And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door
She cried to me, "hey, why not ask for more?”
—Leonard Cohen
Si prefiere, puede leer esto en español aquí.
Of all the Greek islands I could’ve gone to in the Summer of 2022, I decided to go to Hydra. I went there because a Russian Canadian that also used to live in Montreal (but was spending a few months in Athens) reminded me that Hydra is the island where Leonard Cohen lived for seven years. The songwriter bought a house there in the 60s for like $15001. It’s a three-story house that back then didn’t have electricity or running water. Although I’m not a huge fan or connoisseur, I thought of Mr. Cohen there, alone for the most part (from what I gather) writing songs like Bird On A Wire. That’s why I thought Hydra was the ideal island to go to alone and with a broken heart.
Upon deciding to go to Greece to spend a month with the Greek South African that inspired the trip, I hardly gave any thought to the islands. Her idea was to try and live in Athens for most of the summer, something which she expressed since our first date, in Valencia. Athens, I thought right then, happened to have been on my list of places to visit for years.
When thinking of visiting Greece one day, I only thought of Athens; the cradle of Western civilization, home of the Olympic games, and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The oldest capital in Europe, in fact, and therefore the most ancient city with which I felt some kind of bond2. When I was a kid and read about Greece, I found it wild to think that there are still people that are born there and die there; people who spend most of their lives there and can pass next to the Acropolis on a Wednesday morning, complain about the heat, the traffic, people’s driving habits, and the tourists, and not stop to think for a second that the Acropolis is right fucking there.
Outside those two factors and the desire to try authentic Greek cuisine, I didn’t have many other reasons to go to Greece. I rarely think of nice beaches as a reason to go anywhere. Mykonos and Santorini seem to me as places that I could die without ever going. I see them, admittedly without ever going, as adult theme parks, kind of like cruises; a ready-made bubble for tourists to fuck-off to and leave the locals alone to their leisurely day-to-day.
However, before the short-lived relationship with the Greek South African ended due to a series of fundamental character differences that aren’t worth discussing right now, she told me that I should see at least one of the islands. She later said I shouldn’t base my experience of the beaches in the Agean sea solely on the ones we visited in Athens, and that taking a ferry and seeing Greek life at a smaller place is well worth it.
I decided to heed her advice, which happened to be the advice of pretty much everyone else I met in Athens. But, going to Ithaca, which is where half her family is from and hence the only island she could recommend out of experience would’ve seemed too strange and depressing for me at the time. Weeks after the breakup, I had been working hard to develop bonds with the city and its people that didn’t include her. The first 48 hours after she left for her aunt's house, walking around the Kallimarmaro neighborhood, where we had rented an Airbnb, was a constant reminder of moments with her. In a similar effort to when you rip muscle fibers in order to make the general muscle stronger, I slowly but surely started to fill my head with new memories of the spaces we shared. The same for other corners of Athens we never stepped foot in together. With my mini-expedition to the Saronic Islands, I intended to do the same thing.
Hydra also seemed interesting because it’s one of the few Greek islands that hasn’t allowed motorized vehicles to take over an obscene percentage of its public space. Garbage trucks are the rare exception, one only allowed recently, and you’ll rarely see them. In order to meet their in-land transportation needs, people in Hydra use donkeys, mules, horses, and their own humanoid limbs.
The latter method is what I chose to try and achieve three things during my first day in Hydra:
Do some sort of hike outside the village
See a sunset
Go to a beach
I left the Port of Piraeus at 8 and took a ferry among the dozens that departed that morning. Since I got to Hydra at around 10 and couldn’t enter the Airbnb until 1 PM, I had a spanakotiropita and a coffee for a second breakfast. I then took a nap at a public bench by a shade right before the sun became near-unbearable. Once the big orange sphere was directly above the island, I put a hat on and a shitload of sunblock and walked around almost all of the town. I even went to what I believe are the only two museums on the island, seeking refuge from the sun. The town of Hydra is really really small.
