One of my favourite day trips is the four-hour drive down the winding coastal road to Kaş, and then a short boat trip across the bay to the island of Kastellorizo, which the Turks call Meis. Meis is the closest Greek island to where I live, and as such is also the closest opportunity for me to take advantage of duty-free shopping and freely available pork products. Also, it’s simply a gorgeous place to visit, which is just as well because these visits are a fact of life for those of us with visa restrictions who have to leave Turkey every three months. I’ve been doing these trips quarterly for two years, and every time I visit Meis I discover something new.

The last time I took a boat to Meis it was a lovely, warm spring day and I was in an exploring mood. The tiny village where the boat docks is where most people hover and shop and eat while waiting for the boat to go back to Turkey; I’m usually among them but today I’m feeling adventurous and the weather is perfect for hiking. The boat captain tells us we have two hours before we head back. I glance up at the smallish mountain that hugs the village to the bay, and as soon as I see an alley that leads upward, I disappear between buildings to discover what’s backstage.

Even though there’s a mystery pain building up in the toes and the ball of my left foot, it still only takes me about twenty minutes to get to some level ground at the top of the first peak. This island is just a series of tiny mountains that are easily navigable on foot. At this plateau I discover several abandoned restaurants (presumably this is because the sun is out and Greeks, like most Mediterraneans, are nocturnal), a school house, and something that looks like it used to be a governmental building but now bears no signs of life.

The Greek word for “thank you” is efharisto. If I live to be a hundred I will never forget this word, because I had it indelibly burned into my brain by an English friend of mine many years ago, right before the first time I ever went to Greece. He said to me, “think of it as ‘Ed Harris toe,’ but switch the D sound for an F.” Efharisto. See? Now you’ll never forget it, either.

On my way down the other side of the mountainette, I start to encounter locals. Mediterranean people are generally chatty, which makes me nervous. I’m an introvert, and even if we include efharisto I can still count all the Greek words I know on one hand with fingers left over. So I’m hoping to avoid conversation. I realise my fears are unfounded as I pass several people who simply raise one hand up in a gesture of greeting as they continue to gaze at the ground and keep walking. This is my kind of place.

When I reach sea level again I find myself at a village marina that’s a carbon copy of the one where our boat is docked, except this village is a ghost town. There are a few work crews set up inside the shells of newly-constructed buildings, but they’re off home on their lunch breaks, and that means this marina is silent. There are no tourists, no boats, not even any residents— just a mixture of older buildings and half-built newer ones. It looks like someone has built a 1:1 model of the other marina but hasn’t gotten around to painting the figurines of the people yet. I’m alone here, and it feels great. I start to look for a place where I can sit down and rest my aching foot, which has now progressed to the throbbing stage around my toes.

I make my way down following the curve of the marina to the other side, where I had already spotted a small park with benches and the entrance to what appears to be a cemetary. Next to the cemetary is one of the smallest churches I’ve ever seen, glowing white and pristine. This must be where funerals happen. It probably doubles as a wedding chapel and a house for Sunday services as well. The front door is open, but I don’t go inside. I went to Catholic school; I’ve been in enough small churches to last me a lifetime.

When I reach the bayside park I settle down on one of benches and remove my left shoe to examine my foot. There’s some redness and swelling at the extremities, a dull pulsing ache, and a bit of itchiness. Surely these are early symptoms of Ed Harris Toe. I decide my condition is not terminal and put my shoe back on. I’m far from my starting point and I don’t want to miss the boat back to Turkey.

I walk back via a different route from the way I came, which isn’t as interesting as I thought it would be because I just end up at the same plateau with the same school house, and then back down to the old village where my fellow tourists are waiting at the same café where I left them. Everything is in slow motion, almost paused. The sun is shining, people are still, hardly anyone moves except to breathe. My interest in exploring has been overridden by the blazing sunlight, and I’m feeling lazy now. I meander back to the boat for a nap.

When I wake up I hear music and a mild commotion, and I can feel the boat is moving along the water. As I open my eyes the first thing I see is a glass of red wine being thrust at me. “Drink, Melissa?” the boat captain asks. Sure, why not. The captain has received a gift from a friend on the island, a five-litre box of Greek wine with a tap, and he’s in a sharing mood. As I look around, I see the source of the commotion— the other passengers have a three-glass headstart on me and have broken into spontaneous dancing on the deck. The radio is blaring some cheesy Turkish pop, and the whole thing looks like a Devo video as the dancers lurch and jerk trying to stay upright against the irregular bobbing of the ship against the waves. I’m not particularly in a dancing mood, and since I have to drive back to Antalya I won’t be drinking enough wine to put myself in a dancing mood. I nurse my single glass of wine and chill on my sun lounger until we arrive back in Kaş.

Emirhan greets me at the dock and welcomes me back to Turkey. I’ve always wanted to take him to Meis with me but EU visas for Turks are prohibitively expensive and difficult to get, especially when you consider that we’d only be in Greece for a few hours. Still, I look forward to the day when we can explore the island together. Meis is one of my favourite places and I’d like to share that with him. There’s so much of the island I still haven’t seen— since my last visit I’ve learned of a cave on the other side of the island that you can only get to by boat, with a secret entrance and a hidden swimming lagoon and some sort of mysterious blue luminescence. It sounds like something from a Drangonlance novel, but there are enough references to it online that I believe the place actually exists. Perhaps when I go back to Meis in the summer I’ll see if I can find a local boat to take me over there so I can check it out for myself. Meis never fails to surprise and delight me, even after two years. That’s the sign of a healthy relationship.

[photos by Taylan Sen]