Folegandros Wishes You Were Here

Folegandros Wishes You Were Here

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I look up to the scene before me. Wedged in between two rocky hills with no sign of any sort of life, for a moment, I wonder if I just stepped into Folegandros' past. The island in the southern Cyclades is often associated with the words remote, rocky and isolated. Since Roman days, Folegandros served as a place of exile for political prisoners. In fact, up until the 1970s, those who had ruffled the feathers of the powerful were plopped down in Folegandros' nothingness.

With few sights to see, the 13 kilometer long and 4 kilometer wide rock in the southern Cyclades is mostly for those who want to get away from it all, an idea ingrained into Folegandros' history. From its main town of Hora perched up on a cliff, I made the climb down to the port, Karavostasis to retrieve my rented wheels. With one taxi on the island and a bus running as infrequently as one in the middle of nowhere, my only option was to walk. All that was missing was some Roman tyrant prodding me along the road. Once the rocks parted and a few blisters later, I spot a welcome sight, an indication that there might be a way out of here, the sea.

Naturally the warm man, the owner of a few tables and chairs, wasn't from this land. He hailed from Athens. Most of those I encountered on the island had a strange way, an abrupt shyness perhaps tied to their grueling history as the ultimate destination for isolation. Maybe their descendants didn't want to be here and they still share the same sentiment. I forked over my euros once my credit card was treated as though I just handed someone leprosy in plastic form and started the engine to explore all 13 kilometers in length and 4 kilometers in width of this unwelcome rock in the Cyclades.

Folegandros is often defined as being hard to reach, lending a tourist like me beaches without hordes of baking tomatoes alongside me. In between Sikinos and Milos, you can reach the island through connections by way of Santorini. Already feeling isolated and cut off from civilization, I head down a steep rocky sidewalk of a road to see just how much more disconnected one could be on this Greek island.