After checking in, I had lunch at a restaurant called Psaropoula, by recommendation of my temporary landlord. Eva turned out to be a super nice middle-aged Greek woman that made her grandparent’s house right by the port into a series of lofts. Another good investment, I guess. Before you make any assumptions about her being a bourgeois agent of gentrification ruining the port for other locals, I’ll have you know that the only people that appeared to be employed at the facility were her and her mother. Eva does bookings, handles the Airbnb profiles, and does a wonderful job welcoming her guests and explaining the island to them. Her mother, a super nice lady, by the way, does the cleaning. I know little else, so make of that what you will.
After lunch, I started researching beach options on Google Maps. Of course, most of the rarely-frequented ones were on the unpopulated parts of the island, which is almost all of it. Therefore, all those beaches were a hiking route away. This seemed appealing, but other travelers mentioned that it was far more convenient to reach them by boat. Some mentioned trying the hike, almost all of them describing it as far too long to do to and fro within the same afternoon. The general recommendation, if you ventured the hike, seemed to be to have someone pick you up on a boat at some agreed-upon time. That was something of a deterrent for me since I wanted to have a quick power nap and then go straight for the hike, not see about booking a boat ride.
Then, I noticed a beach called Limnioniza. Unlike other beaches on the eastern side of the island, Google Maps said it was just an hour’s walk away from the port. If you see Hydra on a map, it’s perhaps the shortest distance between the port and the other end of the island. So, if you walked there and then back to the port, you could say that you crossed the island from North to South, albeit by using the thinnest part of the island as a route. That pretty much settled it for me.
I left around 6, after a nap brought on via dolmades, pastitsio, and a lot of red Paranga. In my head, that meant I had an hour to get there, one hour to hang out at the beach, and one hour to walk back while watching the sunset (at around 20:40). Knowing that walking back in the dark was also a possibility, if I got lost, for instance, I packed a small flashlight along with a big bottle of cold water, a beach towel, insect repellent, and more sunblock.
The trek began from an Airbnb at the port and took me to the limits of the town. It was then only a bit past six but the heat was still violent. Not 20 minutes walk had gone by and I was already drenched in sweat again. As soon as I left the town, I found a trail that took you along some rural houses decorated with chicken coops and mules, all just hanging out. I took off my linen shirt since it was soaked. I felt at liberty to do so since I noticed I was the only human being walking around there.
Along the way, there were some spectacular views of the port and other coves. I thought that my plan was excellent because the sunset on the way back was going to be majestic. Perhaps, like many a previously-watched sunset in Athens, it was going to make me feel like life is beautiful, again, and that my broken heart can heal, yet once more.
I trekked along, alternating between this kind of affirmation; wondering if my ex would have agreed to come along on this mini-expedition, and also pondering the question of whether, once immersed in such scrubs, I was still the top of the food chain. Perhaps, I thought, there were other predators that could tear me to pieces. Hiking in Mexico, one usually thinks of jaguars or narcos. In Colorado, I thought mainly of a huge fucking grizzly bear. In Hydra, I imagined that there wasn’t much danger beyond perhaps snakes and maybe some demented human, but I wondered on.
By the time I reached the top of the hills, around the middle of the island, I could see the whole town and the port along with the sun making its way down. On the actual hills, there wasn’t much aside from a mini tower made of bricks, partially destroyed and graffitied. It didn’t seem to serve any purpose other than providing some shade for the occasional hiker. It was here that I saw the only human being I had seen in about 45 minutes.
