Off the Couch and On the Road

One final ferry trip back to Athens and our island hopping days were over. We each did our own thing for the afternoon – last minute sightseeing, internet, packing – and caught up for farewell dinner and drinks that evening (after walking for miles to find a bar, Ios it was not).

The following day was my only full day in Athens, so I woke early and walked. And walked. I saw all the main sites in the city and decided that Athens was wonderful despite the concrete and less-than-perfect scenery. The Acropolis, encompassing the Parthenon, Temple of Athena Nike (she of hot shoes), and Erechtheion were claustophobic if anything to see, people were crammed in like, um, european tourists at the Parthenon in the heat, which wasn’t pleasant.

But it was interesting. Something you have to see even if you’re not overly impressed once you see it. A lot of the site was being reconstructed to rectify ‘earlier mistakes’ of reconstructions of the past, so it didn’t exactly look as pristine and tourist free as the postcards, but it did make me wonder. How do they know the previous reconstructions over the past few hundred years were incorrect? What if they keep pulling it apart and putting it back together forever? Will it resemble chinese whispers and eventually look nothing like the original ever did? And who would know otherwise?

Anyway, Athens was well worth exploring and I had my last Gyros (I could eat them forever, Greek food rocks), before settling into my hotel room with, like, my roommate who like, was, like, totally 18 and was, ohmygod so excited about her, like, island hopping tour.

Bless.

-Sarah

Ios was the party island, so we were told. ‘Don’t waste your energy, save it for Ios,’ Renee kept saying. And it was completely true, because there was literally nothing else on the island except for a ghost town of pubs and bars that only awoke after sunset, and an exquisite beach filled with hungover tourists (Australians, I should say) collapsed on sunbeds scattered down the coastline.

It was a bit creepy, the streets being so empty during the day with nothing open, but our accomodation was at Far Out Village and Camping right on the beach, with pools, cafeterias, bars and music pumping all day, so there was never a real need to leave. Our first day we chilled out by the pool and beach before preparing for our pub crawl that night (preparation consisted of 3 euro cocktails, in case you were wondering).

We went to about four or five different bars, including the ‘Red Bull’ bar and ‘Flames’, with Renee scoring us more free shots every few hours. At the ‘Fun Pub’, the bartener even lined us up and poured tequila and lime juice into our mouths as we lay our heads back on the bar. Man, it was the party island.

Greeks freepour the shots, one drink would have about 4 shots in it, so we didn’t need to spend a fortune which was great. We danced the night away to great music (they played ‘Ice Ice Baby’ and ‘Like a Prayer’, what more can I say) and I stumbled home, via the best bakery in the world (and it’s not because I was drunk, it really was the best bakery in the world) at about 4.30am, leaving thousands of others still partying in the bars and on the streets until everything shut just after sunrise.

The following morning, Aileen and I, who shared a bungalow, complained about ants in the beds and mosquitos in our room, which were attacking us like we had discovered the recipe for erradicating bugs that could never be made if we were declared insane from itching, and got upgraded to the Far Out Hotel and Spa on the other side of the beach.

We were expecting to get transferred to the village accomodation (we were on the camping grounds) and so were unbelievably stoked when our driver pulled up outside a four-star hotel. Karma rocks, I tell you.

We had our own bathroom, blacony and pool noone else was using except for some greek boys and ourselves, and a pool bar. We could even squint and imagine seeing all our friends sweating it out on the crowded beach below. We were spoilt. So I didn’t leave all day, only heading back to the village for dinner and a showing of ‘Wedding Crashers’ before a good sleep in my luxurious bed.

Some of the others went clubbing again that night but I preferred to read and chill out instead, catching up on sleep before our trip back to Athens (sob) the following day.

-Sarah

Wow. It was my first thought as our ferry pulled up at the Santorini port after a 3hr trip from Paros.

The mountain cliffs loomed high above us and there looked like some great hiking tracks up to the top. We took our bus into Fira Town, past cubed whitewashed buildings overlooking the ocean, and took a lazy walk through the shopping village before dinner.

The shops were amazing handmade jewellery boutiques and art galleries, and the views of the ocean, sprinkled with volcanic islands, were simply breathtaking. Our dinner was so lovely, what with the view and great food and wine, that we decided to wash it down with dessert from the patisserie down the street. We had walked past it earlier and it was heaven, dozens of different handmade cakes, pastries and chocolates, making it impossible to choose just one.

Just as we were about to walk in however, the entire island had a blackout. Like, the entire island. Shopkeepers, bars, restaurants and homes all immersed into complete darkness. What was so amazing is that they all brought out candles and lit them on their white stone walls, so the entire island looked like Neverland filled with tiny fairies. It was beautiful.

The only place that had a decent amount of light was the Aussie bar (the Greek island are entirely filled with Australians, I’m not exaggerating. People don’t even bother asking where you’re from, it’s just ‘Sydney or Melbourne?’) so we had a drink and waited for the lights to come back on before sprinting back to the patisserie for dessert. We were sprinting because they looked so good, not because we suddenly felt the need for exercise, although I am sure it didn’t hurt.

The following morning, I decided to actually do some official sightseeing, and joined the Volcano excursion, which took us on a sailing ride to the island made of Volcanic rock (don’t ask me what it’s called, translated, I’m sure it means ‘Island of Volcanic rock’, so let’s just stick with that) where we walked up to the top and looked down into massive craters created quite recently (I think the last erruption was 1950). If you scraped dirt aside on the track, you actually saw steam rise, and the ground was boiling hot in places to the touch.

