Advertisement
Published: September 5th 2011
I have never been to such a superficial place as Ios in my travels. Some places you go yeah fair enough but this is like if you are a solo traveller no one really wants you to tag along. When I first started talking to people they’d ask “Are you on your own? Shit good luck! You really need to be part of a group to enjoy this place.” At this point I didn’t say I had just turned 30, 5 days earlier.
I have mentioned on the first blog entry for JP 5 that I am actually 24. This is based on my theory that you are only as old as how many birthdays you’ve had in your native country. But since I am half Greek a birthday in Athens should see me gain a year so I’ll settle for 25.
There were two big things that I didn’t particularly like about this place. One was that the average age would be probably about 22 and at least ¾ of the people who were here to party were Australian. And generally most of those that were male were the fuckwits that go around wearing those wife beater singlets.
That for some reason girls can’t get enough of that party in Ios.
My first night out as I saw singlet after singlet I was wondering ‘what has happened to my people?’ Isn’t there any originality anymore? If only I looked more Greek I would have gladly have said I was Greek instead of the cliché Australian call that I and nearly everyone else had to say.
This was the first time I have travelled another Greek island other than the island my dad was born on (Kythera) since I was young. In fact Kythera has perhaps ruined every other Greek Island for me. I can’t go to a tourist scene Greek Island and not think, “What am I doing here this is shit.” When you have the perfect island with also the connection of the local life its hard to appreciate another island. Especially “travelling solo,” I was told.
I mean hearing people say, “Oh you should go here the restaurant is really good.” “Ah, well no it’s shit actually.” I don’t want to be like that. I am not trying to sound pig headed or anything it’s just the natural way of life. You can
dumb yourself down sometimes in touristy places and it appeared that is what I needed to do to enjoy this place. But I thought, ‘No surely not. These people don’t know anything.’
So with the knowledge that these young adults have got no idea what they are talking about. I resigned to the fact that this island could not compare and I would do what I came here to do. I maybe 30… 25 but I am going to party this town like no other 30 year old… 25 has done before!
What made me do this was the lack of partying over the past year when travelling Africa so I wanted to make up for lost time and I was there to punish myself. On the back of my present from dad who I met up with in Athens I would permanently have pruned lips from my liquid diet. Thanks dad but this is where every euro was spent.
I did manage to meet these American/Greeks who were 22 and said that we’ll meet up at some point and we’ll have a drink. And actually looking back at it I can’t really remember how it all
started?
I definitely didn’t meet up with these guys until later on. I think I started at Fun bar where I suspect I drank. Most of my nights began the same way than I headed to Astro bar for some cocktails for happy hour from 12-1230 than a few shots at a shot bar. To get there it was up a hill that would build up a hell of a lot of lactic acid. Together with that hip shaking on the dance floor by the 5th night my back started to hurt.
There was an Orange Bar where they had shots made like candy and chocolate bars. They say the alcohol content is 25% roughly but whether that’s true or not you should try at least one. Turkish Delight or Maltesers is the best. Just close your eyes and it’s like you’ve engulfed a whole packet.
From Orange Bar it was all downhill. Literally as that is the top bar of a small area in a maze of tiny paths on the hill of the main village of Hora. The whole place from 12midnight - 7am is dominated by drunk tourists.
I for the life of
me don’t remember how this happened to me but it was after I went to the other staple bars like Slammer, Flames and a bit of Rnb at Coo. It was only my 2nd night and one of the floor whores (… That’s their job title; I’ll get to that later.) tells me the next day that I was crapping on about biting my tongue. I say “Oh did I do it here? What happened?” She didn’t know.
I typed this over 2 weeks later and I still have a scar on the back left of my tongue. A small gaping wound (heeled somewhat now) where I bit so hard I took a bit off. For the whole week I was either so pissed or too hangover to feel a thing. It was only late the day after I left the island of Ios that I could feel the damage. And that was 6 days after the fact.
That would not be my only bit of carnage. At the same bar Rehab I was trodden on by some bitch wearing high heels. This meant blood was pissing out of the top of one of my toes - Just
a little skin. But do you think that would stop me??? No way! A girl comes up to me and says, “Are you alright? I betcha that was some Scandinavian bitch!” She was actually right.
The whole idea is to get drunk and hopefully lock eyes with someone at the right time and make out. If the hour is close to the end of the night you go somewhere and have sex. Some can’t hold out and have sex either in the toilet or move the panties aside, lift a leg up and do it on the dance floor. That last one was a rarity and was done discreetly and did happen on my last night… not by me, sorry to disappoint.
