Greek Island Odyssey Part II: Naxos

At the port in Naxos we were met by George, a friend of a friend who owned a guest house that we'd arranged to stay at. George - who has the world's greatest and most permanent smile - was holding a large sign saying "Vasco Astro" on it. George's guest house, P&G Resorts, is located 10 meters away from the town beach, Ayios Yeoryios, at the southern end of the town, away from the mayhem of the port and the Paralia.

Naxos is the largest of the Cyclades islands and is easily able to sustain itself without the tourist euros which made it very appealing. However, tourism is still big business and the place was packed with holidaying Greeks, Italians and, bizarrely, Fins. Almost immediately, though, you could tell the place was much less frenetic than Santorini and there was a nice air of calm hanging over the place.

Once I'd brought the body temperature back to normal levels by hanging about under the air-conditioning unit for twenty minutes, ignoring Vee's chattering teeth and the fact that he was perched on the bed in his winter coat, I was ready to hit the streets. We ate dinner at a packed restaurant called Maros, which I highly recommend.

Just as we were tucking into our massive yoghurty dessert, a middle-aged couple walked in and made their way to the empty table next to us.



Both had carrot orange skin and both were dressed from head to toe in white, her in a floor length floaty skirt and him in white linen pants and white shirt and white leather shoes. Mr Carrot had a silver chain around his neck. It was so big and heavy, it clanked when he walked. Mrs Carrot had purple spiky hair, too much gold jewelery and had overdosed on the perfume.

"I bet you 14 bowls of Greek yoghurt that they are Dutch!" I whispered through clenched teeth. Only Dutch men think that they can get away with looking like they just walked off the set of a squeaky clean boy band photo-shoot when they are pushing sixty. Only the Dutch think that being orange all year round and having skin like a cheap leather handbag is healthy and that having a loyalty card to the local tanning salon is normal.

Mr and Mrs Carrot sat down and proceeded to talk about us and the other diners in Dutch, which is something that the Dutch do because they think that no one can understand them. Then they offered to take a photo of me and Vee and proceeded to laugh about the photo they'd taken. When we left, I said goodbye to them and bid them a nice evening in Dutch. Mr Carrot responded in Dutch and only realised that he was not speaking English anymore when he got to the end of his sentence. Mrs Carrot just stared, open mouthed.

Me one. Nederlanders nil.

By about 23:00, the burn on my leg was beginning to throb. The area around it was swelling up and oozing yellow stuff so I decided to go to the hospital and get it checked out. Once I'd got past the security guard, I walked straight into the Accident and Emergency room where the doctor took one look at my leg, winced, muttered the words "Motorbike" and then ordered me to lie down. In the next bed, an old lady was having a bloodied, broken nose attended to. I hope the mean-looking old man sitting at the bedside was not responsible. The doctor lathered my leg in something cold, creamy and soothing and then bandaged me up. I'd drunk half a litre of wine and was chuckling away with Vee that I was going to have a stupid tan line and hadn't moved from the bed.

"What is so funny?" demanded the doctor.

"Er nothing." He was sitting at a huge old desk with a giant ledger open. I'd like to say he was holding a feather quill because it would describe the scene perfectly but it was just a pen.

"Is there a problem?" he asked. I shook my head.

Then he asked me my name, nationality and my father's first name, which I thought was very, very strange and I had to resist the temptation to get into an existential conversation about the percentage of people who he'd asked that didn't actually know their father's name. Then, as I was searching about in my bag for my credit card to pay what I thought was going to be an extortionate bill that I was going to be unable to reclaim from my health insurer, he said goodbye and waved me out of the room. All this had taken less than five minutes. I showed no ID, no medical insurance card, nothing. When I went to the pharmacy to get the antibacterial cream he'd prescribed me, I specifically asked for a receipt and the prescription paper back for claiming purposes until I realised that the cream had cost me EUR 1.13. Wasn't worth the bother.

Greece one. Nederland nil.

