The Greek Islands - Wow

The Islands of Greece may not have been quite what I was expecting but boy they are spectacular! They have a certain beauty that must be acquired, and which is soooo different to Australia! At first everywhere we sailed into looked mountainous, dry and barren, but once you get onto the islands you see just how rich they can be!

Athens

I had a disastrous start to my trip - my first real experience of travelling solo in a truly foreign country did not go well. That is to say, I got exactly where I needed to be, but was a complete mess by the time I got there. A 21 hour ferry ride, 3 hour connection to Athens, 10 minute bus ride, 2 stops on the metro and a 500m walk were more than I could handle, and throw a 50 euro fine on top of that for getting the wrong metro ticket (NEVER, EVER follow a bunch of Italians who seem to know what they're doing, ALWAYS ask!!) and I stumbled into my hotel room ready to have a really big cry. Luckily for me there were already 2 lovely Kiwi girls in my room and they let me vent for a while until I had calmed down. I still haven't seen the Acropolis - that's for tonight back in Athens.

Mykonos

The town was stunning, the sunset magnificent, dinner to die for, and we stayed out until almost 4am drinking and dancing and making merry. It was a fantastic first night, everyone had the chance to get to know each other quite well and it looked like being an amazing trip already. This was my first taste of the Greek Islands and I loved it. I took so many photos, drank so many cocktails, and nearly made myself sick with the amount of food I ate at dinner! The result was that the next day we did not move from the beach (our campground had its own beach) all day.

Paros

Rumoured to be the quietest of the Islands, this Island paradoxically created the most dramas. Aside from dining at the nearby restaurant and sipping cocktails, our main activity was an all-day booze cruise. We stopped at a few swimming holes, scrambled up 10m cliffs and leapt into the water, dived off the boat, snorkelled around the crystal clear blue waters and chowed down on a bbq lunch whilst sipping wine from about 11am onwards. Unforunately a few of the guys went overboard with the wine, and did some incredibly stupid things which caused the owner of the boat to cut us off from the booze and cut the day short, heading straight back to the port. That killed the mood pretty well. This was also the day I started to get sick and realised I couldn't keep partying every night. Unfortunately I didn't learn the lesson properly until it was too late!

Santorini

Shopping, sunsets, amazing coloured beaches, volcano hiking - there was an unlimir\ted itinerary of things to do on this beautiful island and only 24 hours to do it in. But we managed pretty much all of it. Our only full day there started with a massive hike down the dokey trail, dodging kamikaze donkeys, onto a little pirate ship which took us to the caldera. We hiked up with to where there was still steam (stinky sulpher) coming from the top! Amazing geology too (I'm a total nerd I know). We also got to swim in the hot springs which was more a pocket of water which had been stained a slight brown from the mud and which was only slightly warmer than the surrounding seawater... a bit of a let down but still kind of cool. Back in Fira we jumped on a bus to the red-sand beach, which wasn't exactly a luxurious beach but beautiful in its own right - backed by a dark red cliff and covered in red send and pebbles. Dinner was in Oia, where all the classic Greek Island sunset shots are taken, and the thousands of people gathered around our picnic dinner clapped and cheered as the sun disappeared on the horizon. We then returned to Fira and shopped till 1am. so much cool stuff!

Ios

This is known as the party island, and that's all it basically offered. Feeling really average myself, I tried and failed to party, so turned my attention to the watersports offered instead. I spent 2 hours learning how to windsurf and I dare say I did an alright job, and then went on a "Mach I" level tyre ride behind the boat where, try as he might, the driver could not shake us from the scrambler! I am sporting a few bruises today, to say the least :)

Very soon the ferry will take us all back to athens and my Greek experience will be over, but I only have 2 days to get my head sorted because it is straight off to Switzerland on Sunday morning, early.

Still need to find a way to get some photos up here and on facebook. I daresay I'll manage it by the weekend.