Kalymnos – The Island

Well I am stuck in a cafe waiting for my photos to be backed up on to a handy little thumb drive, so while that slow process takes place I might as well begin the blogging process again. There has been so much happening that this blog is going to turn in to my on line journal and hopefully it will be interesting reading for you as well as a reminder for me.

First up Kalymnos: This place I think has to be broken down in to 2 entries, one about the island itself and the other about the climbing.

The Island of Kalymnos is not like anywhere else I have been. It is small with barren landscape, very few trees and very little evidence of any attempt to change that.

During our time there we rented scooters and a smile came across our faces anytime we knew we were going to get the opportunity to get on them, 5 minute walks turned in to 2 minute scooter rides, but fortunately 2 hour walks turned in to 10 minute scooter rides. I think Ryan was most excited of all by the scooters and he seemed to look forward to the end of anything because it meant getting back on the scooter. We went right the way around the island a few times and though watches were discarded I would estimate about 2 hours to ride around the whole thing.

One of the things that hit me over and over was the smell of the place. All over the island grow wild herbs, rosemary and thyme seemed the most common but i’m sure that an expert could name a bunch of others. It was so pleasant when we were walking to a climbing spot to get wafts of fresh herbs hitting us.

They plants are also special because the island is covered with bees which feed off them, and particularly of the thyme. That gives the honey there an amazing taste which the local make good use of, especially in my favorite creation – honey balls They are like little doughnut dumpling type things deep fried till crispy then covered in honey (special Kalymnos thyme honey) and sprinkled with cinnamon – delicious.

On the subject of food they do a good job of that too. The local specialty is of course fish, but if you’re not in to that (i’m not) then they have a great variety of other Greek dishes which I enjoyed, particularly Mousaka and Dolmates. Mousaka is a lasagna type thing with more layers of potato and some other stuff, Dolmates are stuffed vine leaves – I don’t know what they were stuffed with but they were good. Delicious Calamari stuffed with feta too:

The water was colder than I expected for swimming, but it was as clear as I have seen and gave a great view from any point on the island. When it ot hot climbing, a beautiful swim wasn’t far away.

Getting things done here is near impossible. We wanted to go on a sailing boat on these cool old pirate ships which they have. You see then anchored in the harbour, go and talk to a guy on them and he will say something like, yeah just come back here tomorrow and we’ll take you. Ask what time and he will just shrug and say around 10, so we how up at 10 and no-one will be there, wait around talk to a few people and find out they only o when enough people have booked. Try to book and they tell you that not enough people have booked so they are not taking reservations……..???????

There is so much I want to say about this place, but my backup has finished as I only remembered to bring one memory card with me so I shall leave this here. I expect these entries to be quite fluid as I remember things and add to them or re-word them.

One thing I will say and leave as a final comment is that flying out of Kalymnos felt so wrong. I had a real struggle convincing myself that it was time to leave, every part of me wanted to stay I didn’t care that we were going to more exciting travel, I just wanted to stay there and I still want to be back there.

Loved it, really loved it.