Pebbles, thoughts and raindrops

At first I thought I had just fallen into a dream, just like Alice through the rabbit hole. It looked surreal, almost as if it had belonged to Atlantis itself and its ghost had risen to the surface to taunt me and paralyze my eyes. Yes, my eyes were paralyzed with beauty, striving to take in as much as possible before the mirage disappeared. Only it didn’t disappear.

The day I woke up to see the most beautiful place I had ever seen in my life started like a typical, lazy vacation day. I was in Thassos and got used to the routine of waking up in the morning, drinking my usual coffee with milk and then going to the beach. I would sit all day long on the beach, reading, enjoying a particular sort of intellectual laziness.

But the explorer within me was restless. So, instead of going to the beach, I grabbed my backpack and decided I would venture into the lush green mountains of Thassos.

As I was walking through the forest, my nostrils vibrating with the sweet minty smell of trees, I saw an unusual patch of blue above the trees. It wasn’t the sky. It was the colour of turquoise gems, shining so bright in the sunlight that it almost blinded my eyes. I immediately became intrigued and decided to follow that turquoise glimpse and see where it would take me.

After I had climbed down a steep path, I finally saw it! There was this tiny beach the colour of white pearls shining in the sun. The sea had managed to dig its way into the marble mountain and form a little gulf. Everywhere I looked there were tiny grains of immaculate white marble. Instead of sand, I could see grains of marble on the bottom of the water, giving the sea its raw, exquisite turquoise colour.

I don’t remember how much I sat there. It must have been hours, but it felt like seconds. When beauty strikes you with the force of a hurricane, time becomes irrelevant. It stops and you can encompass the past, the present and the future at the same time in your mind because nothing else matters, except for the pure perfection lying at your feet. Humans aren’t built for perfection. But in rare moments, we get access to it, just like looking through the keyhole of a miraculous universe that unravels in front of us.

If I close my eyes now, I can still see it; still see every grain of marble, feel the hot, salty wind on my face and smell the scent of a hidden turquoise sea. And this is the most precious travel treasure I can possibly have: the memory of a perfect place in a perfect summer day.