Thursday, 13 September 2007

I've had a Greak time on the islands

Partying every night and sleeping on the beaches most days with the occasional sightseeing is what sums up the Contiki Greek Island Hopping tour. Starting off in Athens, we ferried between the islands of Mykonos, Santorini, Ios and then finished back in Athens. There are so many drunken stories to tell where we had a Toga Party, numerous pub/club crawls, Greek dancing, shots of pretty much every available liqueur including Ouzo, cocktails being shouted by our awesome tour guide every night, the Paradise Beach parties (old man pic) and days spent cruising on a pirate boat, watching the sunset in Santorini (pic), traditional Greek dinners and spending time with a group of people with positive attitudes. The last photo is of myself and Nick, having a Greek coffee with a smoke playing with our Cobaloi beads which is what most of the old Greek men do in Greece. The last 2 weeks have gone so quickly and it was very sad to say goodbye to everyone towards the end.

Ministry of Sound
This was a day that i will be laughing about for a long time. Started the day on a good meal of bacon and eggs as tonight was a pub crawl where everyone was very keen to go out and have fun around Mykonos. During the day i wandered around the winding white streets eating chocolate banana crepes and meeting Pedro the Pelican (pic), Mykonos' mascot who loves a photo with tourists and the occasional feed, (i had to line up in front of 6 people to get this photo) and then had a nap during the hottest part of the day in the sun/shade on the beach as tonight was going to be quite long. As the main clubs don't really start until midnight, there are a few bars we went to beforehand for pre drinks which turned out to be a lot of fun. Travelling in a group of 27, wherever we went was the party. Dancing on anything we could climb on we danced and drank up a storm until it was time to go clubbing. More dancing, more shots, great music and a great party atmosphere. Our transfer bus was to pick us up at 3am to take us back to our Contiki resort but i was having such a good time i didn't want to go home, so with Beth and Lex we decided to keep the night alive and so we caught a cab to Paradise beach where the club Ministry of Sound was. The club had a swimming pool in the centre, awesome DJ's and was 20 metres away from the beach where we partied until the music stopped at around 6am. Stumbling out wanting a cab to go home to the other side of the island as we were all pooped, we couldn't find one. No taxis, no buses, no transport whatsoever. Most people leaving the club were jumping on their motorbikes and scooters driving home drunk and we just looked at each other and thought how the hell are we going to get back home (30min taxi ride away). We asked one of the security guards wandering around for help and when we told him where we wanted to go, his face said it all...we were stranded. Our options were, wait 3 hours for the next bus, walk a good 5 hours back home or swim! Sitting down too tired to think of any other option a car was pulling out of a nearby driveway. Lex spontaneously jumped up and ran to the drivers window asking if he could drive us home. The driver wasn't drunk as he was on his way to work but he turned out to be deaf. With the security guard knowing him and then explaining to him where we wanted to go, he ended up taking us home an hour out of his way... so lucky! We paid him a very generous tip for his kindness and couldn't stop giggling to ourselves that we were getting a lift from a deaf Greek bloke in Mykonos at 6:30am! Took us 40minutes to get home as we got lost and tried to sign language/lip read Greek to him where we wanted to go, but arrived safe and sound in the end in time for breakfast back at the resort.

I am off to Egypt for the next 2 weeks on another tour where i can't wait. I have been wanting to see the Pyramids as well as Egypt as a whole for a long long time.