Karpathos

In July 2002 the charter plane touched down on the military airfield on the southern tip of the rocky, mountainous island of Karpathos, in the south-east Aegaean Sea. It was just a couple of years ago that civil aviation was granted access to this remote airfield. It had been built with NATO support, for strategic reasons.

Our strategy was somewhat different: conquer the island, yes, but with nothing else than friendly intentions. We were looking for an island in the Aegean that is still worthwhile travelling to, even in high season. Worthwhile in a sense that you could still experience some of the original way the places present themselves. Not yet swamped by hordes of tourists, just seeking a space of a couple of square meters to place their beach towels, some decent food and lots of cheap drinks.

The island is a hotspot for windsurfers. I'm a veteran in this, but the only time a asked for a hire rig they told me that the shop shuts down at 1800hrs, still early afternoon on my timescale. Wind had dropped anyway, so what the heck.

We moved around the island on a rented scooter, 50cc, because I couldn't get a „real" thing, something like a 250 Enduro bike. OK, it did get us to all the places we wanted it to take us, but at speeds sometimes lower than necessary to keep your feet of the ground. The first one kicked a.. after a couple of days, something blew inside the tiny engine. We got a replacement within 2 hours, rocket speed for this place of the world. We enjoyed taking it to places where even the Enduro would have had a hard time...

The North is the best part of the island: woods, as there were all over the island only 10 years ago, before a fire charred plenty of it in the early 90's. And only gravel and dirt roads. Some deserted beaches, besides the plastic rubbish and tar chunks on west coast beaches. The east is very, very idyllic.

Will provide some more details soon; in the meantime I do recommend this site: www.karpathos.ch