After that day, I decided I needed to have a purely medicinal cocktail. We found a great bar on the beach within stumbling distance from George's, where we lounged in deck chairs, two meters from the sea, listening to the waves gently roll.



I chose to try the Naxos Kitron, which is a lemony flavoured local spirit. The waiter seemed highly amused by my choice and I was worried I'd ordered something very, very potent. My Kitron was served in a tall cosmopolitan glass and, upon first sip, tasted like the moist towelette they give you on planes. The second sip tastes more like mild toilet cleaner. By the third sip, you're drinking a rather nice lemony brew.

Next: Motorcycle madness and the rest of Naxos.

Greek Island Odyssey Part 1: Santorini

When I was twelve I went to Greece on a family holiday. My older brother bought me an ouzo which made me feel invincible. On the way to the toilet I stumbled into a large, mean-looking cactus and spent the next half hour pulling cactus spines out of my thighs. Then a group of us went for a midnight dip in the sea. I got stung by a jellyfish. It didn't hurt until I woke up the next morning, after stumbling to bed in an ouzo induced fuzz. That searing pain, coupled with the large red holes in my thighs and the aftermath of ouzo, is my only memory of Greece. So, I was pretty much going there with an open mind and a mental note to avoid jellyfish, cacti and ouzo.

Flying to the Greek islands means you are limited to arriving and departing from a few of the most touristic lumps of rock on the planet as most islands do not have international airports. We flew to Santorini, which on first sight is made up of 95% Australian, American and Spanish cruise ship passengers and 5% rock. On second sight it really is made up of 95% Australian, American and Spanish cruise ship passengers and 5% rock. Room prices sky rocket in August and being last minute people, our choices were pretty limited. We opted to stay in Perissa, which is significantly shabbier - and therefore cheaper - than the capital Thira. And, since the island is tiny, we figured that with a set of scooter wheels, it wouldn't take us long to get around.

We tried to bargain with a leather-faced and ancient taxi driver at the airport but he wouldn't budge on the price. He chucked our bags in the back and screamed "You get in!" at us. He drove off screaming at the woman in the passenger seat who screamed back even louder and more animatedly for about five minutes, then they both fell into a stoney silence. We arrived at Athanasia Apartments at midnight. Although the place was nice and the owners friendly, we got the only room left and it was very basic, tiny, stank of cigarettes and had a window that faced a brick wall. There was a safe bolted to the wall right above the bed. I spent all night worrying that the safe would fall off the wall and drop straight onto Vee's head. Naturally, I'd secured the non-lethal side of the bed for myself.

On Sunday we rented a scooter for 15 euros and zoomed around the island. Then we zoomed around the island again because it was too hot and the breeze when zooming made the unbearable heat just about bearable. When we could zoom no more, we decided to check out Thira, which consists of a bunch of very expensive white boutique hotels, restaurants, jewelry shops, churches and narrow alleyways perched precariously on the edge of a massive caldera.





Within about three seconds of arriving in Thira, I'd managed to severely burn the back of my leg on the exhaust pipe of a motorbike while trying to park our scooter. It's really quite something to see your skin literally melting in front of your eyes. I stared down in horror as the layers of skin bubbled up and peeled back and my leg swelled up. Soon the novelty of seeing the under layers of my body that were never supposed to see daylight wore off and the pain started to become unbearable. Hobbling up and down cobbled streets with half your leg hanging off is no fun, let me tell you that.

Santorini is basically what remains of one of the biggest volcanic eruptions in living history. The island was once a large round landmass until most of it was blown to bits, leaving a couple of bits of rock jutting out of the sea. Today, it's one of the most visited Greek islands and I'm not entirely sure why. Sure, I can see that it might be a geologist's wet dream but the land is barren and parched. The beaches are nothing special. The caldera is impressive, but really not that spectacular. The streets are thronged with the worst kind of tourists and packed with one indistinguishable shop-selling-crap after another. And, without wheels or the poor little donkeys that cart the fat cruise ship passengers up the near vertical inclines it's impossible to get around.



