Day 41-44: Contiki - Greece - Corfu

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Day 41: May 16 - GREECE - Corfu (Kerkyra)
Accommodation: Hotel Frini, Corfu

Another evil early hour rise this morning as the ferry was getting ready to dock at Corfu. We were told to assemble at the back of the ship around 5:30am and the sun was still rising over the hills we left behind coming into the coast. It was still a really nice view though so with tired eyes I gazed at it and took a few eerie-looking photos.
We pulled in just after 6am (I was mumbling to myself that I could've stayed in bed longer) and got onto the bus and moved onto our hotel for the next 4 days. Excitement should've been high but we were all still a bit tired. We were given the usual Contiki briefing i.e. where to sleep, how to get around, when meals were, where the bar was etc. The annoying parts were no internet and 12 Euros for each bag of washing. 12 Euros! What is this, a Hilton? We were soon to find out it was far from it.
Seeing another Contiki group had arrived a day before us, they got choice of rooms and were put into the front part of the hotel, which left us to climb up about 150 well-worn stairs to our rooms up on the very top near the pool. Luckily bus driver Ben was able to stack our bags into a minivan to take up the hill.
After figuring out our rooms and quickly settling in we were off into town for orientation and supplies. Corfu town itself wasn't overly exciting, but it had lots of touristy shops for anyone into that sort of thing, tacky souvenirs ahoy. For some reason I bought kumquat liqueur, probably because it sounded so obscure that I'd never try it again. I'm a sucker for trying new things. Other people bought things like matching straw hats, big rubber balls for the pool, postcards, but no alcohol surprisingly. Apparently a few of the girls got a free shot of liqueur just for using their charm. Girls can get away with anything.
Next stop it was off to the nearest supermarket, and by now it was getting very hot outside but strangely not very humid. The prices here were unbelievable. 1.50 Euro got a 6 pack of 1-litre bottles of water, or a 6 pack of beer. How awesome is that! Most people picked up one or the other (some scored both!) as well as some other cheap food and snacks to keep us going for the next 4 days. Then it was back to the hotel.
It was about 2 or 3pm by now but still really sunny and warm, so it was off to the upstairs pool! Lots of girls were sunbaking, a handful of people were swimming, . There was a bar up there were 2-Euro beers and 2-Euro frozen vodka drinks so people were feeling pretty cruisy. Some of those people who didn't go shopping had been drinking for a couple of hours by now but were still pretty mellow and relaxed. By the time dinner came around a fair few of us were pretty tipsy, then we had dinner and moved back to the pool for more drinks and music and laughs and who knows what else. This was our first night of a 4-day stint off the bus so a lot of people weren't holding back on the booze, including me. I can't remember everything that happened but I do remember it being fun!

Day 42: May 17 - Corfu
Accommodation: Hotel Frini, Corfu


I spent most of my day in bed with a hangover and catching up on all the sleep I'd lost over the whole Contiki tour to this point. I basically didn't bother to surface until 3pm or so, even though I did intend to get up and check out one of the beaches on the other side of the island. I really don't remember doing much in the daytime, but sometimes you need those relaxing empty days. I eventually got up to see what was going on poolside upstairs and just ended up relaxing in the sun for a while with everyone else up there.
One thing I noticed from my first night’s sleep here is the mosquitos are crazy around here! I actually got woken up by the sound of one mosquito flying next to my ear, and when I got up I had several bites on my arms and legs which were the only parts of my body exposed other than my face. Another weird thing I might mention is that a few people got sick here and had to go to a doctor for some reason, although I can’t remember which of the 4 days in Corfu this happened but they all happened while we were here. Dale got some sort of ant bite that proceeded to make one of his toes swell up dramatically, Jacinta had to go to a doctor for some sort of medication, Rick had to call in a doctor after picking up an ear infection, Kendra got so severely sunburnt that her whole back was bright red and she could barely move (the front desk of the hotel told her yoghurt was good in helping it to heal which I thought was bizarre), and I picked up a cold on the first day we arrived that didn’t go away for a few days. One night it was so bad that I actually couldn’t taste my dinner, which was souvlaki skewers which I was told was really tasty but not being able to taste it was frustrating.

