Greece Trip - Day 10

5 July, 2009 – Santorini to Ios

We had a relaxing start to the day before we had to pack up and get ready to go to the next Island, Ios. We slept in a little and went to a cute cafe and had crepes and juice for dessert. This time I had a crepe with walnuts, banana and honey – it was delicious. We then strolled through the streets looking at some souvenirs and the local crafts for sale. We had another catamaran style ferry, so the trip took only an hour to get from Santorini to Ios. We were met at the port with a fellow from the hotel who loaded up our bags into a van and then we took the short stroll on foot to the hotel. We were lucky to again have a pool at the hotel!

There was virtually no traffic on this Island and the local buses only take people to two beaches, so if we wanted to explore more of the island we had to find our own way to get there, so that afternoon we hired some 4-wheelers and a scooter. Steve and Jo hired a scooter; Patrick & Heather hired a 4-wheeler bike and Donnal & I hired a 4-wheeler bike to all go on an intrepid style adventure of the Island. The first beach that we went to was Agia Theodoti. We stopped for lunch at a cafe near the beach before heading to the water. The water was clear, cool and very salty. I was looking down through the water at the marble pebbles when a wave slapped me against the face and I copped a mouthful of very salty water! After cooling down at the beach for a while we headed off the find another beach.

The hill back up from the beach was quite steep in places and the bikes didn’t have much power, so it was quite funny to watch as Donnal and I slowly overtook the others as they struggled to make it back up the hill. Donnal and I were the lightest, so our bike was able to keep going, but Patrick and Heather struggled to the point where their bike stopped and started to roll backwards!! Heather had to jump off and start walking up the hill. Steve and Jo had a similar problem weight wise. Steven tried to weave the bike from side to side to try and keep the bike going and then he had to put his feet down and try and push the scooter up the hill. Eventually Jo jumped off and started running alongside the scooter. Donnal dropped me off at the top of the hill and then went back to pick up the others. As the island was very hilly, this happened quite often and it was so funny. We would be driving down a hill towards a beach and we were all thinking that it will be a struggle to get back up. The guys would have fun passing Donnal and I when they were going down a hill and then we would wave as we went past them going up the hill.

We stopped at the Psathi beach too, which is supposed to be the ‘surf beach’. The water was shallow and had big slippery rocks in the sand. We had to slide onto our bellies and then skim across the stones to get into deeper water. The water had a little ripple of wave going through it and you could feel the tidal push and pull that you feel at a surf beach, but there were no real waves. We didn’t stay long at the disappointing ‘surf beach’ before heading back up the hill and then back to the hotel to meet the rest of the group for dinner.

Theresa found us the sweetest family run restaurant along the portside were the food was fantastic and the family were extremely friendly. They invited us into the kitchen and then showed us the fresh fish they had and other dishes they have prepared before we chose our meals. The chef gave me a big hug when I was in the kitchen, they were so nice. I chose fresh grilled fish for dinner.
After dinner Heather, Donnal, Sheeba and I walked up the hill to the main town of Chora to check out the night scene. All the gift shops were still open and there were lots of bars but they weren’t busy yet, in fact most of them were still empty. They told us that they don’t really get busy until around 1-2am and the crowds are in the 16-23 year age bracket.