Because so much fluid is being exchanged through the mouth nearly everyone ends up with a cough and looses their voice. Apparently on my first night at the last bar I was getting onto someone. One of the Americans told me the next day. I do not remember that. The last memory was that these two Australian sisters said to me at Coo. “Oh are you Australian and you aren’t wearing a singlet! Do you want
to hang around with us for the rest of the night?” I hope it was one of them… I think they were hot? (????)
The second night was my longest night where I didn’t get back till 10am. A night that flashed by and a finish with a swim at the beach. That was the day of American Independence Day. I started the day in silence and it would be my daily ritual to get through the next night. I would never speak to anyone as my 30 year old body found it harder to recover than the younger brigade.
But come 3-4pm my brain switched and I was back! I hung around the American/Greeks and a bunch of Canadians who decided to celebrate by being as obnoxious as possible. Slamming deck chairs on heads after a swig of vodka (helmet provided) most other people kept their distance (Actually this was my earliest start 2pm). A pool party was at Far Out Bar so we joined that around 5pm. I polished off my 750ml Havana club in repeat bottles of coke so I was primed!
9pm arrived and I said to some Australians “I’ll meet you in
5 I’ll change from my boardies to shorts.” Next thing I know I passed out and its 1am. Most places in the world you say its over for the night. Stuffed up… Not here, it’s only the beginning. I hop into a taxi and do it all again. Fun, Astro, shots, Orange, Slammer, Flames, Coo (where after a sneaky Cosmopolitan I discovered there’s a possibility I do like RnB after all), Rehab, Sweet Irish Dreams and whatever else in between.
It’s really hard especially in this environment to actually say you are 30. There is a difference but as the week moved on I started to like the thought. The first two times on the first day I said I’m 29. I just couldn’t do it, but now… I am 30! Most people said that I look 24 but I take it they said that because of the environment I were in.
The 3rd night I had multiple people saying “Hey how’s it going man!” Then they’d started discussing the conversation we had the previous day. What a scary reality check of the previous night. I had no recollection. One guy quoted how I was disappointed I didn’t
see southern India when I visited (he was an Englishman of Indian heritage). Just imagine hearing that as you walk past a stranger. “Yeah you said that the next time you go back you’ll make sure its not monsoon season in the south.” Shit ah!
It was only the 3rd night but I was already on reserves, sucking in the big ones as the 2nd last bus for the day made its way up the hill from Mylopotas beach to Hora. In fact the 3rd night would be my earliest night back - 7.05am.
From this moment on the days rolled into one of me getting back after sunrise to my accommodation on the beach. Walking back allows you to see other aspects of the island that you wouldn’t normally notice. Like the guy at around 6am with his donkey cart. The shepherd with his flock that eventually told me I am a “melakia” because I clapped my hands.
I would generally get 2-4 hours sleep and wake up around 1230pm at the latest as the Far Out Accommodation was like an oven. I’d then be zombie like until 3-4pm and start chatting to people if they
started the conversation first. I’d have dinner and then would walk to that 2nd last bus for that dreaded ride up.
This was generally where I’d meet my drinking partners for the first 3 hours or so. It was almost an unwritten law - if someone looked like they were going to get pissed, drink with them and make sure you are pissed in double time before you lose each other.
I met one night this American and Australian girls and at about 3am they said they were going. I didn’t allow that, I think one left over time but at 6am I saw the American hammered and having a good time. Mission accomplished.
Another night, my worst night, I stuffed up getting with a chick from Iceland. How on earth did I stuff that up? From this moment on I didn’t give a shit. They say if you spend a week in Ios you’ll break your heart at least once… Well that’s not entirely true I made that up, but my penis was very upset.
Iceland! When does a guy get chances like that? Once in a blue moon! And no it wasn’t the Iceland
chick that won the wet T-shirt competition that week. That would have been even worse because fortunately I was so drunk for the week that I couldn’t really remember what people looked like.
It probably did help but it was another reason why I didn’t speak to many people during the day. They all looked the same! The guys were singlet, black sunnies, board shorts. The girls were bikini, sunglasses, tight body and generally straight hair. There was no characteristic that distinguished one from the other.
Half way through I did question my age and whether I could last the distance? One, I couldn’t remember which girl I wanted to pick up… Lets not be harsh on oneself. I did speak to them in bikini and then they were dressed up with no sunnies so… Oh shit… Is that an automatic transition from the 20’s to 30’s everyone starts to look the same?
I noticed I have 2 or 3 longer hairs in my nose and my heart was beating irregularly. I swear from 1pm – 1130pm (the 2nd last bus) my upper and lower chambers were beating at different times. Still I perceived until the bitter
end.
The last few nights I drank with some guys who were around during Iceland days. They were good drinking partners and somehow out of nowhere this Australian guy joins us (don’t know any names) he had some 18-19 year old girl from Manchester all over him. I have never seen a guy so uninterested whilst a girl was infatuated. This was my entertainment for a while.
