Security Screening Kalymnos Style

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It’s an early start as we make our way back to Athens where we’ll be staying overnight before beginning the long haul back towards Oz.

As far as we can tell there are hardly any flat pieces of land anywhere on Kalymnos. We’re flying to Athens which has got us a bit curious about where they might have managed to build the island’s airport. But no problem there it seems, they’ve just cut the side out of the top of one of the hills. We’re not used to getting stunning views from airports, but that’s exactly what we’ve got here. We must be up on one of the highest points on the island and we’ve got an excellent panorama down over the port and across towards the southern coast. The sunrise is spectacular. Now we’ve just got to hope the pilot doesn’t overshoot the end of the runway.

It seems we’re on the first flight out for the day. The lady behind the counter tells us that she can’t check anyone in yet; she has to wait for the police to get here, and it seems they’ve slept in. And what a sterling job they do with the security screening when they do finally arrive. It seems the machine they use to scan the hand luggage isn’t working, but no problem there. We put our carry-on on the ground, walk through the people scanner without it, and then go back, pick it up, and walk through again. And what happens if the machine beeps? Well they ask us whether we’re carrying any sharp objects … or bombs, or machine guns, and take our word for the answer - no searches required. The one thing they seem more interested in than explosives is medication - are we carrying any, and if so whether we’ve got a letter of authorisation from our doctor? I know customs officials sometimes get a bit twitchy about people bringing medication into countries, but we’re leaving, and anyway it’s an internal flight. It is very early in the morning, so maybe things will improve after police guys have had their coffees.

We arrive in Athens and stand in a queue to catch a taxi. We quickly find ourselves with front row seats to an all in verbal barney between an extremely angry taxi driver and … well a whole range of other people …. passengers, other taxi drivers, and even some uniformed officials. It’s all in Greek, so we’ve got no idea what the whole thing‘s about. Whatever it is we’re now feeling very sorry for whoever happen to be angry taxi driver’s next passengers. He’s ranting and raving at full volume, waving his arms erratically at anyone in his general vicinity, and generally sounding a bit unhinged. Uh oh. Who are his next passengers? Well that would be us. He calms down slightly and tells us that he’s been waiting out here in a queue with other taxi drivers for several hours. The passenger in line for the taxi in the queue in front of him was only going a short distance, and the driver refused to take her. He then tried to palm her off onto our guy, who was understandably not particularly impressed.

If this is how he drives when he’s calmed down, pity help anyone who’s unlucky enough to be in here when he’s a bit fired up. He tells us that one of his Greek friends is a famous university professor in Melbourne. He says he’s lost touch with him, and wonders whether we might be able to track him down for him when we get back home. I’ve got no idea how he thinks we’re going to do this. But that’s not the major issue right now. Our man thinks it might help our efforts if he Googles him to show us what he looks like, which would probably be fine if he wasn’t doing it while we’re tearing along a busy freeway at a hundred kilometres per hour. It’s feeling like it’s been a long day, but a quick check confirms it’s not yet 9am.

It’s a bit early to check into our hotel so we head out into the Plaka District in search of breakfast. We’d always suspected it was a small world, and so it seems. We pick one of the hundreds of eateries here, and who’s sitting a couple of tables away, well that would be gentleman Bill, one of the Rembrandts we’ve been touring the islands with for the past three weeks. We chat with him over a very pleasant early morning meal.
We rest up and then head out for a pleasant early evening stroll around the Plaka. It’s noticeably cooler here than it was down south in the islands. And what better way to celebrate our final European dinner than with a Greek feast of taramasalata and moussaka.

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