After boarding our boat again, we sailed another 15 minutes to hot springs, where we jumped off the boat into the ocean and sawm around to the hot springs protected by the surrounding rocks, where the water was a good 10 degrees warmer. We swam and covered ourselves in the orange mud before swimming back into the ocean towards the boat and the ride home.

It was just a great morning and an experience that was so much more unique than laying on a beach. My afternoon was spent looking around town before the group all met up at 6pm for our sunset picnic at Oia (pronounced ee-ah).

Oia is the place all the ‘white buildings overlooking the ocean’ photos of Greece you see are from, so you can imagine how perfect it was. Renee, our leader, stocked up on food and we walked through Oia town to the old fortress to set up a good spot to watch the sunset before the tourist rush arived.

We had a delicious dinner – Greek salad, cold meats, tatziki, olives, vine leaves, cheese and wine – which was looked upon enviously by the hundreds of other tourists, and the Contiki group who brought 4 cases of alcohol and no food.

The sunset was amazing – and it’s funny how something so simple can go by so unappreciated every day. Where am I every other sunset? But the lesson was well worth the price, and my only regret is not choosing to stay in Santorini for at least a week.

My last though of Santorini as we pulled out of the port the following morning? Wow.

-Sarah

After a lazy morning we had a quick 40 minute transfer from Mykonos to Paros the following day, having said goodbye to a few travelling companions who would be staying longer (and who would get to go to the Paradise Pool Party on Friday night, damn it) and welcoming a few who were joining our group.

Paros was much less hectic that Mykonos, more a quiet fishing village than a party island. We enjoyed a nice dinner next to the beach before having an early night. Almost all my group hired quad bikes to discover the tiny villages scattered throughout the island the following day. Personally I don’t believe Greece has ever found the need for any road rules, so felt safer walking through the streets of Parikia and catching the public bus through the rocky, hilly landscape to Naoussa.

Both towns were small and quaint, and I spent the day walking, window shopping and just chilling out which was nice. The whitewashed walls, blue shutters, azure sky and brilliant bouganvillias deserved a million photos, but I held myself back. I think my family are still going through the ‘amazing moutain’ shots of Nepal, so I’m taking a wild guess and thinking shots of random white buildings are probably not appreciated. But I took a few anyway. Just in case.

-Sarah

I landed in Patras one stiff neck and two tired eyes later at 4.30 in the morning, and with some difficulty managed to find the bus station to travel to Athens when most were just waking.

Athens is so different to every other city I have been to so far – wide streets, concrete everything and advertising covering every surface – that the only place I could vaguely compare it to is inner-city Sydney.

The streets however, have no names, and twist and wind as though they never want to be found, and the traffic follows a Darwinian law that could only compete with Thailand (although the Thai’s score points for precision driving, hands down).

I caught a bus to my hostel, purposely missed the stop when I saw the neighbourhood it was located in, and caught the metro to the hotel I would meet my group at the following morning instead. A few euros more for a room to myself was worth any amount of scrimping later (although I seem to be saying that a lot, I don’t think I’m very good at this budget backpacking business).

My island hopping group was a young, mostly Australian (including our leader, Renee) bunch who were all really lovely and fun. We travelled by bus to the port very early the next morning, in the rain, and endured a 6 hour ferry trip to the island of Myknonos. In the rain.

“Think of it this way, would you rather be sitting at work inside on a sunny day, or on a greek island in the rain?” someone said. We all looked at her dubiously. Sitting in our office didn’t cost us a fortune, but noone was willing to say it aloud.

By the time we arrived on the island, the wind was howling (the island’s nickname is ‘windonos’…did anyone tell us that before we got here? Nooooooooo) and it was still sprinkling with rain, though we must have done something right, as after our bus ride to ‘Paradise Beach’ the clouds dissappeared and it turned into a beautiful afternoon.

We did a short walking tour of town – a maze of whitewashed alleyts covered in bright flowers and green foilage – before trying out the Mousaka (a kind of Greek lasagna) at a local restaurant. A few local heros, namely two pink pelicans called Petros and Patra, also made a visit near our table.These guys walk int othe kitchen of the seafood restaurants in Mykonos and tap their beaks on the glass to get fresh fish – the locals love them.

Noone went out until well after midnight in Greece, so a few early drinks kept us going at a bar called ‘Rhapsody’ before heading onto the ‘Down Under’ bar for happy hour with the Aussies and podium dancing until the early hours of the morning at the Scandanavian Bar and Disco.

Because we were a big group the bartenderes kept giving us free shots, so it was the biggest cheap night out in a long time and so much fun, although it was wall to wall bodies and no air from about 1.30am onwards.

The following day was spent recovering at the yellow-sand beaches and getting lost within the maze of town streets for the afternoon. We had planned a quiet night at the Paradise Beach Bar (next to our bungalows) but when we arrived at 6pm and hundreds of bikini and speedo-clad bodies were dancing on the bar, and the DJ was pumping hits 2m from the beach-turned-dancefloor, we resigned ourselves to the fact it wouldn’t be a quiet one after all.

There were about four contiki group there so you can imagine how crazy it was. The bartenders were selling full bottles of spirits in ice buckets andhanding out more free shots to keep the girls dancing on the bar. So we kept dancing and had another cheap night.

We love Greece. We really do.

-Sarah