Koufounisi

The events described are based on true events, but some names of the persons appearing in it have been changed.

Saturday, 2.September

Christmas’ Birthday

• All of us crying, we need to leave Amorgos
• Get up super early, Johannes: “That was the worst day of my life”
• Bus at 11:15 to Chora, brunch at usual place (but not Frou Frou, sniff)
• Baptism in church next to us, Johannes type – lady in leoprint dress, Johannes: “I’m not here guys” (and wishes he wouldn’t be with us)
• Relaxed breakfast, suddenly: “We need to get a bus!” ah no, second thoughts, we take Taxi
• To ferry terminal in Katapola, find post box, post postcards, ferry to Koufounisi, 30 minutes fast boat (I wouldn’t have needed to bring lunch for 10 people), Katamaran, huge one

• Arrival: check in and relax in appartements
• Others go to beach, while I read book on our HUGE terrace =)
• Dinner in special place: in honour of Christmas’ birthday, Johannes with white shirt, looks like our captain
• first we go visit windmill: there is a hotel inside, Marco fascinated (“Did you know there was a hotel inside?!”, “Oh, really, Marco?”), looks it up, 400Euros per night
• dinner restaurant: place close to sea, “very nice” (Ron, of course), on menu we find curious thing, something called “Beer free alcohol”
• cheering to Christmas, who gets Moussaka birthday cake “25” (she is for several years already turning 25)

• desert from house: Baobun “It’s like eating floral tea”, #appreciationofgreekfood
• move to bar close to sea, nice vibes, but not same as Amorgos, cocktails, only Johannes drinking Rum, music not as nice as in festival
• all of us a bit tired, home, bed, meanwhile wedding happening in town

Sunday, 3. September

Desperate times call for desperate measures

• wake up at 1500 as usual
• others already at beach, Fonas, Devil’s Eye
• Johannes and Matthäus join them, while I go on hunt for nice breakfast place (we need to establish our places on this island), after 2 tries is successful: finds one that reminds of Frou Frou, old men watching random sports on TV, very nice pancakes, cozy
• After two Freddo Espressos feels a bit more alive, starts walk towards Fanos beach
• Whole island consists of nothing but beaches
• So small that walk around it can be done in 2 hours
• Marie reaches Fanos, many people there but not the others
• Finds them finally in (what Johannes tells us is) Devil’s Eye, pool (natural) in sea
• Walk continues, very picturesque
• Reach cliff – super windy, wedding couple here taking pictures, hair in disarray, Marco and Johannes do their best to appear on picture

• Walk back – Direttissima to town
• Get ready for dinner
• Dinner in recommended place (by new friends the others made), us not very convinced by food, but without Johannes we ordered all the “wrong”/ unsafe dishes (Tuna Caviar, Cerviche, Octopus salad)
• Marco: “The Moussaka has way too much bechamel”, Johannes: “What do you expect? It’s a fish place.”
• After Johannes appears, food indeed gets better
• Baobun freezing in wind, it is quite windy, a storm is coming
• Move on to find bar that is still open, first: long discussions about politics and democracy, discussion between academics
• Hard task to find bar still open, most places have Duba Duba music (as Johannes Mum would call it)
• Finally we find very nice bar right next to brunch place
• Beers and cocktails (named after famous movies), Marco: “Oh, ‘Requiem for a dream’, that sounds nice”, Ron: “very nice” and it arrives – with a syringe
• Tom orders ‘Pirates of the Caribbean”-  it’s on fire, I am excited, order one as well – disappointment as it arrives and is not on fire
• We stay until they close, which shockingly is at 3!
• Johannes and Marie still motivated, others to bed, we in search for an open bar (Again), unsuccessful, find only open place on the entire island, which serves Crepes
• Ask there and get confirmation “Yes, everything is closed”
• Desperate times call for desperate measures, so we get beer in Crepes place, Johannes “Mythos beer”, move to beach, there is no one and no music, nothing, Johannes: “Bars are closed and the only lights that come are from the cars”
• Us crying over missing Amorgos
• The word ‘boring’ used excessively
• Handshake  to agree on climbing plans at some point between April 2024 and July 2024 in Kalymnos and Amorgos
• I start telling Johannes a very long story about ‘Catcher in the Rye’, the book, but when I come to the end I completely forget why I told him about it in the first place – confusion “Focus, Marie!”
• At 4:33 we get stressed because Crepes place closes at 5h
• Quickly back, they kindly still give us Crepes
• Full from Crepes we walk home, sad story all in all

Monday, 4.September

Very good price for the calamari

• Breakfast at 15h at Opsianos (the place from yesterday, established by now)
• This time with Johannes and Matthäus, the others are already at beach
• Finally I remember why ‘Catcher in the Rye’, because the main person in it keeps saying “It kills me” and it killed me yesterday when I overheard a guy saying “Oh my god, I could not sleep because of the wedding – it was so loud!”

