Ios and my return to Athens

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  Ios, Cyclades, Greece
Saturday, June 14, 2008

mood: reminiscent

I am back in the dirty, greesy, hot streets of Athens, and i cannot wait to leave. Got in last night on the ferry and luckily today is my only full day here, its 3pm so its now less than 24 hours till i escape!

Well my 2 days in Ios were amazing, our accomodation was great (and cheap), had a perfect location and the best beach so far. Ios is famed for its wild partying, and so there is a very young crowd compared to all of the other islands, as there is not much to do there except drink and lie on the beach. sounded good to me.

We stayed in an area called Mylopotas Beach, which is quite a long beach. at the furthest end was our accommodation, Called Far Out Camping (if you zoom in on the map point for this blog i have put the point directly on the accomodation - so you can see what the setup was like). For what you pay, the accomodation is basic but the facilities are great. There are actually 3 properties, the hotel is located on the hill on the opposite side of the beach, then there is the Village which is made up of cheaper style cabins with ensuites, and lastly is the camping, which is made up of bed-tents (like what i stayed in at Mykonos), bungalows and shaded areas for tents. I splashed out a bit and chose a bungalow, which is a 2 bed round hut looking thing with power and a fan. it was still only $13 aus a night, so about 7euro. i doubt i will be paying anything in this range for the rest of my trip, except maybe in Africa! The camping and village areas both have bars overlooking pools and the beach, but the camping side also had a restaurant with cheapish meals, and a huge undercover area to sip cocktails, play some pool or table tennis, and watch the euro soccer on the big screens.

Mylopotas Beach

On the beach the umbrellas and loungers were free (cause its still low season here) and there is a watersports business where you can learn to windsurf, hire boats + canoes, or wakeboard/kneeboard/donuts/bananas etc. It was all a little out of my price-range, but the loungers were definately in there so i spent the first afternoon after the ferry soaking up the sun.

Our first night we had an all you can eat pizza feast, and these werent just your normal takeaway pizzas, these were woodfired and totally scrumptious. I was absolutely starving by the time it was put in front of us (as i hadnt eaten anything the whole day) and i dont think i have ever eaten so much pizza in my whole life as i did that night. Me, one of the guys and one of the girls decided to dedicate a plate to the crusts, as we observed that since it was "all you can eat" we werent going to waste this opportunity by filling ourselves up on the flavourless parts. I should have taken a photo of all the crusts by the end, as the pile was mighty spectacular. i cannot advise you on how many pieces i consumed, as i lost count after the 4th or the 5th. but they were mighty delicious. And they soaked up the alchohol from the 3 cocktails i had already consumed.

As the nighlife doesnt really get going till around midnight, the group hung out by the bar and made friends with the bartender, a very funny guy called Spiro. I think he loved our group too, as we entertained each other and bought countless drinks. After paying about 8euro a cocktail in Mykonos, the bars here serve 2 for 5euro all day, and as Spiro got attached to us i think he made them a little bit more potent than usual.

my fabulous view

I was splitting cocktails with a Melbourne girl called Lainie, and we ordered a daiquiri called "passion" - but i requested it with "extra passion" (think exagerrated accent). Spiro loved that, and we ended up with a very very very potent drink. he even gave us special glasses to drink it out of, we felt so special. We all sat around and watched the soccer, till we caught the bus into town at about 11pm and bar-hopped for the rest of the night. There may have been a Gyro thrown in somewhere too. What a perfect late night snack.

Thursday saw me get up late, bacon and egg roll for breakfast/lunch, and head down the beach for a maxi-last-day-tanning session. Some of the girls had tried out the windsurfing option, and it was ammusing watching them falling off and struggling to get back upright. Since the day before i had been eyeing off the buoys floating out in the middle of the bay, they looked about 200m away from the shore, and i had the overwhelming need to swim out to them. So Lainie came with me, and we got one of the guys to time our performance. it took us 12 minutes to doggy paddle out there and back. The water was so beautiful and although a little cold at the start, it was a glorious swim. JEALOUS ANYONE??? i hear its like 10 degrees back home. nice.

