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| Summer 2014 |
Every year, Becky and I promise ourselves
that we won’t travel in Turkey during Bayram (the Muslim holidays), and every
year we forget about that promise until we are securely fastened in deadlock
traffic on a bus attempting to leave the city. A trip I took to Canakkale a few
years ago was 4 hours longer than it should have been, our trip to Lesbos
island last year was 5 hours longer, and now here we were, on the only road
leaving south out of one of the biggest cities in the world, and everyone in
the city had the week off.
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| Samos Island |
We were headed to the beach city of
Kusadasi on an overnight bus from where we would then head to the Greek island
of Samos. Samos would be the first of four stops that would eventually end in
Santorini in time for our friends Melis and Leedham's wedding. After Samos, we
would be heading to Syros and then a short stop in Mykonos before Santorini. A
lot of our friends from Istanbul would be there and Becky and I saw this as a
great way to see everyone before we left for Beijing.
Our friend Rachel was also heading to the
wedding and also had the week before the wedding off, so we decided to slow boat and island hop our
way to Santorini together. Rachel met us in Kusadasi but was on a later ferry
than us, so Becky and I took the ferry across and sorted out inter-island
ferries, hotel rooms, and car rentals-- a
forte of Becky's.
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| Traipsing about rivers and canyons on Samos |
At first glance, Samos seemed no different
from Turkey. Restaurants catering to Turkish day-trippers were advertising
kebabs, menus were written in Turkish instead of Greek, horrible Turkish music
was being blasted from competing speakers up and down the street, and packs of
affluent Turkish tourists were moving about the town taking in all of these
sights.
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| Sunset on Samos |
Becky and I couldn't rent a car and get out
of there fast enough. We had a few hours to kill as Rachel wasn't getting in
until that evening, so we traveled over to a neighboring beach with some ruins
on it that was pristine and beautiful in its water, sandy beaches, and
Turklessness. So overjoyed with this discovery, I proceeded to firmly and
tactfully place the rental car in a sandbar where any attempt to dislodge
myself resulted in putting the rental car in a bigger and bigger predicament.
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| Waiting for our ferry |
Being on holiday and all, we more or less
walked away from this problem and headed to the beach where this problem would
be out of sight for the time being. Our hopes were that it would miraculously
fix itself. That usually happens right? It didn't, but the next best thing did
happen. A tow truck came along and had a winch and by my overly pronounced
gesticulations and the fox hole I had dug the car into, he was able to
ascertain the root of my distress. Within minutes, we were pulled from the
sandbar strangle hold and thanking the nice Greek man with universal signs of
gratitude to which he responded with universal sings for being happy to help.
We went back to the ferry, picked up Rachel and drove to our hotel clear on the
other side of the island.
About an hour's car ride from the ferry
port, the west side of the island was more or less deserted. We had it more or less all to ourselves. The
hotel was great, the seaside promenade was full of cafes, and the seafood was fresh.
The beaches were not so great right at the hotel so we spent the next day beach
hopping our way around our side of the island. The afternoon was getting late
and we had aimlessly found ourselves at the very remote tip of the island in a
village that doubled as a dead end to the highway we were driving on. We
stopped to stretch our legs and grab some water at one of the only cafes there
was. We sat down and were about to order some drinks when the nice old woman
came saddling over to our table.
“Courgettes?” she asked with a big smile
before we even had the chance to say what we wanted. She was a short, stout woman
with a flour-caked apron and her hair haphazardly pulled back in a hair net.
“Just 3 waters and 3 cokes please, we're
not hungry,” Rachel retorted.
“Yes, yes,” she wrote down our drink order
on the old and thin pad of paper she had just dug out of her apron pocket. She
feigned as if she was going to go back to the kitchen when she added, “three
courgettes?”. With her thumb and pointer finger pinching her notepad, she
complemented her question with her other three fingers pointed toward us.
If it hadn't been for her very friendly
demeanor, her stout, grandmother-esque amiable personality, and her
never-waivering smile, her courgette obstinacy may have been seen as an
annoyingly over-stepped boundary. But since the sun was shining, we were on
holiday, and we were currently overlooking the ocean on a porch that offered panoramic views of the
sea, we decided to humor her.
Rachel, Becky, and I looked at each other
and acquiesced more because we had been worn down rather than being persuaded.