It was an old man, maybe 60, with Slavic features and wrinkled skin darkened by the sun. When in Greece, I assume that everybody speaks Greek, so I said to him yassas which is how you say “hello”. It means something like “good health to you”. The old man said the same thing without turning to face me and kept on drinking water from a plastic bottle. I used the pause to check the map on my phone. While it loaded, I thought I could ask him for directions, so I said to him “signomi, milati anglika?” which is how my ex taught me to ask people if they speak English. The man shook his head. I glanced at my phone again and noticed the map had loaded, so I faced the direction of the beach, which happened to be the way he was facing. I took out my water bottle and lifted it in his direction. He did the same thing, but still without turning. I took a drink and carried on.
In the end, it took me more than an hour, but at about 19:10 I was at the top of a cliff from where I could see Limnioniza beach, about 150m down. The only buildings around were a white house and some sort of monastery that I had passed 10 minutes prior. Lacking the diligence of reading the Google comments about the hike more closely, and neglecting to look for info on the proper way down, I started following the one little trail I could find without coming too near to the house. The only thing I found was a mule enjoying the shade of a huge cactus.
I was there for a while, trying to find a way down that seemed feasible, when I became worried about the time again. It was now a bit past 19:30. Since the sunset was usually at 20:40, I had to either find a way down and then come back up quickly, or miss the sunset and walk back in the dark. I reached the end of the only discernible trail around and found nothing but a tree, at the top of another cliff, with no walkable way down. I looked at the horizon and thought that if I didn’t actually reach the beach, at least I had seen this coast. I realized that by being on the southeast end of the island, I was now facing the near-Middle Eastern side of the Aegean; the coasts of Turkey, Egypt, Cyprus, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and Siria. All of them are places I have never been to but would like to. The walk hadn’t led to touching the water but at least it had made the possibility of a future trip all the more real.
For now, there was no way to go but back. I started off, constantly looking at my watch and debating whether I should try to find another trail or head for the port, defeated. I then noticed that there was an old man sitting on the terrace of the one house. I imagined he was facing the same horizon I was looking at earlier. Understanding that I was probably in his backyard, I waved at him from afar. He waved back. I thought I could walk nearer and ask if perhaps he knew how to get to Limnioniza beach, making room for the possibility that he might speak some English, or even Spanish or French or a tiny bit of German. I kept walking out of the weeds and into the main road while debating this when I saw three travelers approaching through the main road but from the other side of the house.
There were two guys and a girl. I could tell they were travelers since they were all carrying backpacks and, like me, they were also drenched in sweat. From a distance, I could make out that they were speaking in English but noticed a strange and thick accent. Once we were hardly a few meters away, I looked at the three of them, smiled, and asked, “you guys speak English?”, to which the shortest of the dudes, replied enthusiastically, “Yes!”. So I asked if they were also trying to reach a beach called Limnioniza. To this, the same guy replied now, with what I suddenly noticed was a very Greek accent, “Ah, it looks like we have the same problem.”
I explained to them that the side of the house from which I came didn’t look to have any suitable trails. So, the Greek guy suggested we could check out the back of the house. We started heading over there and introduced ourselves along the way. That’s how I met Vasilis, the Greek guy, an Athenian that seemed like 26 years old, and Caro and Lucas. The latter, tall and slender, with very thick glasses and a little cap, and Caro, with dark hair and a pointy nose; both of them German, both of them 24. All three of them were architects recently embedded in the World of Work.
When we came near the front of the house, we ran into an old lady that was coming out from the back. We were all lucky to be in the company of a Greek. Vasilis approached the Mrs., said yassas, and then the two immediately began chatting loudly and with lots of hand gestures. To the untrained eye, it might’ve seemed like they were arguing, but this is how lots of people talk to each other in Greece. The lady kept repeating something, near the top of her raspy voice, and motioning toward the back of her house. I thought it sounded a bit like kato, which means something like “below”. However, the rest of us — assuming from their faces that Caro and Lucas were as lost with Greek as I was — were left speechless, on the other side of a beautifully sounding but mostly incomprehensible wall of sound.