Our second night was not as big as the first, but was still a good effort. it involved dinner from the camp restaurant ( i had a chicken burger with bacon and avocado.. yummy), watching the soccer, playing some pool and loading up on cocktails. i ended up missing the first bus because me and a couple of others were watching Spiro demonstrate a magic trick, we were so enthrawled with it that we didnt even hear the others yelling out to us until we turned around and watched the bus trundle down the road.

the crew near the bar

We got the one 20 minutes later...

the first night out i had caught a taxi back to the camp, but the second night i opted for the walk back with one of the guys, and it was perfect weather. it takes about 30mins to walk from the town to the campsite, and part of the journey involves following a donkey track down the hill. The moon was out and reflecting off the ocean, and it was suggested that i should possibly undertake my swim again, which was quickly diminished as the water would have been freezing and im not that crazy. not to mention i could not even see the buoys at this stage!! Instead i called my mum for a good morning chat and then went to bed for some sleep. The previous night i found that our bungalow was full of mozzies and i got bitten real bad, spending the whole night tossing and turning (i could hear them buzzing around my head) before i made a tent out of my sheet and nearly suffocated sleeping with no oxygen. no more mozzies though! The second night i made sure i did a search of the room before i went to sleep, and had no problems. i struggled to get up in the morning though, all i seem to be doing is sleeping. Probably due to my lack of nutrition. but dont pass judgement yet though parents, just wait till the end of the story.

So Friday meant heading back to Athens. Which was probably another reason i didnt want to get out of bed. Because its still the shoulder season they dont have all the ferries running yet, but we were lucky as we were the first group to get the highspeed ferry, which was 3 hours apposed to 7 - 12 hours.

Pool number 1

best ferry ever. i slept 2.5 of the 3 hour journey so it really felt like nothing. We then caught the metro from the port back to victoria square and then walked the 10 mins to the hostel. I was over Athens before we even got to the station. i dont know why, but i dispise this place. its just a mixture of dirtyness, sleezyness, sweatiness and rudeness. i cannot wait to fly out tomorrow into Munich and begin my great tour of europe. i think once i am there the time is just going to fly. I am so excited.

Last night i had a meal of spaggetti downstairs at the bar, watched the soccer, then read in my room for a while before having an early night. I slept for almost 12 hours, and woke up thismorning ready to do my one big thing for the day... laundry!!! Although i had done a couple of rough wash jobs in the bathroom sink at Paros, i hadnt really done a propper wash since leaving athens 2 and a half weeks ago, so i was almost out of clean clothes. so thats now all done. the road that my hostel and the laundry is on had a street market today of fruits, vegies and other produce, which was fun to walk under all the big umbrellas with my big bag of washing, but i stopped off on my way back and bought some fresh strawberries and nectarines (see mum, fruit! this is my lunch and dinner for tonight...okay?). As the area that my hostel is in is very residential and not as touristy as some other areas of athens, the crowd was mostly locals comming to stock up for the week. this was a side of athens that i didnt really mind, there was a good vibe and it was funny watching all the old grannies fighting over the best potato and buying huge watermelons, and shopkeepers yelling out to people. I wish i knew what they were saying, as it most likely would have made me laugh more.

So thats everything pretty much updated. The next couple of weeks involve starting my "hop on, hop off" bus tour across Europe starting in Munich, Germany, first stop is a small town in Austria, then onto Italy. I have been getting reports from home that everyone has been enjoying my blog - which is great to hear, i hope its entertaining enough for you! I love getting comments, it makes me feel like im not that far away from home, so if you can figure out how, please keep them comming. I really do appreciate it :)

Oh yes, and im sending some sunshine back home (there you go brent). Hope it gets there okay. Enjoy it!!

Much love.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Breathtaking view from the bar	Pool number 2	Sunset from my room	Vicky and Nick and our daiquiri
monster jenga plus our own touches	view from my bed	view from outside my bunglow	view from outside my bunglow 2
the room	Bungalow!!!

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