“Ok, we'll try one order of courgettes.”
She smiled and quickly put pen to pad while
saying, “Maybe one courgette, maybe later 3 courgette,” and scurried off to get
our drinks.
She returned with our drinks, three empty
plates, and one small platter of courgettes that she put down between us. We
thanked her and she motioned for us to eat. The bite-sized courgettes did,
admittedly, look appetizing. She continued to stand there with her hands behind
her back, rocking from toe to heal, waiting for us to taste the recommendation
that she had forced on us. We each grabbed one, roughly the size of a jalapeno
popper, turned it over in our hands, and popped them in our mouths. Being very
aware of her presence, we all barely had them in our mouths before we turned to
her to blanketly express how good they were. It was awkward that she was
standing there and we figured faking how much we liked them would get her to go
away, but after a few more chews, we were dumbfounded at how amazingly tasty
these things were.
In case you are like me, and are very
unclear as to what a courgette actually is, it is a zucchini. But these were the zucchini flowers, and what made them
special was that these bite-sized zucchini flowers had been stuffed with herbs
and feta cheese, breaded, deep fried, and topped with olive oil and other local
cheeses. It was so incredibly amazing that words here would not do it justice.
Rachel, Becky, and I barely looked at each
other before we turned to the woman signaling for two more plates of her
specialty. She let out an unguarded burst of laughter and skipped back in the
kitchen to make the other two batches.
We stayed there well into the evening,
munching on courgettes, resting out of the sun, and talking. We couldn't
believe a) how good our appetizer turned full on meal was and b) that we had just
merely stumbled upon such an amazing little facet of Samos.
These courgettes, we would find out, were
her life's work. She was famous throughout Greece for them. We mentioned and
recommended this place to several people after this and found out that this
smiling old woman in this tiny village at the end of an old road, in a nearly
deserted section of this island, had a very well-established reputation for
these courgettes. We even had a friend in Istanbul who had heard about her from
a different friend who had sought this lady out years before this.
These courgettes were her legacy. The thing
she was known for. The lifeblood of this village that people came to for
(making her pushy deliver of them a bit more understandable). It's a bit crazy
to think that we were so close to not knowing about this. We chose to drive
down this road for no reason really, just to see where it went until we ended
up at a dead end and became thirsty.
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| Post courgette beers at sundown |
Most of our time traveling to distant
places is spent in search of things, areas, and activities that we had
researched and known about. Things we had either learned about before we left
for the trip or had found out somehow while we were on the trip. Going to
Jordan to see Petra, Egypt to see the pyramids, Amsterdam for the canals, Sri
Lanka for the ruins, Greece for the beaches – and I suppose for the courgettes
as well. Some of these legacies are known to all, waiting for you to have time
to seek them out, but others just have to be stumbled upon, making them all
that more incredible.
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| Ferry from Samos to Syros |
The ferries between the Greek islands are
less like ferries and more like cruise ships. So when the three of us piled onto
the ferry to Syros, we had to choose which floor, by which food court, and on
which sun deck we wanted to sit. It was a view that never got old – endless
expanses of blue in all directions with the cool wind on your face from the
steaming ferry. The ride was less a tiresome transport and more an Aegean sea
tour allowing us to see more of the sea was speckled with islands throughout the ride.
We arrived in Syros late and barely made it
to dinner before crashing at our apartment. The next day, Rachel, dead set on
reading her book by the pool, did not want to join us on our trip around the
island so Becky and I rented a motorbike and circumnavigated it, stopping off
at any little secluded bay that might offer us some nice views and clear
swimming. We made it all the way to the end of the island where the road stopped
above the high cliffs allowing us to peer out into the distance of the horizon.
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| Hotel on Syros |
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| Motorbike ride around Syros for the day |
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She drove, I took pictures |
Even though these islands were well
connected with several different ferry companies that would take you where ever
you wanted to go, standing on that cliff side still instilled a feeling of how
isolated these islands were. How, throughout time, these different places have
cultivated their own sub-culture that is only specific to the social and
physical make up of that island, molded over time to both reflect a specific
culture and be a reflection of the people who have influenced it. Each island
was slightly different in its own special way, people going about their lives
in a way that makes most sense to their island. Cultivating crops indigenous to
only them, catering to different nationalities that visit, embracing lifestyles
from circumstances dictated to them and making a life out of it.