Vasilis turned and motioned for us to follow him. We walked past the lady, with the two Germans and me uttering a shy yassas. The Athenian relayed the new information to us: The proper trail down to the beach started right behind the house and we were looking at about a 45-minute descent. It was rocky and slippery, but there were blue paint marks guiding the way. Given the time, we’d have to get down, touch the water and come back up if we didn’t want to hike back up in complete darkness.
Of course we didn’t do that. Once down, we stared at the beach for about 15 minutes, and then all of us went in for a swim. Vasilis was the only one who swam all the way to a little island in front of the beach, before the open sea. He said it had been taken over by sea urchins. Then we sat at the beach for like twenty more minutes, chatting and building rock towers. We watched the sky turn a deep blue and then gray until finally black and starry. It was the other side of a sunset that others must’ve enjoyed at the beaches on the more populated side of the island.
By the time we started the hike back, flashlights in hand, I knew the lives of the other three travelers fairly well. The three of them had met in Stockholm during an Erasmus semester and had bonded over a shared love of hiking. Vasilis had stayed in Sweden after finding a job with a local architecture firm. As he explained, he was part of the brain drain that is common among other Greek young professionals, who are unable to find good opportunities within their country. At the moment of the conversation, he was working on a shopping mall project that would be on the outskirts of Stockholm. He didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it. The Germans, for their part, had returned to their country. Luc was fresh on his first job, in Berlin. He and Caro are from different little towns near Cologne and knew each other even before Stockholm. Caro, at the time of the conversation, had just accepted a job with another architecture firm, in Hamburg.
The ascent back to the house of the old Greek couple, maybe octogenarians, took us 30-40 minutes. It wasn’t so bad in spite of the darkness. It would’ve been a nightmare without flashlights, but chatting all the while, it went by fast. When we passed the house again, the two owners were now both sitting on the terrace, with the stars as the only source of light. Since we had flashlights and had been using them to make out our steps in the dark, I imagine they could see us much better than we could see them. It didn’t seem like their house had electricity though there were utility poles on the main road.
Vasilis had a brief chat with them while the Germans and I just awaited the report. This time I didn’t make out a single word but Kalinitka3, right at the end. Through the Athenian, we learned that the old couple had lived there for decades, and their children live in Athens. To go to the port, they walk the same walk we considered “a hike”, only to do their shopping. Sometimes they bring the donkey along. Other times they just carry their stuff. The good thing is that the trash is picked up by the little garbage trucks. They also told him that they kept running into lost tourists in their backyard, trying to get to the beach, so it was they who made the blue paint marks.
On the way back, we took a break near the broken tower where I saw the thirsty man. We stopped to gaze at the stars once again, now that our eyes were more adjusted to the dark since we stopped using the flashlights for a bit. We marveled at how clear the constellations looked, thinking that this is what millions of people, from the ancient Greeks to perhaps a drunken 25-year-old Leonard Cohen, spent so much time looking at. We all agreed that going back after dark wasn’t such a bad idea after all and that those old folks sure made a good investment.
If we adjust for inflation, $1500 from 1960 would be worth about $15,000 today. At the time of this writing, houses in Hydra are typically priced at more than €500,000. Many, of course, approach a million or even a million and a half euros. Even without factoring the return on investment in terms of the role the house and the island played in Mr. Cohen’s artistic career, I’d say he made one hell of an investment.
Athens has been inhabited since 3000 BC. Tenochtitlán was founded, it is estimated, in 1325 AD. Also, we can’t really say that the people that live in Mexico City today are Mexicas the same way we can say that the folks that live in Athens are Athenians and Greeks; something which might be worth discussing some other time.
Whether it’s for the morning, afternoon, or night, all Greek greetings begin with kali, which means “good” and I think is the root of the word “quality”. The suffix is adapted to the time of day, so kalimera is “good morning”, kalomesimeri is “good afternoon”, kalispera is for the evening, and kalinikta is “good night”, as the last greeting if you’re saying goodbye to someone at the end of the day.