• Tom asks Johannes to sort out the bill from yesterday’s dinner (it is still not sorted out up until today – and it was 10 days ago), since yesterday we have a new billing system- fish (which is more expensive) is only split between those eating fish, result: complications in calculations, Johannes exasperated
• We find something interesting in receipt, the “Fried Kalamari” (and a huge piece at that) cost 0.55 Euros, very good price
• We move on to next bar/ café, Johannes remembers ‘Jezz’ from his last visit to Koufounisi, Jezz however is uninvitingly empty, but next to it Mylos, and next to that, the second windmill
• We saw one during our hike yesterday and I was convinced it was the hotel windmill, Johannes: “but there was a church next to it”, me: “Don’t you see the church? It’s right there!”
• Now: Johannes: “the church is right there, you see it?” (of course there is no church anywhere)
• This windmill instead comes with a bar with a very nice view over the ocean and on Kato Koufounisi, a small neighbouring island
• We sit in the best place, a round table directly at the edge with comfortable chairs, problem: wind, Johannes: “Well, you cannot have everything”
• Original plan of playing cards is not working here
• We move to a more wind protected table and teach Johannes how to play Skat, his new favourite game (not), he looks mostly very lost, looks as if fish calculations have used all his brain capacity for today

• Still nice sitting here, sipping coffee, looking at the sea, chilled and relaxed
• I have a look inside the windmill, in which they put a shop, which is nice because it enables one to walk around the entire windmill and look at it in all peace, even upstairs there is an area, where there are clothes and one can see the mechanism
• Buy espresso cup for Mum
• Others join us, we drink a beer and very relaxed still

• Marco is immediately disappointed by place, he wants us to move two tables together so that we all sit together, waitress doesn’t allow it – Trauma
• Back to appartements
• Dinner at meat place: famous for their grilled/ barbequed food, run by family, you need to know where you are going otherwise no chance of finding it
• Us cheering with water “Yamas!”, Johannes shocked, then he does the same, Marie: “I’m shocked”, Johannes: “I was just checking on you”, waiter (who in this moment passes): “Excuse me?”
• Nice food, meat meat meat, no fish, no discussion
• Desert in town – ice cream and Loukoumades
• Yesterday: us on hunt for a bar that the others got recommended, very remote, today we search for it again, find it, super nice, but we are the only guests (and no wonder that, it is in the middle of nowhere), cocktails are very nice, view of town
• Generous (free Mekila- some local liquor made from cactus fruit- shots) and friendly waitress
• Afterwards: home sweet home
• Johannes: “I’ll go for a walk”, Marco joins, Matthäus and me as well, walk ends in bar, Johannes becomes very friendly and chatty with waiters and guy who runs bar
• One of them is the brother of the major of the island (of course), says: “Koufounisi is still trying to find its identity”
• Yes we noticed, funny mixture of people, some arrive with fancy yachts, most wear fancy clothes, some run around in hiking and sport clothes (who, but who?), overall seems to attract more the fancy type of tourists – that’s the purpose, the camping was closed some years ago
• Night ends in Crepes place (our new bakery), we eat very nice Chicken McNugget Crepes

Tuesday, 5.September

• Breakfast at Opsidiados at 1230 (super early), Johannes and me having trouble getting up, but manage in the end
• For first time manage to order eggs, which they only serve until 1430 (for some weird reason that remains a mystery to us)
• Last day of Ron and Baobun on island, before they move back to Athens to visit the Imagine Dragons concert
• We take small boat to other side of island

• Try to find caves there
• Nice path: Tom and I: “mmmh, should we wait here, so that they can check it out?”
• Nice path ends in steep cliff on one side and vertical rock on other
• Adventurous walk, no caves found
• still very nice landscape, problem: hard to get into the water (and especially out)
• we turn, walk back to other side, cliffs there, but also no cave in sight
• finally decide to walk to caves that we saw from boat, don’t find these either