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| From the wedding Villa |
We spent the day on Mykonos before ferrying
to our main event: Santorini. We arrived a day later than most of our friends
and we found that they were already very entrenched in holiday mode. They had
all but taken over our hotel, racked up substantial bar tabs, and donned goofy,
pre-wedding attire that drew even more attention to the boisterous giddiness of
a large group of friends on holiday.
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| Our hotel on Santorini |
After dinner, girls peeled off and went
back to the wedding villa with the bride-to-be and the boys headed into the
city with the soon to be ex bachelor. Santorini, beautiful and bustling during
the day, transformed into a gorgeous array of lights, sounds, and wind whirling
around on the island's cliff edge at night
(missing 8 hours of trip here – woke up
back at hotel fully clothed)
The next day was the big day. Everyone
seemed to wake up a bit late and groggily made their way to breakfast. While
most of us muttered things about not being ready to face the day, Becky and I
headed out to explore a bit of the island. We walked around the cliffs to the
nearest beach and quickly realized that Santorini must not be known for their
beaches as much as for their views. The beach was small, crowded, and
surprisingly dirty. The red volcanic sand had turned the water an ugly brown
and the longer we stayed there, the less we enjoyed it, so we opted for a lazy
afternoon eating Greek salad and hanging out at the wedding villa with the
wedding party.
The view from the wedding villa rated among
some of the better ocean views I have ever seen and it was all done from the
infinity pool that was on the main deck. We swam in the pool and sat on the
deck staring at the caldera and the city on the far side of the island. I went
to the bathroom and when I came back, it was as if a switch had been hit. The
mood of the villa changed drastically. A huge stress cloud was now shrouding
over us and the gravity of the day seemed to be setting in for the most
important parties. Girls were running around with curling irons and make up
bags, boys were grabbing tuxedos and freshly polished shoes, so Becky and I
decided to make our leave until it was time to commence the wedding. We took a
bus back to our hotel with the groom, best man, and anyone else who valued
their lives and didn’t want to be at the mercy of the crazed bride’s maids.
Hours later, we made our way back to the site of the wedding-- Becky in a dress and me in marginally longer shorts than those which I had been wearing before. With the time of the wedding exponentially getting closer to us, so was the stress to get things done in time. Becky, Ben, Chad, Rachel and I stayed as far away as we could – knowing that any proffered contribution to help would only make things worse.
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| Trying our best to stay out of the way. |
The wedding started a bit later than had
been previously planned but it was all for the better. The sun had a chance to
set a bit and was not directly in our eyes as it was moving below the horizon.
The heat of the day had also subsided a bit to make the suits and dresses
people were wearing a bit more tolerable. The ceremony was very special. Melis
and Leedham were finally getting married. They had been together for years,
long before Becky and I arrived on the scene in Kadikoy and I really got a kick
out of how nervous they still were. I don’t know a couple as comfortable with
each other as them and I found it incredibly endearing how nervous they were to
do something that they had been planning to do for years.
Becky and I hadn't known them as long as a
lot of the people that were currently at the party, but we felt honored to sit among them and watch these awesome people, whom we have grown to love,
declare their love for each other in one of the most beautiful places I had
ever seen. Everything was perfect. Everything was playing out like a storybook.
Everything was – wait, where was Pete?
I looked around the crowd and realized that
Pete was nowhere to be found. Pete, having stayed up pretty late the night
before, seemed to have lost track of time. As soon as the ceremony was over I
jumped on the quad that someone had rented and drove down to Pete’s hotel to
pick him up. I met him on the road walking up, looking as if he had just woken
up. He had.
The rest of the night was a combination of fun,
friends, several more courses of food than was completely necessary, and an indulgent
amount of mojitos. I made it a point to pull Becky aside at some point just so
she took in the grandeur of the night. This was one of the last outings with
these people we were going to have. Everything would be changing soon.
Regardless of for better or worse, everything would be changing.
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| Views from around Santorini |
Books read:
I am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes
The She-Wolf of France - Maurice Druon (Accursed King Series #5)
The Lily and the Lion - Maurice Druon (Accursed King Series #6)
The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss (Kingkiller Chronicles Series #1)
