Finding My Way to Ikaria
From the moment my friend Laurel described her Ikarian adventures, I knew I had to go. She said I’d love the hiking (I did), and when she started talking about how it’s in a Blue Zone, I immediately googled to find out more. Blue Zones are places where people live longer and healthier, and five have been discovered: Nicoya (Costa Rica), Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy), Loma Linda (California), and Ikaria in Greece. Each place has a unique set of circumstances and environments that have led to longer lifespans and less disease. Among the five locations, Ikaria boasts half the rate of heart disease and almost no dementia/Alzheimer’s.
One of the first articles that popped up in my research is from the New York Times in 2012, titled, “The Island Where People Forget to Die.” It tells the rather charming story of Stamatis, an Ikarian who moved to the US in 1943. In 1976, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and given nine months to live. Already in his 60s, he decided to move back to Ikaria where his funeral would be cheaper, and he could be buried in the cemetery next to his ancestors. But to his surprise, he didn’t die, instead, he got better.
The story is intriguing. What is happening on this little island off the coast of Turkey? What is making its people thrive? Why is it only this island, and not any of the others that surround it, which are a mere 30-minute ferry ride away?
After the premature death of my dad in November 2020, I started paying more attention to my own health and got interested in increasing longevity. Dementia runs in my family as well, and I wanted to see firsthand who was beating it and how. So, my whole month-long trip to Greece was all leading up to arriving in Ikaria, where I planned to carefully observe the locals for a week.
We arrived in Greece two weeks prior to visit the islands of Samos and Patmos before getting to Ikaria. All the locals I spoke to on these islands seemed equally intrigued with Ikaria, yet they had never visited it, even though it was a short ferry ride away. When they spoke about it their eyes lit up with excitement; they were encouraging, and maybe a little envious that we were headed there.
They’d mention that Ikarians are different people, who concentrate on community, and their attitudes bordered on socialism. On Samos, we met a retired lawyer who traveled there regularly to help run the elections. She described the history of isolation of the island. There are strong winds that make the ports impossible to access, so the journey to the island is routinely difficult. She said this natural, environmental boundary has caused the people of Ikaria to depend solely on each other, knowing they often couldn’t leave nor could help easily come in.
The more I read about Ikaria leading up to our arrival, the more curious I became. No one wears watches, and as a result, everyone sleeps late and often naps in the afternoon. Every village has its own winemaker who collects the grapes from neighboring gardens, makes wine, and then distributes it across the community. They are known for their particularly strong red wine, which they drink with fervor, but never to excess. During the summer there’s a series of festivals celebrating different gods, and these parties are legendary, with food, music, and dancing that stretches till 4 or 5 am.
As our lawyer friend forecasted, our journey to Ikaria was entirely unpleasant. The winds were so strong our substantial ferry bounced like a toy ship steered by an oversugared two-year-old in a bathtub. When we landed, there was a storm brewing. The horizon line was broken up with a diagonal streak of greyish-black. The port and neighboring town were eerily deserted, and I thought, is everyone napping?
Still feeling like I was about to get sick, we hopped in our rental car and began an equally harrowing journey down the tiny, crumbling roads through the mountaintops to where we were staying. The drive was only 16 miles to Magganitis, but it would take over an hour to arrive. Magganitis is a tiny fishing village with no grocery store or gas station. It has simply a church, two restaurants, and a coffee shop.
When we finally got settled at our house, a wave of anxiety washed over me. I knew Magganitis was not the obvious choice to base ourselves in, but I didn’t understand just how isolated from the rest of the island we would be. Did I pick the most remote place on an already remote island? What was I thinking?
The next morning, on our first journey out to explore another town, the locals we met asked where we were staying. When I answered, Magganitis, they’d stare back with confusion. “There’s nothing there” they’d say. Politely they’d suggest we move to Nas or Kampos where most visitors stay. But we were already locked into our Airbnb.
We went back home and attempted to “explore” our town, but it was a ghost town. We passed one person working in their garden and 15 minutes later another working on his car, but that was it. I continued to doubt my choices. We had a friend arriving to join us for the rest of the week and I didn’t want her hard-earned vacation to be a dud because I took a gamble on staying in this lonely village.
Trying to persevere, the next morning we set out again. I had a theory we were timing everything wrong. Ikarians definitely have their own rhythm, and I suspected we were out and about while they were napping. Our house was at the very top of an impossibly steep hill (more isolation) that was so vertical it felt dangerous trying to walk down it and equally difficult to go up it in our not-so-new Hyundai i10.
During our descent, the sky changed suddenly, and it started to rain. We bee-lined it to the cafe and drenched, sweaty, and disheveled we opened the door. To our surprise, the tiny shop was packed. It seemed the whole town had piled into the cafe to wait out the rain. We stood at the edge of the door awkwardly, scanning the room for a place to sit. Everyone looked up at us.
We snaked through the room to place our order and spotted a stack of plastic stools off in the corner. We sat down and attempted to integrate into the busy scene. The patrons were all 60+, and they were wildly laughing and heatedly dealing cards. Everyone was holding some form of coffee. Eventually, a gentleman seated near us leaned over and introduced himself in English. Nick had grown up in this village and like many others from the island, his first jobs were sea-related. Those jobs on ships slowly took him around the world, and he ultimately settled in Chicago to build his family and life.
We enjoyed hearing his life story and soon he introduced us to everyone who walked by our table. There was someone from Tarpon Springs, FL, Colombus, OH, and a New Jersey suburb. It turns out almost everyone there had grown up in Magganitis and moved to the US in their younger years. They returned often to their home village and were all arriving now, in June, for an extended summer stay. We looked up to see the priest entering. Nick explained that the church service next door had just concluded, and it was tradition for the congregation to migrate to the cafe for coffee. Apparently, the priest always joins in too.
After an hour people slowly started to file out, via an extensive goodbye process that peppered hugs and kisses across the room. They even stopped by our table to wish us well. As each person said goodbye to Nick, they’d instruct him to give us an umbrella or to drive us home. Everyone was concerned about how we’d get home in the rain, and that’s when it struck me. This is what the lawyer meant about the community in Ikaria. Magganitis is tightly-knit, and by staying there, we were automatically accepted into the fold.
This moment, in the cafe, three days into our week on Ikaria is when our trip actually began. Up until meeting Nick, we were on the island but not in it. Those crumbling roads force you to drive slowly. The woods are dense and their paths are overgrown. The exterior isn’t welcoming, and I learned quickly, that Ikaira is not an easy place.
Instead, it requires you to work for it.
I’ll be continuing next time with more of what I learned from Nick and from my time on the island…
Today is: the day the heat wave broke in Portland, OR
It’s been a miserable few days in Portland with temps surging up to 108. Luckily we are staying in a friend’s basement apartment which has shielded us from most of it. I’m ready to get back out into the Pacific NW, and its typical 80-degree summer days. At least the heat forced me to find some water to submerge myself in every single day of the heatwave.