• finally we find nice bay, where Matthäus and I decide to jump in, others still looking for caves
• our local finally finds them, we go for a swim and then go to what Johannes sold us as ‘Devil’s Eye’, a very nice pool, which is only connected to the sea through a small opening and therefore also very calm
• jump in!
• super chill, guys from Alicante also jump in, we talk about how it would be nice to have goggles to dive through opening into the open sea
• after we join others at other place, jump in there as well, very nice swim at caves, nice but short because Ron and Baobun have a ferry to catch
• getting out is somewhat of a challenge, I like it – it’s like water bouldering
• only drawback: thanks to very sharp edges, bruises all over
• walk further to next boat stop, take boat from there
• meet Ron and Baobun in burger place next to Loukoumades and Matthäus and I finally take the opportunity to get the sweet Greek desert
• others get burgers  (Johannes: “burgers! On a Greek island!”)
• bring them to ferry (which is very punctual), wave goodbye

• back to appartement, others not hungry anymore
• Johannes, Matthäus and I decide to go for fish restaurant at 2130/ 2200,
• At 2130 Johannes, who has moved appartement, contacts us via balcony “I’m lazy, can we go at 10?”
• Marie happy about chill out time
• Go to fish tavern (Ouzerie), right next to water, sitting as close next to water as it can get, amazing already location wise, getting even better fish wise – sooo good fish (njamnjamnjam), all of us in blissful happiness
• Ouzo, goes well with fish indeed (that’s where the name ‘Ouzerie’ comes from)
• I throw some remains of shrimps into water, to see fish fight like crazy over those, many small silver fishes and we even see a crab
• Johannes writes in group “Marie is feeding the fish”, Matthäus: “Do you know that this can be interpreted in multiple ways?”
• We order Red Snapper, very nice fish!
• Order desert: Mussels in olive oil, lemon and mustard sauce (one of the best mussels I ever had)
• We drank Ouzo for the same value as the fancy fish (30 Euros), Johannes: “Oh, oh, we will feel it when we get up”
• Walk through town, others are at Rastoni (remote bar from yesterday), and we decide to join them there, drink one cocktail in deck chairs, Mekila shot wakes everyone a bit up
• Marco suggests renting sailing boat for next day, drawback: it only comes with Skipper and for 1000 Euros, other drawback: it starts at 930
• We decide for both reasons against
• Move back and loose Marco and Christmas at the appartement
• Tom is being kicked out of the room, but still has stuff inside (makes him a little unhappy)
• The four of us (Simon left us on the way to Koufounisi) move out again in search of open bars
• Our favourite place closed, have to do with Duba Duba
• Get drinks there, soon they close also, after police comes and tells them to turn down music
• Obligatory end of evening in Crepes place, Tom discovers to his horror Chicken McNugget Crepes
• Johannes introduces us to Greek Sandwich, Tom: “Ah, it’s a panini” (and indeed it has astonishing similarities as it is eaten warm filled with ham, cheese and veggies)
• One last beer, good night!

Wednesday, 6.September

Teaching a Greek to play Schafkopf

• Breakfast at our usual hour at Opsidianos (especially after Marco and Christmas tried another place and where not convinced)
• Tom and Johannes learn how to play Schafkopf, Tom likes it a lot, Johannes less
• Plan is to change ferry, we wait with conducting change until Marco and Christmas are back, they took a boat to Kato Koufounisi
• They arrive at 20h (Johannes a bit nervous because tickets can be changed until 22h), we walk to office, change is done, we all take ferry tomorrow at 1445, speed boat arrives at 19h in Piraeus (5h instead of 9h, so that’s nice)
• Meanwhile: Ron and Baobun in rainy Athens at Imagine Dragons concert, (everytime I say “Imagine..” Johannes keeps replying with “…dragons”) tell us later that everything around the concert was crazy, but concert was super nice, so all good

• Dinner at Captain Nikolas, where we were on our first night in Koufounisi, very nice food, relaxed, nice all in all, we accidently order table for 8 (oooh, we miss you, guys!)
• All move to Narvaggio (the very nice bar next to the brunch place), first Marco and I get some ice cream, super relaxed, nice drinks
• Marco, Tom, Matthäus and I play Schafkopf, Johannes almost asleep, Christmas moves home
• Narvaggio closes (this again), Matthäus goes home
• Crepes place of course, we astonishingly convince Johannes to play a round of Schafkopf with us, one more beer, try Sandwich/ Panini, very nice, cannot convince Tom to eat Crepes with Chicken McNugget, eat Crepes with chocolate instead
• Very nice last evening