Tuesday, August 23, 2005

ATTN: this page will have a good deal of "scenic" photos on it. If you get as bored as i do looking at other peoples scenic photos...this is your warning. But, really, try and take a peek at a few, this island was truly stunning visually, which is the only reason i'm putting them up.

So, i'd had this island on my mind since first visiting Greece a while back. I had high hopes, and wasn't disappointed.

Flying from Athens to Karpathos: one benefit of hopping on a little turbo prop plane at 6.30 in the morning is getting unbelievably beautiful sunrises shots from below the engines.

As we approached Karpathos, it appeared as some kind of cloud island/city, with a group of puffy clouds nestled right up against the island. Stunning.

The karpathos airport is about the size of your local deli. Actually, it's a little smaller than your local deli.

Since there are a good deal of unpaved roads on the island, we strapped ourselves up with this little puppy, the suzuki vitara.

After a little shopping for essentials in the capital and port town, pigadia, we hit the road...on the way we passed this little beauty in blue and green.

Driving up the east coast of the island toward, Apella, our first beach stop.

If this shot doesn't sum up 'greek island' i'm not sure what does

Yup, it was a long and winding road, har har

Me in the captain's chair

Right before we run into, what's this? A traffic jam? There was actually some ceremony going on the little village to the side of the road, which drew all the people. This was by far the most cars i saw in one place during the whole time on karpathos.

Things cleared up nicely after that. Idyllic winding green + rocky road alert.

Awesome.

We finally hit a gravel turn off and make our way down to the coast

And arrive to beach #1 (of 7, in 4 days!), Apella.

Which luckily wasn't too overrun with umbrellas, though i'm not sure how many more years that will be the case.

More apella...

Damn it was nice

However, apella wasn't to be the final stop for the night. We hopped in the jeep and made our way down to another little seaside village, Kira Panagia. It looked like this coming down.

And this when you're right above the beach.

Hahahahaha...okay i know this looks pretty fuckin bad and i'm hamming it up with my facial expression, but this burn really didn't hurt that much. That's what you get when you fall asleep under an umbrella and that pesky sun decides to move while you're unconscious. It looks like someone designed a seahorse under my left tit.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

On this day we decided to get up to the north of the island, to a village called Olymbos. The road to olymbos was, uh, a little old school.

The car rental girl said it was closed from 9-5 everyday because of road construction. But, you know, this is greece, by road construction she meant, there's this guy with a hose who will have to move it.

And a rusted out truck...

And, lo and behold, a guy in a tractor! These items, plus a few more scattered abandoned vehicles, were the extent of the 'construction'. Laid back greece, gotta love it.

Once of many little churches that are build upon virtually every spot on the island with a pimp view.

Some nice layered rock formation along the way to Olymbos.

Who farted?

This road was pretty precarious, but offered unbelievable views in all directions. Good thing having a person in the passenger seat who could appreciate and take pics!... if my eyes left the road for more than 2 seconds we'd likely have a permanent place at the bottom of that sea.

Look someone else on the Mad Max highway!

The pimpest of the roadside shrines we saw along the way.

Another pimp view, another little church built.

Arrival at Olymbos. This village is beautiful and kinda wacky. It's perched on the ridge of mountain which forms the majority of the island. The reason they built it so high was to make it immune from pirate attacks. Its primary inhabitants are 400 old women who dress in traditional garments and walk around and do things old ladies do in little villages. There aren't many men, and they clearly are NOT running things in this village.

Luf checking out one of the little old ladies doing little old lady stuff.

Another little old lady. It was unbelievably quaint and 'gosh-darn' tastic to see them walking to and fro, but it was almost TOO perfect. It wouldn't surprise me if Disney was orchestrating the whole thing, having them pop out from one place and walk to another, looking like they're doing something....when really the whole thing is a facade and when they go in the house they're actually boozing up and playing poker.

And, yes, you can see that i did not have the cajones to photograph one of them from the front. A war photographer i will not be.