She had just been palmed off by another guy in the group and she was devastated. Tears were produced but eased by one of the floorwhores at Rehab. They were two NZ girls that were the only people I could chat normal to. Well accept the 2nd night I can’t remember too much. I was told, “This girl was crying just then. Do you think you guys can keep her company until she’s over it?” Music thumping. “Okay” and that was when she glued her eyes on this other guy.
About an hour later in his hammered state he sees some other girl and dances with her. Devastated, infatuated girl covers her mouth and nose, tears build up and she death stares the guy. This was the same night I
was stubbed on my toe. Next thing they are dancing again and she was happy.
‘Floorwhore’ is the term used for generally female tourists they employ to dance on the dance floor to make it look like females like the bar. It had a bit of Thailand or Africa about it without the sex, well plenty of kissing with some of the girls. They with the guys at the door remember faces and would always encourage you by saying “Man you were smashed here last night. You were having a good time!”
The 4th night I reached my peak and then the more I stayed the more jaded the atmosphere of bar hoping into a bar playing generally the same music became. I tried to count how many times in one night I would hear Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire and by 1am it was 3 times, I forgot to count the rest of the night. I was going to be creative with this blog and use the songs I heard throughout but to tell you the truth I’d rather forget them.
In its superficial looking beginnings I think I proved otherwise in its myth that
you can’t party hard as a solo traveller… You can’t enjoy it? I am old in a tourist sense for Ios but I am wiser. I could have felt intimidated by these young minds who don’t know the reality. The reality being that all you need to do is have a willingness to get pissed and get pissed hard. With that, the western world provides plenty of friends.
I decided to stay a bit longer in Ios because I wanted to get drunk for an extended period of time. I learned some new drinks like the strawpedo – sculling a Bacardi breezer with a straw in it. I got belted around the head after shotting a Jagermeister. I proved even with an irregular heartbeat that I can still match it with the best that youth has got to offer. But I am older. I am 30 and I like it.
I like it how I’m at an age where fitting in doesn’t matter anymore (although I’ve never been like that really.) But most importantly I’m at an age where I don’t dig the concept of trying to pick up sloshed young ‘ladies’ and bragging about it to my
mates. (Actually I’ve never been like that really either.) Yet I still like to tell the near misses… Oh Iceland!
But that could be just Ios for 30 year olds its a gauge to test how old you are. When you can’t distinguish one person from the other it means you can now be classed as a fully fledged adult no matter how drunk you get. In a sense I have been building towards this moment. Life has begun; I am 30 and will never come back to Ios.
***
Paros
The other island I went to was Paros and Anti Paros – I met up with a Greek-Cuban living in America and hired scooters for a few days. Passing nice towns like Naousa, Lefkes in the centre. There was a Beach Party place at Pounda Beach. It was pretty lame really with a large percentage of Greek teenagers. We went to the opening of W nightclub that night and again the average age would have been 16.
One guy at the Beach club asked to get a photo with me and the Greek-Cuban. About 5 minutes later the other friend got in a photo with us.
I noticed that the two guys were wearing pink. Greek-Cuban than walks around seductively to see if they’d look - They didn’t until it was at a point of, “What the hell is she doing?”
We then joke about how they will be using the photo of us as material later tonight with me being the focal point. It was a horrible joke. But this together with expense was the reason why I didn’t want to go to Mykonos. I’ve had about 3 gay guys try and hit on me over 4 and half years of travel and I just don’t like it.
In Ios a gay guy asks, “Does anyone want to go for a walk?” I say “Nah I’m okay.” He says, “Wait what? What did you say?” I reply promptly “No no no no no. You misheard that big time!” He thought that I said, “I am gay”. I’m not homophobe just read my Kosovo story but because of that and word that drinking is expensive I decided that Mykonos was not on the cards. Plus I was still recovering from Ios.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.077s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 12; qc: 37; dbt: 0.0375s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Gregory
non-member comment
never say never
"Life has begun; I am 30 and will never come back to Ios." Mate,trust me,This places like ios where most of the people are young travellers,are the best places for us over 30 :) .You know why ? Because most of these young people are doing a lot of things there because they must,not becuase they like or want it. its a kind of pressure for them to be as much cool as possible. this is the modern global society!. And we who are older can relax more and enjoy all these things in a completely other way. For us there is no "Must",even not on Ios or for example koh phangan in Thailand. There is no pressure for us to be act cool and to try to be something we are not. That's the good thing if you are getting older.You can still go to places like this and you still will have a good time. I'm travelling ,too, around the world ,and I'm 36. I don't care so much about my age. Life is too short to take care about things like that.