Ikaria – legendary place!

It’s been 4 weeks since I first set foot on the island of Ikaria, the place were the legendary figure Icarus allegedly fell down after he flew to close to the Sun with his DIY wings. I realise so far the frequency of my blog posts has been a little meagre and deal with nothing but Athens although that chapter was really not meant to be more than a sidetrack. In other words: time for something about my real new home – Ikaria!

Our Ikaria experience started with a ‘grande entrée’. Given the seas were rather stormy and the ferry trip from Athens to Ikaria consumes a good 7 hours, some of the new volunteers struggled seeing themselves survive the journey without some sort of aid and decided to hit the tax free’s alcohol reserves. Making our way off the ship one of the girls shows clear signs of the that-Crete-wine-was-way-stronger-than-I-thought syndrome and seemed to find it hard to get into forward gear. In fact, if it weren’t for the warning screams from some of the non-drunk and non-seasick volunteers, she would have probably tipped over into the cold Aegean waters.

Once all safely into the taxi towards the terrestrial base of the environmental NGO we were about to start working for, we soon come to the conclusion that we’re situated a wee bit more land inward than anticipated. Turns out a walk to the beach easily takes 2-3 hours! Luckily though – so we get told – the locals are among the friendliest around and usually offer the boot of their pick-up trucks when you stick out your thumb. The only drawback perhaps, is that this often implies having one or two goats breathing down your neck or sitting in their left-behinds.



Discovering Ikaria - first day out

Ikariot taxi drivers all have their very own rates and while the second car got away with paying 15 EUR for the 20 km trip from the port town, ours seemed to think of himself as a better driver and shamelessly charged double the amount. So much for the laws of market competition and general logics. Not that we were in the mood for making a big fuss out of it: the time being 3:30 am and having accumulated an interesting combination of seasickness, drunkenness and carsickness had turned us into right zombies really for bed on steady ground.

All too excited about our new home, I however, could not grant the zombiness enough time to fade and set off to discover the setting. Even before manage to exit the accommodation to take a good luck at it from a distance, I realise it’s not exactly the 5 star hotel I had in mind. You can think of our house as a set of merged cargo containers which have been fitted with window and doors. All together, the complex offers beds for 16 volunteers, hot water for the 5 fastest in the morning and a staggering total of 2 power sockets to accommodate everyone’s power needs. Luxury all around! :)


The volunteer accommodation - full frontal

However, my stay here is not about the softness of the mattress I sleep on or the non-existent effectiveness of the shower curtain. The Ikaria our there I have discovered has a lot to offer and the work I get to conduct at the organisation is probably one of the most exiting things I have done in recent time. More on this in the next post, so keep reading!


The terrestrial research base