Monday, October 27, 2025

Analeia Hotel

Jordan and I landed in Kos yesterday and from the tiny airport we took a harrowing 17 euro cab right ten minutes to the Mastihari port. Our driver went 120 km/hr in a 50 zone! We held hands. It was already pretty dark when we arrived, because today was EU daylight savings and we gained an hour. At the port, we faffed around trying to get on a ferry, but none were leaving for a few hours so we had drinks and snacks with the rest of the “waiters” at a restaurant on the port featuring lots of cats. The ferry ride was 10 euros, 30 minutes, and smooth sailing.

Kalymnos was much more charming in person than in the photos we’d seen, even in the dark. The castle on the hill, churches, and cute lit up houses greeted us at the port. We walked to get our little Suzuki rental car in teal blue and only got lost down a teeny tiny dead end street once on the way to Masouri and our hotel.

The island is more treed and inhabited than we first expected – something that bodes true every time we’re in Europe but we never remember. Our hotel is a bit north of Masouri in “Elena Village,” and has a tiered set up with a private balcony and a crazy view of the island across the way called Telendos.

This morning we had a pretty but blustery continental breakfast on the roof of the hotel, followed by about five hours of climbing at Kastelli – ruins of a castle at the top of a huge mound of earth jutting out into the sea. We had to be careful where to park our car so the goats don’t get on top of it to eat the leaves off of the trees! We climbed seven fun pitches from 4c-6a+. I led a 5a and brutally tore my fingers up on the 6a climbs. It was a crowded crag because it had a lot of moderate routes, and was full of many German climbers, a nice older Australian couple called Bill and Tish, and a ton of little kids speaking German to us and crying for their climbing mommies, which we found quite cute and funny. Tish, a lady in her 70s, told us how she swam to Telendos (maybe a mile away) with a boat nearby for help! We were really pleased with the grades we climbed but right now are limited by excruciating pain in the finger skin.

We relaxed at the hotel pool and had incredible strawberry daiquiris – it was a little windy and the water was a little too cold to swim, though. After, we walked around town browsing the climbing shops and ate dinner at the Aegean Tavern – featuring more cats. We stopped for a drink on the way home and overheard a group of climbers bragging about hard climbing grades and harder drugs…some things are universal.