Olymbos from the other cliff-side

A porch hanging over a looooong drop.

Olymbos -- here's hoping it manages to not get too touristed in coming years. Although the village is preparing for it once that road gets paved. But, you know, at the pace the one tractor is working at, they still have a couple generations to prepare.

I heart views from Olymbos

Inside the cliffside church.

From Olymbos we drove down to the Northeastern village of Diafani. Near it was a nice, near empty beach called valanta.

Me pretending i'm in the kiddie pool.

Bliss.

And then god said, let there not be light

It didn't so we decided to check out local signage.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

The next day we headed back down the crazy North-South road, with the plan of checking out a beach along the way, before crossing over to the West side of the island and seeing yet another beach. We first had to stop and respect the goats on steppes.

The side road to the first beach, Agias minas, was, you guessed it, a little unpaved.

Turn left here.

The approach was stunning, however.

And the beach itself was virtually deserted and gorgeous. At least, for the first 20 minutes we were there.

Me and da beach.

We found this truly pimp spot under some trees off the beach a bit. When some italians and germans arrived, they also decided it was pimp and dropped their towels literally inches from ours, despite the fact that there was a nearly whole deserted beach to choose from. Luckily, their rudeness/obliviousness was one of the few instances we experienced like that. After that a tour boat arrived and brought even more people, so we split. Granted, the beach wasn't overrun, just a bit more crowded than we would've liked.

On the way west we spotted this awesome formation of rocks that were settled just below the surface, yet still visible. The pic does not do it justice.

The west side had another shift in scenery.

We decided to stay the night in Lefkos, with its three beautiful cove beaches to choose from. And for food? If you're thinking now 'are those chicken nuggets?' then you're thinking correctly. I know it sounds blasphemous, but even after having wonderful Greek meal after meal, on occasion some familiarity sounds good. Not that chicken nuggets are exactly familiar...

Now that i was staying on the west coast, i could practice my sunset photos skills. #1

#2

and #3

That night we were treated to at least 50 euro worth of fish for less than 20. What can I say everybody loved us there...it seemed to happen again and again, discount taxi, free breakfasts, reduced hotel payments...the greeks are just too busy kickin back and having a good relaxed time to try and exploit every cent out of you.

Friday, August 26, 2005

After having breakfast by this fishing quay...

We hit the road down the west coast to explore a few villages and get ourselves set up back at Pigadia for the last night on karpathos

An abandoned beach

The suzuki waiting for us back up the hill

More changing dramatic landscape

The view from one of the villages up on the mountain spine that we visited. Notice: pimp view = little church built

For a while things looked like Mars

Until driving by a washed out little fishing village

With a neat back to back double cove formation

Then back up to another village on the spine called Menetes. It was steep and stuff.

Menetes nestling itself.

I am a sucker for sporting fields set against picturesque backgrounds. You can't really notice it in the pic, but there is a massive drop off by the side of this court. I'd hate to be the one to have to chase the ball if it went over the fence.

Super cute menetes.

The view from out another church with fab view just outside menetes.

Where i get my self portrait on. By this time, i think my hair was permanently stuck like this from a lovely mixture of lotion, sweat, and salt water.

Later that night we check out the nightlife in pigadia town, which is concentrated around the harbor. Well, nightlife is relative of course...

We ended up hanging out in this little joint, which was very friendly and cozy, bartender offering us free shots, etc. The dj had played 'bigmouth strikes again' at one point, so we thought we'd ask for another smiths song. He said sure and proceeded to play 'bigmouth strikes again' yet again. I guess it was his only smiths song. Very ah shucks cute.

More self portrait time, i must've managed to put some shampoo in my hair.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Waiting at the harbor for the boat to take us to Rodos, my travel partner got temporarily girly-giggly by the greek navy dude in his little shorty shorts.

Alas...the boat arrived

5 hours later...Rodos...stay tuned.