Karpathos: the island I waited 27 years for

28 September — The island that waited for me

The flight from Athens was almost forty minutes late. Normally that might have annoyed me a little, but after twenty-seven years of waiting, a few dozen more minutes really didn't throw me.

When we finally landed, the last bus from the airport to Pigadia had gone. So, a taxi. That first drive across the island was really my first introduction to Karpathos. Dry land, rocks, hills and sea. Nothing polished, nothing trying to win you over with a perfectly groomed holiday picture. The island felt rougher, wilder, and maybe that's exactly why I liked it from the very first kilometres.

At Roses Studios the owner was waiting for me when I arrived. Before I'd even properly got my bearings, he picked up my green backpack and carried it up to the apartment for me. A tiny thing, but it's exactly these small gestures I remember from my travels.

The apartment was small and simple. Then I stepped out onto the terrace, and the size of the room suddenly stopped mattering at all. Below me lay all of Karpathos Town, the harbour, the houses, the sea, and the mountains opposite.

That's when I said something I say to myself fairly often when travelling, whenever I've managed to choose something well.

Nailed it.

I dropped the green backpack on the bed, and for the first evening I didn't need any programme. I just wanted to walk into town, find a taverna by the sea and finally take in the fact that, after twenty-seven years, I really was on Karpathos.

I ended up at Poseidon Taverna by the water and ordered lamb kleftiko. I sat, ate the lamb and looked around. Nothing grand was happening, and nothing needed to.

So here I am after all.

29 September — Coffee first

In the morning I stepped out onto the terrace and for a while just looked. Sea, town, harbour, the mountains opposite, blue sky and a sun that had no idea it was already the end of September back home.

And, above all, no fixed plan.

That's one of the things I love about travelling solo. Nobody rushes me, I don't have to fit around anyone, and I don't have to negotiate whether we're leaving, staying a bit longer, or what we'll be doing in two hours. In the morning I don't need to know where I'll end up in the evening.

I only need to know one thing.

Coffee first.

I walked down into Pigadia, strolled along the sea, stopped by the water and let the day drift by without any need to tick things off. A bit of town, a bit of beach, a bit of waves. Exactly the kind of day when I'm only just getting to know a place and don't need to cover all of it straight away.

Somewhere over the next coffee, though, an idea started to form: on foot, I wasn't going to see much of Karpathos.

I needed a scooter.

So in the evening I went to Gatoulis Auto and rented one. A small scooter, two days ahead of me, and an island I still barely knew. I didn't want to plan a route with ten compulsory stops. I wanted to set off in the morning and let the road, the views and wherever I felt like stopping make the decisions.

Later that evening I wandered around Pigadia by night. At Sofia's Place I stopped by an old decorative boat on the steps, then carried on through the lanes to the harbour, watching the lights reflected on the water.

My first full day on Karpathos ended completely ordinarily.

And that's exactly why it was good.

30 September — Me, a scooter and Karpathos

The next morning it was clear that Pigadia would stay behind me.

No sights from a list. No fixed itinerary. Just me, a scooter and Karpathos.

I set off over the hills towards the west of the island and fairly quickly understood that the wind on Karpathos isn't just part of the weather. It's a fully fledged road user. On some open stretches it tried to blow me off the scooter so convincingly that at times I wondered which of us actually had more say over the direction of travel.

I won't pretend I didn't care. I had respect for it, and at times I was scared. But I kept going.

The first bigger stop was Menetes. A village high in the hills, a completely different Karpathos from the one by the sea. I stopped, looked around and bought some water. Riding in that wind, I'd quickly realised that water isn't a detail worth sorting out only once you've run out.

Then came Arkasa.

And, of course, coffee.

If there's a beautiful view somewhere and you can sit down for a coffee, I don't see many reasons to carry on without stopping.

The next stop was Finiki. A small fishing village by the sea, calm water, a few places to eat, and another coffee. I was in no hurry. The scooter stood a few metres away, and I was starting to get exactly the feeling I'd rented it for.

I can go wherever I want and stop wherever I want.

For lunch I stopped at Evdoxia Tavern by Iliontas beach. I had roast kid with potatoes. I really liked that they cook with what they grow or raise themselves. No showy gastronomy, just honest food where you know where it came from.

And it was excellent.

I carried on towards Lefkos. The roads wound through the hills; one moment the sea was below me, then in front of me, and a few minutes later I was riding between rocks again. Karpathos kept making me stop. Not because there was another item on my itinerary, but simply because it felt like a shame not to.

