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The Party Island |
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 After
a couple of days braving the Greek Ferry system from Turkey, it was great to
finally arrive at the port of Ios. My friend had told me the place to stay
and judging by the amount of people getting off the ferry, I was glad I had
already booked in. After fighting my way through a crowd of pushy Greek
hotel owners, I was happy to see the guesthouse courtesy driver rounding up
some quality looking girls.
He turned out to be a fellow Aussie by the name of Matt, who got us all to
the village and gave us the low down on the hot spots around the island. The
first thing that struck me about Ios was the incredible sunset view from the
terrace bar at Francescos. The terrace was packed with travellers enjoying
beers and cocktails, charging up before they set out for another night of
mayhem.
Even though I was tired from a long journey, I was pumped for a big night so
after dropping off my bags, I headed down to the bar for the first of many
weird and wacky concoctions I would end up drinking that night.
 Before
I had finished my first beer, I was happy to see a bunch of crazy guys I met
in Olympos a couple of weeks earlier. They were all heading to the town
square to check out the action, so we went down together. Luckily, the main
square was only about 100 metres from the guesthouse, which came in handy
when I crawled home early the next morning.
The main square was pumping – packed with an eclectic group of extremely
tanned young travellers. We immediately started chatting to some awesome
Danish chicks that we'd met on the terrace earlier. After making fun of
their accents and consuming a ridiculous number of shots, the girls dragged
us off to the Blue Note, some Scandinavian bar that was apparently goin'
off, not that we cared.
The next 7 hours became a drunken blur but I managed to retrace my steps the
next day by the number of different t-shirts I had - you get a free one
every time you drink 7 shots and I had three of them on. Not a bad effort I
thought.
 I
spent the next afternoon recovering on the beach along with my new Danish
friends. Ios is renowned for its nightlife and I was surprised to discover
that it has some of the most beautiful beaches in the Cyclades.
Specifically, Mylopotas Beach, which is just three kilometres from the
village and Manganari beach on the far side of the Island. Even though
Manganari is a little out of the way, it’s definately worth the boat or bus
trip there as it’s completely untouched by the regular Ios scene and a real
highlight of the Island.
When I headed back into town after my day relaxing on the beach, I hardly
recognized it. Without the nighttime hordes of revelers, the town is a
quaint little village with little old ladies painting white lines on the
ground and trying to make conversation in broken English while the Greek men
play cards and sell Souvlaki. Pretty soon I discovered that every day in Ios
is pretty much the same, party all night, recover all day and have a hell of
a good time doing both!
After one week on Ios (which was supposed to be 2 nights), I left the island
with a lot of great memories and friends, many of whom I still keep in touch
with to this day. Matt finally dropped me at the port and I headed off for
another Greek Island adventure, knowing nothing could ever out do my
memories of Ios.
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