In the off chance that you find yourself strolling through the derelict backstreets of Kos Town, with its wild dogs and wandering cows, you will stumble across a small collection of traditional Greek cafés. Serving a handful of culture, these eating houses are hidden by half crumbled buildings and dried out palm trees about a mile away from the bustling harbour. After puzzling over the locations of traditional food-givers, the answer came to me quicker than the sun smacking down the heat on barely walkable pavements. Of course. The ratio of wanting to experience Greek food at its finest to the amount of hungry Brits who need to play it safe on their weekly benders, the Harbour’s ample Chinese and Italian restaurants would always be of greater importance.
As the night begins to unfold, a walk along the harbour reveals a rather uncomfortable smother of flashing neon lights and signs from the town’s popular cocktail bars. After being simultaneously greeted by a very cheerful and insistent old woman handing out flower lei’s and nearly tripping and falling into the sea due to the uneven pavement, we are addressed by a fairly large man with a moustache to match. Receiving a heavily accented slur of “Katarina’s the best of them all you know” it took a while for me to understand that he was addressing the boat wavering next to him. A day-trip boat. A concoction of sea air and motion sickness, added to a mix of 8 whole hours of no escape from the blistering rays emanating from the giant ball of heat in a cloudless sky. Sounds great.
After three days of much protest, I found myself sullenly sitting top deck on the ‘best of them all’.
The penultimate stop on the holy trinity of the Greek islands tour was most commonly known as The Island of Sponges. Small honeycomb looking blobs in wicker baskets lined along the walls of the beloved sponge factory. A man standing by a stall of oranges. An abandoned ambulance left beside an old couple sitting in faded garden chairs. A woman selling what she called doughnuts.
“You want sugar on them?”
Leaving her standing with a cart full of fried dough and a look of amazement was a definite highlight of the trip.
Following a forty minute journey from Kalymnos after again having to endure being consistently sprayed with salty sea water, Katarina was stationed in the middle of the clear Aegean Sea. The final stop: the island of Platti.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five silver dolphins sliced through the water, interrupting us eating the tender Greek lamb I so long desired. Prepared and barbecued below deck by the moustached man himself.
Similar to that of a battle cry emerged from one of the small children aboard.
“Look! To the left!”
In the same instant I found myself being rocked back and forth as the herd of onlookers marched and side stepped to each end of the boat. With a plate of richly spiced meat at hand I stared blankly into the water.
A flash of grey appeared in the deep blue and I was on my feet, succumbing to the exquisite sight of the pod of bottle nosed creatures. I was standing in front of the crowd. Pale and awkward, with half a face severely sunburnt. Proudly ignoring the judgmental death glares, iPhone camera at the ready.