Later I reached Agios Georgios beach. Wind, big waves, and a sea that didn't look the least bit interested in being a calm holiday backdrop.

I switched off the engine, took off my shoes, pulled out my swim shorts and towel, and went into the water.

For a while I fought the waves, for a while I let them carry me. Then I came out, sat on a rock, turned my face to the sun and looked at the sea.

And there it hit me again why I travel alone.

When I want to keep going, I keep going. When I want to go into the sea, I go into the sea. When I like a place, I stay. I don't have to explain why I want to sit here another twenty minutes when, according to the original plan, I should have been somewhere else long ago.

That day was exactly what I'd wanted from Karpathos.

Except it wasn't quite over yet.

Later on, the scooter fell over and got damaged. The right brake lever snapped, there were new scratches and the plastic was damaged. For a moment, of course, all that calm drained right out of me.

The scooter had roughly 28,000 kilometres on the clock, and you could tell it had already seen a thing or two in its life. Even so, I didn't want to handle it in a "it'll work itself out somehow" way. I photographed the damage, sent a message to the number on the contract and explained what had happened.

I was nervous.

I won't pretend I wasn't.

At the same time, I knew it wasn't a disaster. A brake lever can be replaced, plastic can be repaired, the problem can be solved.

After a day of handling wind, hills and dozens of kilometres on a scooter, there came one more test.

This time without a nice view.

1 October — One lighter and a new life on Karpathos

The next day, the scooter problem was sorted.

And only then do you realise how much tension you'd been carrying, once it finally falls away.

So I did probably the most logical thing I know how to do after solving a problem.

I sat down for a coffee.

The man sitting next to me asked for a lighter after a while. I gave it to him, and we started chatting casually.

His name was Nick.

We talked about the island, about life and about where we were from. Nick told me he spends roughly half the year in Jersey and the other half on Karpathos.

None of this had been in my plans. If he hadn't asked for a lighter, we probably would never have started talking.

And it's exactly things like this that I often remember most from my travels.

After a while his cousin turned up. When he heard me say a few things in Greek, he immediately reached a fairly straightforward conclusion. Since I speak Greek, he said, I might as well marry a local Greek woman and stay and live on Karpathos.

I have to admit, he sorted out my future quite efficiently.

A lighter and a few words of Greek, and suddenly, according to him, I had both a wife and a new home arranged.

In the afternoon I didn't need anything big. I went to the sea, lay down on the beach and for a while just watched the waves and the mountains. After the day before, I felt this slower kind of day was exactly what I needed.

In the evening, the terrace of Roses Studios had one more picture waiting for me that stayed in my head. A big Blue Star Ferries ship came into the harbour. Lit up, it looked enormous down there among the houses and the little port.

I stood on the terrace and watched.

My second-to-last evening on Karpathos.

2 October — One last frappé

Last mornings on islands have a strange atmosphere. You're still there, but at the same time you're already doing everything a little bit "for the last time".

In the end the bus to the airport didn't work out, so it was a taxi again. This time it didn't faze me at all. After a few days on Karpathos I had the feeling that things would simply work out somehow.

By the airport I discovered a way of waiting that I'd happily accept at every airport in the world.

A beach, a taverna, a frappé, and planes a few metres away.

That's how to wait.

I sat there looking at the little airport and the mountains behind it. A storm was already gathering over the hills, and I had the feeling Karpathos was signalling pretty clearly that it was the right time to move on.

And yet I really didn't want to.

In a few days this island had got under my skin. The mountains, the cliffs, the roads, the sea, the wind that nearly blew me off the scooter, food made from their own produce, coffees in small villages, the waves at Agios Georgios, people who struck up conversations with me, and a Greek hospitality you can't explain by a hotel's name or its number of stars.

Even the damaged scooter belonged to it in the end.

Just like Nick, his lighter, and the cousin who arranged me a new life with a local Greek woman in a matter of minutes.

I swung the green backpack onto my back and walked over to the small turboprop plane.

Next stop: Kasos.

The flight was supposed to take about fifteen minutes.

Almost shorter than some of my coffees.

As I left Karpathos behind, a sentence came to me that I later wrote down for myself too:

Twenty-seven years is quite a long wait.

But some places simply have to wait until the right time comes for them.

And maybe the right time was exactly now.