I Visited a Greek Island Which I Was Sworn to Keep Secret

You’re invited to an island in Greece whose name you’re not allowed to mention. At first, you think it’s cute, like, “Oh for sure, for sure, American tourists ruin everything. I’ll totally gatekeep this one,” but you soon realize it’s not a joke. “The second Travel + Leisure learns about this place, it’s going to be ruined.” You’re told it’s like the real life version of the island in Mamma Mia and the opposite of Mykonos or Santorini. You get on a plane without any idea of what you’re going to be doing once you get there. You haven’t made a single reservation. The only pin of your GoogleMaps is the name of the hotel, which is owned by someone who is a cousin of the friend who invited you, probably. You come to realize that everyone on the island is a cousin of the friend who invited you, probably. 

You change planes in Athens and you take the last flight of the day out to this island whose name you’re not allowed to mention. Your friend picks you up at the airport holding an iPhone with your initials “akb” written in the brat font against a lime green background. You drive to your hotel in the dark so you can’t see the Aegean, but you can hear the waves so you know it’ll be there in the morning when you wake up. You see a sliver of light poking through the curtains so you know that you’ve survived the first night of jetlag and when you pull them open, you’re greeted by a big red sun and a giant rock jutting up through the dark blue waters, and white painted rooftops, and olive trees ,and the sound of a baby crying, which you learn isn’t a baby, but a distant goat. 

You order a Fredo espresso, which is a shot of espresso that’s whipped until frothed and poured over ice and you know you’ll order about forty more in the next ten days. You are driven to a cliff where the car can only go so far, so you get out and walk down a somewhat treacherous path where you immediately realize your choice of flip flops may have been a mistake. You’re led around a bend in the cliff and your eyes fall upon a magical and completely uninhabited cove. The beach is made up of smooth grey pebbles that give way to soft sand and water so clear and aquamarine-colored that it looks like a swimming pool. But it’s not a swimming pool because pools are cold and you’re always a wimp and take forever to wade in, but this water is honestly warm and wasn’t made for wading into, but for charging. You charge in up to your waist and you look back and the shore is somehow a mile away, but the water hasn’t gotten any deeper or colder. You swim for about an hour and don’t get tired because the water is so salty that you can always just take a break and float on your back. And it’s while you’re floating, looking up at the cloudless sky and the rock cliff shore and the smile on your husband’s face and your old friends and new friends, all floating and smiling, that you finally get it —why this island is an island in Greece whose name you’re not allowed to mention.

You eat at a restaurant owned by your friend’s cousin, (this time, you’re sure of it), and you don’t have to order, in fact, you never have to order or so much as look at a menu this entire trip, plates just appear family style — fresh tomatoes and feta with barley rusks and so much lemon juice, and octopus and radikia and whole fresh fish and moussaka and pastitsio and dry white wine served in copper pitchers and tzatziki so garlicky your breath could curl the ends of the paper tablecloth. 

You crash the engagement party of a local couple, but realize it’s not really crashing because everyone in the village is invited. Even though you have a stomach ache from eating so much, you take fistfuls of phyllo desserts from trays carried by yia yias and theias at their insistence. You drink shots of mysterious liquids poured from two-liter Sprite bottles. You watch in amazement as the DJ switches from Greek pop to traditional music and the engaged man, who, swear to God, is named Heracles, begins a line dance. You’ve taken so many shots that before you know it, you’ve found yourself holding hands with your friend, having joined in the chain of guests, struggling to learn the twelve-count line step. You laugh because it’s hilarious and thrilling and you can’t quite grasp the decisions in your life that have led you to this exact moment, crashing these stranger’s engagement party in a village on an island whose name you’re not allowed to mention.

You drive down a canyon to what is now the most beautiful beach you’ve ever seen, more beautiful than the one you went to yesterday, but perhaps not as beautiful as the one you’ll go to tomorrow. You nap under an umbrella that looks like a New York Sabrett’s hot dog cart umbrella. You snorkel in crystal clear water and jump off of giant rocks and create an underwater code with your friends for when you spot a lion fish, invasive to Greece, but still really cool to see. You learn to spit in your face mask so it doesn’t fog up. 

Your friend John, an Athenian, tells you that in the states, you eat until you’re full; in Greece you eat until you hate yourself. You live by this mantra for the next ten days. You hike across rocks and break your flip flops. You get a weird sunburn in the place where you were carrying your bag. You take way too many pictures. You almost get peer-pressured to ditch your Speedo and go skinny dipping on an empty beach, but you chicken out at the last second. You swim to a hidden cave which leads to a grotto, which must be a place where Greek teenagers absolutely make terrible decisions. You convince yourself that you’ve tread enough water to burn off the lobster pasta from the night before. 

You watch sunsets while sipping spitzes with names that you can’t include because it would betray the secret of the island. You go grocery shopping with friends of friends, one of whom was a contestant on Top Chef and later invites you over to cook with her and her friends at a backyard barbecue. You try to pass off an Alison Roman recipe as your own, but chicken out and admit it’s really adapted from a weeknight dinner you make at home. You learn a Greek drinking song, or rather, you don’t actually learn any of the words, but you learn the actions which include chugging half your drink, tapping it on the ground, chugging the rest then kissing the bottom of the cup.

You swear you’re going to get sick of Greek food at some point, but instead you just bide time until you can feast on another plate of keftetes, or makarounes, or orange pie. You drive on a windy road at sunset and you introduce your Greek friends to Chappell Roan and in turn, they introduce you to Kalomira who as far as you can tell is Greece’s Kylie Minogue. You feed crusts of bread to goats through a fence until one of the goats gets too excited and hops the fence and you die of embarrassment watching as an old man has to usher him back in. You make friends with at least fifteen different island cats and threaten your husband with smuggling one of them back home in your carryon. You swear you’re never going to do a Jägerbomb from the unofficial village gay bar, but as soon as a tray of them arrive, you give in and raise it, cheering “Yamas!” You drink Ouzo even though you say you’ve always hated the taste, but somehow this time, it’s delicious and perfect for sipping in between courses. 

You jump when a batch fireworks gets inexplicably set off next to you, but delight in watching them explode overhead. You know there’s a high stakes election going on back home, but you decide to unplug and when, in a moment of weakness, you dip back in, it only takes you a minute or two to catch up. You admire your tanline in the hotel mirror. You stand under a full moon on your final night with your new friends and say, “I know it’s soon, but I love you. Can we please stay friends when we go back home?” You stuff yourself with a Greek feast one final time, making a mental grocery list of healthy foods you’re going buy as soon as you get home. You make plans with your husband to come again next year, praying simultaneously that you have a job this time next August, but don’t have one so you can return again. You edit photos on your laptop on the flight home, disappointed that you were not even close to capturing the beauty of the place and struggle to write a blog post describing an island in Greece whose name you’re not allowed to mention.