Ios, you very nearly killed me, but I still love you!

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Ios

We were sad to leave beautiful Santorini but we had four nights to go on the mega party island of Ios. We arrived in Francescoes, a beautiful apartment complex on the very top of the hill overlooking the bay. I was not rooming with Kel for first night so we met after unpacking to shop for a new bikini. We then took a bus to far out camping, which was where Grace and Jem were staying on the beach. We couldn't find the girls, so we went to the beach instead, we had some bar workers try to talk us into going to their club as they got paid to be friendly to people on the beach. Eventually we found the girls at the bar and we all had a cocktail and organised to meet at Fiesta, the best recommended place for dinner. We went home and then watched the sunset from a view point down the road where we met Maizen, a German tourist who we invited to join the girls and John for dinner. Kel goy scratched after playing with a stray cat and then had to be patched up by a kind and mothering lady who worked at the restaurant.

We all headed off together on the pub crawl with our new guide John. We played jenga with giant blocks, had free pour shots blind folded lying backwards on the bar and in the Flame bar, foam snow was released from the roof. We did alot of dancing in the bars, and avoided Slammer bar where people could get a free shirt if you were willing to buy 5 shots, wear a helmet and then get smashed with a skateboard/hammer/fire extinguisher, etc Grace left early and we weren't happy with her walking all the way to the beach to their accomodation so I gave her the key to my room and she slept in my bed. We went onto the Blue note bar and had more shots, the orange bar was too smoky so we ended up in the expensive ritzy bar upstairs, we stopped Jem sliding down the banister, had expensive drinks and met Chicken. We spent a while looking for our NZ friends from Paros, Dan and Will and Kel's friend Richo and wandered a few more bars in town. I got home at 5am to sleep in Kel's bed, Kel slept in a hammock at Far out camping bar and Jem slept in Grace's bed...so Ios had turned out to be as crazy as we had been told! We were off to a good start!

Next day Kel arrived home to find me in her bed, so we checked my room and Grace had gone home but we gave up on sleep and instead had breakie and did our washing. A must needed nap later and then we met for lunch with the girls at far out camping to watch the wet t-shirt comp. The girl who won was so sleezy, the girl who came second should have won and the girl who came third was much better too. The dance party afterwards was even more fun. We headed home and met a guy from Dubai in the super market who invited us to their rooftop for drinks. It ended being a big group of New zealanders and an Englishman and the fellow we met from Dubai. Kel had a soft spot for our new Dubai friend and the NZ boys were all good fun and crazy characters so hung out for laughs til we got in trouble from the neighbours for being too noisy and had to head out to town. Grace went home early, Kel soon afterwards so it was left up to Jem and I to party on. We did some crazy fire shots and breathing into a gas filled balloon (which sent us into a spin) at circus bar and met Sebastian from Sweden and caught up with Dan and Will.

I got back at 4am and woke at 10:40am same morning, which would have been ok except Jem had stayed with me and had to be packed and ready to leave far out camping at 11am....20 minutes time...Ahhhhh Major Panic! It took 10 minutes just to get there if the bus left immediately...and it wasn't reliable. Jem freaked out and ran for the bus for far out camping so they could get their transfer to the port and not miss their ferry. I found Kel, grabbed a quick bakery breakie, and we walked down to the port to try and find our girls who had miraculously managed to get there in time. Dan and Will discovered their tickets were for the wrong day...and they were supposed to leave actually tomorrow. Whoops. They decided to risk it and jump on the boat anyway. We left our little sisters with a few tears, but we were so excited to see Charlie and Johno get off the boat, and arranged to meet Johno for swim in the arvo.

Lunch was gyros again, yum and 2€, hard to say no when it's cheap and delicious. We met Johno and encouraged him to try the water sports biscuit with us. We lost kelly on the first major wave, I lost alot of skin off my elbow and got a bruise on my chin from connecting with Johno's elbow hitting my chin on the way down from our 'airtime' break and ended up slightly concust. Kel got back on and we continued having hilarious good fun. When we got into shore the driver told us to stand up for a last photo. Then sped off so we all fell off, we had a real good laugh looking at the photos and a few cocktails at the bar, where we met Connor with a crazy duck tattoo and I managed to record Kel's first (and failed) stawpedo attempt. We decided to walk to harmony bar at sunset for dinner and had delicious Mexican food, sat on their comfy cushions until well into the evening and generally chilled out. Afterwards we headed to town for pub crawl number two, which was another crazy night ending in a swim at the beach.

Next morning we had a delicious breakie on the rooftop restaurant near our hostel, they had the best eggs, we packed our bags had our last gyros for lunch and did some more bikini shopping before taking them for a swim. We met Johno at far out camping for beach olympics, cocktails and then went back to Harmony again for dinner and long relaxing hours of chats, giggles and hammock time. We went home, Kel fell asleep as she was ill, so was I...Ios had killed us with insane and amazing party times but I had promised Johno a drink so we went out together to get a crepe, have a jager shot and cocktail and then shots at two more bars before watching the 1am fire show at circus bar. I went home then (1am was seriously early for Ios) as I was as sick as a dog.

We had to be up early to catch the ferry and I had my goodness knows how manyth turtle moment getting my bag on my back, knocking over a table and almost taking someone out. Kel just laughed. When we got back, Kel and I walked up to the Panthenon only to find it shut early on Sundays, we were so annoyed but instead had dinner in the restaurant district after being chased down the street by random restraunteer who so badly needed business he felt he had to run us down with his menu. We laughed at the spongebob balloon of the table next to us (pictures will explain) and grabbed some frogurt before heading home to upload photos and finally got to bed before midnight.

I saw Kel off the next day by joining her in a very early walk up to see the Panthenon when the gates opened and then a very quick shop. I met Stephanie from our first group and we had a shopping day, and lunch at yum gyros place and frogurt for dessert. I had alot of stuff to send home but the moral of this story is don't send anything from Greece. So so expensive and so hard to do. We had dinner on our rooftop bar with Stephanie and her two friends from back home and then another early early night as I had to be up at 5am next morning for the Balkan trek start.

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