I'd read that Oia, on the north western tip of the island, is one of the best places in the world to watch the sunset as there's nothing between you and the horizon. Against our better judgement, we zoomed off to grunt in unison with all the other tourists and see what the fuss was about. Oh. My. God. From around 19:00, Oia's population swells from its modest number of about 700 to thousands and thousands. I counted at least 15 coaches in the car park. Every available space was taken up. People had scrambled up onto roofs, perched themselves on walls or hung themselves precariously over bits of rock with sheer drops on the other side, wielding cameras.



I love a good sunset but really, once you've seen one you've seen them all in my opinion and it really wasn't that special. Ok, it might have been special if I had been there alone with my dear Portugeezer but it's impossible to be absorbed by anything, however spectacular, when there are 37 people within a square meter of you, sweating, breathing down your neck and bothering you every four seconds to ask you to take a picture of them in front of a giant ball of fire. My eyeballs have still not recovered.



We ate dinner at a great restaurant in Katerados, a few kilometers outside of Thira, where I discovered that Greek yoghurt with honey is possibly the most divine thing I've ever tasted. I cannot believe I've lived on this planet for 32 years and never tasted it. If I had to choose between a large lump of crumbling parmigiano and a bowl of Greek yoghurt and honey, I'd probably choose the latter. Now that's serious.

Back in Perissa, we found the bar with the fewest Australian backpackers in it and the cheapest cocktails and drank bad margaritas. The waitress was Canadian and was euphoric that it was her last night of work after a three month stint. I'd been led to believe that Santorini would be heaving in August. Although it was busy, it was nowhere near as bad as I had expected and I was guessing that most of the people on the streets in Thira and Oia got back on their cruise ship a couple of hours later and sailed off into the dark en route to Mykonos. Only the loudest, thumpiest bar on Perissa's beachfront was busy and most of the others were empty or had a few tables of burnt and tired tourists in them. The girl told us that, since she arrived in May, everyone kept telling her that "It will get busy next week" but it never did.

On the way home, I saw a very drunk and roasted English woman who was holding up her even more drunken friend and swaying down the street. Following them, looking remarkably like vultures, were two sniggering Greek men. The less drunk woman turned and said, "I'm taking her home, and I'll meet you in the bar in five minutes. What was your name again?"

We were taking the ferry to Naxos on Monday afternoon and so had spent a good chunk of Sunday trying to find out what time the bus left Perissa for the port. Rule number one of traveling: as soon as you arrive somewhere, find out how and when you can get out.

"14:30," said the man in the scooter shop.

"Erm," said the lady in the cafe.

"14:00," said the man in the bar.

"Bus?" asked the owners of our hotel.

The timetable in the bus stop had been ripped off the wall.

"There is no bus to the port," said the woman in the official travel agent's office. "But I've just seen a bus go past with a big sign on the front saying 'Port'!" I said. "No. No bus to the port. The Internet is wrong." Hrrrm. Did I mention the Internet?

"14.30," said a girl standing at the bus stop.

Bingo. Two answers the same!

On Monday, we made the bus with seconds to spare for two reasons. The first being that as we approached the shop to return the scooter, I realised we were missing one of our 'optionally compulsory' helmets. Rather than be charged 100 euros for a piece of crap that would offer you about as much protection as bubble wrap if you were unfortunate enough to have an accident and land on your head, we decided to rush back to where we'd left it, even though it was already 14:10 and the petrol indicator was flapping about below the red line.

The second reason being that I insisted on stopping at the supermarket to buy food for the poor stray dog hanging around the bus shelter. I hastily grabbed a can of luncheon meat because the dog food didn't have ring pulls on and, as the bus was approaching, I slopped the contents in front of the skinny dog who was patiently waiting for me to feed him. Luncheon meat is so disgusting, it seems, that even a starving dog doesn't appreciate it. He looked at me with an expression that I can only describe as "Is this really the best you could do?".



At the port, we had to pay two old men that looked like they'd just come out if a taverna 56 cents each in port tax. I reckon that it was really 56 cents towards their ouzo fund. We got on a massive ferry and churned off to our next stop, Naxos.