Samothrakiam home and read about the different functions of the home areas, feel the texture of handwoven silk fabric and wonder at the Turkish influence in Greek traditional culture and at both the Turkish and the Greek influence in the Romanian culture.

Walking along one of the narrow streets, we stop at the end of this very tight and steep staircase lined with huge begonia clay pots and are approached by this old man speaking Greek to us. He disappears after manages to direct us upstairs to this 1300s tiny dark stone church and, as soon as we enter, I feel I can’t breathe for a few seconds. It feel like a lot of anxiety and sadness has been experienced there by people desperately seeking refuge. We spend a few minutes in the cool air of the tiny church and then we are back outside, in the scorching heat.

We also visit the ruins of the local castle, built in the 1400s as part of the defense system of the island. The view of the sea from among the ruins is very nice and walking on the iron net above the water cistern feels interesting, too. Over the years it fell pray to several conquerors and at the beginning of the 21st century it actually housed the headquarters of the local police, but the building was eventually taken down so that now the castle has historical and touristic value to the island.

A bit later, after we get some fruit (of course, you know for who) and cold water, we head south and crash on Lakkoma beach, under a bamboo umbrella, enjoying the soft breeze and the small waves licking the hot pebbles on the shore. We read and write, take naps and relax.

It is here that, for the first time, I read out loud a story to my boys: “The Fork-Tongued Princess” from “Tales of the Peculiar” by Ransom Riggs – the book I got from the English bookshop in Uppsala, Sweden, this winter, a month and a half before the little fruitarian runner came into our lives. He shows his gratitude through repeated kicks that start his father and me giggling.

 

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A journey with the little fruitarian runner on board. Day five: A special day on Samothrakis

It is my travel companion’a birthday today, so it’s a special day. We are kissed by butterflies in the morning, both on the balcony and outside the bakery while we are having our ice cream. The kissing continues in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, a very special ancient place of rare stillness and worshiped rocks, as well as numerous wise olive trees, where we see baby olives for the first time.

The archeological museum is closed for repairing work, so we just visit the archeological site, of which I have read is one of the most important archeological sites in Greece and the place where the statue of the Winged Nike of Samothrakis was discovered. But that’s now at the Louvre, so I guess I’ll have to go see it there some day.

It is a very hot day today and we need time in the shade, drinking plenty of water, resting and talking. We take a long break at the spring outside the archeological site and then go to Fonias River, a truly wonderful place, a fairy tale valley going up the mountain, in the soft music of the waters on which dragon flies are dancing tirelessly, their wings shining in the hot sun filtered by the leaves and sent back to he sky by the water’s mirror. We are too hot and take a bath in the first ‘vathra’ we find.

Then we go and watch the sunset on Panagia Kamariotissa beach, on this long and narrow stony stretch of land going far into the sea. Everything is perfect here, at the end of the world, where we collect stones and eat cherries and pears washed on the sea (slightly salted this time, for the little fruitarian runner). I don’t take any pictures, but watch that perfect red ball of fire tonight diving into the cold waters of the sea. I just want to remember, I want it forever in my heart and mind. Here and now, with the perfect color of your skin, your boy’s face looking up at the sky and my proud, round bump under your hands.

I imagine watching the sunset together with our kid and telling him how the sun goes to sleep in a land faraway, beyond the great sea. And later his dad telling him the truth: “Son, it actually goes to the other side of the world, to wake up the Chinese; because someone has to work in this world.”

 

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