Day 43: May 18 - Corfu
Accommodation: Hotel Frini, Corfu

Today was an optional day that a lot of people had been looking forward to and I'd heard a lot of good things about, George's Boat.
I think only 2 or 3 people didn’t take this optional so it was going to be a pretty full boat. Tash had been saying a few days in advance that George was a nice funny guy but a pretty dirty old man so we already had some expectations. The bus took us down to the harbour and the boat itself was pretty tiny but in the end it fit 30 of us well with a bit of room to spare. George was at the helm, an overweight balding 50-something man who was loudly welcoming us all onto the ship already, so we all climbed on. George was a pretty friendly guy and we were to find out that he loved the sound of his own voice, he loved girls in bikinis, he loved to make people laugh with dirty jokes and references, and he wasn’t shy about occasionally swearing. He had a great personality and we were cracking up laughing a fair bit. He was always offering us something to eat, something to drink (he made a pretty mean espresso), and telling us about the lovely scenery all around us wherever he took us. He took us to places where we had the chance to swim in beautiful waters, and he was constantly telling us each time he stopped that everyone had to jump in or we weren’t leaving, especially the girls, and most of the time it worked. It was great to just sit and watch the scenery go by, lay around and sunbake or chat to people or even have a bit of a sleep. At one point the 4 Canadian girls started posing for sexy photos so that was a good laugh. Too many girly drinks maybe?
We had a lovely lunch of cold meat and salad and dips and fruit, and he was pumping loud catchy music towards us for most of the trip also. At one point he asked if there were any Aussies on the boat and he said we had to all get up the end of the boat while he played our national anthem which we all sang along to half-heartedly (although he played it at the wrong speed!) then he stuck on Khe Sanh which hardly any Aussies know all of the words to! Then the Canadians got up and belted our their national anthem and they got to sing Bryan Adams’ Summer of 69 which they screamed back at us Aussies. You win this round, Canucks. Then he asked for any Americans and poor Nicole being the only one had to get up and sing the Star Spangled Banner but she was shy and wasn’t going to do it alone so we tried to help but he played it really fast so it was more funny than singable really. Overall there were laughs all round.
About halfway through we all stopped and got out for some water activities. I had a go at parasailing which I’d done in New Zealand before but the climate here was a bit warmer than over there. It was lovely sitting up there in the harness looking over the scenery, then as we came down I got dumped in the water and seeing I already had a mild cold it didn’t help my head and I came out with an earache and stuffed up sinuses, so I couldn’t go for a jet ski ride as I’d hoped I could. Colds suck. Lana and Lindsay had a go at the jet ski and looked like speed demons out there. I was jealous. So while I sat down letting my head recover I watched a few people have a go at some inflated .
Back onto the boat and after a while George stopped at a lovely little swimming area and he said it was time to go skinny dipping, and no-one was game to go in and do it at first but the 4 Canadian girls were! I came to realise they’re always up for anything. They went in and it was tops and bottoms off! Funnily enough all the guys stayed in the boat to see if they could catch a glimpse of anything but you couldn’t see a thing under that water so we were all out of luck. Most of us jumped in after that though with more girls stripping under the water but none of us guys got into it. I guess we were half naked anyway. We had a ball to throw around so that was a bit of fun too.
Another fun part of the ride was the t-shirts and singlets that George was selling. There was basically a male and a female version. The male version had a fork and knife on the front with a cat with the caption ‘eat pussy’, and the female version had the same cutlery with a rooster on it with the caption ‘eat cock’, so that was pretty funny too and no doubt sold more than if there wasn’t a sexually suggestive comment on there.
After some 7 or 8 hours on the water we knew it had to end at some stage and we were back on shore after a very satisfying day, some people still wearing their George's Boat shirts and singlets, and we headed up to the pool again. Tonight there was going to be a toga party held and people were excitedly talking about it. I wasn't really interested in this toga party but a lot of people were getting excited about it getting dressed up in bed sheets, trying to figure out how to tie each other's toga sheet up and be creative with flowers and artificial Greek wreaths, and the drinking was already starting up in the pool area. At dinner one of the Contiki reps, Muffin, showed everyone how to tie a toga, told people they were not allowed to wear any clothing underneath the toga, and added that if anyone's toga was higher than his he would buy them a cocktail. Later on I heard his toga was higher than his waist, so if anyone was willing to beat him they've have to get their bits out, and apparently a fair bit of that happened as the night went on as the alcohol flowed, and Harro's infamous mangina made an appearance too.
I stayed up in the pool area for the duration of the party with three others and we just had a few drinks and chatted while Corey played music from his laptop. I don't know how it came to this but around 11pm after a bit of chatting and drinking he dared us all to jump in the pool with all the lights off, and for some strange reason we all thought it was a great idea and went ahead with it, and it was really fun! Although my explanation of it doesn't sound anywhere near as exciting as it actually was. Still, it was fun at the time.

Day 44: May 19 - Corfu
Accommodation: Hotel Frini, Corfu

Last day in Corfu and bus driver Ben had offered to take a few of us to a decent beach on the other side of town so I went along with it, as it would be my last chance for a while to swim in warm clear waters. About 15 to 20 of us took the trip over to a little shop that sold blow-up airbeds (or lilos) and other assorted blow-up toys to use to float on the water with. I was too cheap to fork out 3 Euros for one but Tash and Ben did so I just borrowed theirs while they had a swim and a sunbake. We spent a good 2 or 3 hours just sunbaking and relaxing on lilos, and while it was warm in the sun when I jumped into the water it was still pretty cold at first although got better once I got in. It was so clear I could see the sand on the bottom some 5 to 10 metres down, yet it felt like freshwater rather than saltwater, although you could barely tell there was salt in it if at all. I even clearly saw a car tyre at the bottom. After a while we sat down at a quiet little cafe and ordered fruit cocktails until Ben felt like driving us back.
We got back and spent our last time in the upstairs pool, finished off whatever snacks and beer we had left, and basically just had a nice relaxing end to our 4 days in Corfu, which felt like they went surprisingly fast.

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