Let's Go to Mykonos!

My trip to Greece - Mykonos
(otherwise known by me and Dana as "Meeeeee - ko - nooosss", said in a singsong to the tune of the Riccola commercials)

Five hours, one Grecian sunrise, and two island stops later (Syros, the capitol island of the Cyclades, and neighboring island, Tinos), Dana and I arrive on the island of Mykonos. Departing the ferry was very eventful. On the way onto the ferry, they had escalators that would take you and your very heavy luggage up the 3 flights of 50 stairs each to the main deck. On the way off of the ferry, however, they turn off the escalators and leave weak, American girls to drag their luggage down the stairs, ker-klunck, ker-klunck, ker-klunck, to the amusement and jeers of the locals. Three flights, 150 stairs, and 6 bruises later, we're ready to embark on the Mykonos experience.

Off of the ferry, there are a barrage of hotel representatives with 4-color brochures and business cards from their establishment ready to sell you on a room at their place. It's very hectic with strangers coming over to show off their brochure while others shove theirs in front instead, all of them spouting off the features, benefits, and pricing of their respective place. Dana and I decided to go with a hotel that was in-town as opposed to on the beach because we wanted to be close to the action. A man showed us a brochure of his place, and the view of the pool shown in his brochure, along with the 50 euro ($60) a night price tag, tempted us, so we asked to see rooms at his hotel before committing to stay. Pocketing other hotel's business cards in case we weren't pleased with what we saw, we jumped in the van as he loaded up our luggage. A 5 minute drive up the cliff and we were there. He opened the cobalt blue wooden double-doors to the pool area entrance and our mouths dropped open in awe. After checking out a room for cleanliness (it even had a shower curtain) and the rest of the hotel, we eagerly signed up for at least 2 nights at Hotel Tagoo. Wouldn't you?
(the uploading of pictures isn't working so you'll have to actually click the links to view)
The Amazing Pool
The Hotel
The View from Our Room

We spent the last few hours of the afternoon at the pool, drooling over the 3 British guys that showed up a little later that day, and then ventured into the town for a look around that night. I found the whitewashed buildings with doors and shutters the color of the blue Aegean, paired with flowers in pinks and oranges, a beautiful contrast against the rocky backdrop of the undeveloped areas of the island. Town was very quaint with small tavernas and shops peppered along the harbor, but extremely overpriced and touristy. We ate outside at a restaurant directly on the water that night called Babulas, and had many cat friends come over looking for a morsel or two of our dinner. We're both animal-loving people, so we didn't mind sharing. (In fact, an orange and white tabby cat at the hotel had adopted us so we brought him home our leftovers at night, gave him water, and named him George, short for Georgia.) We made good friends with the older gentleman that owns the place, and he ended up bringing us some sort of lemon cordial in a shot glass when we finished our meal. After dinner, we wandered the streets a bit longer, and then found a place in the center of town to have dessert and a cappucino. With it being the end of the tourist season, Mykonos wasn't quite as "happening" as everyone describes it to be, but we still had a good time. We really didn't want to party all night anyway; maybe we're getting old, but there was too much we wanted to do and see and didn't want to waste our trip in Greece sleeping off a hangover.

Saturday morning we woke up and decided to head out for one of the beaches, so we threw on our suits and headed for the bus station. We stopped in a mini-market to pick up some bottled water and snacks for the day, and wouldn't you know that while picking out our Ruffles Oregano flavored chips, my bathing suit strap snapped and I had a total Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction right there in the potato chip aisle! I desperately grabbed the strap and held it back up to make myself decent again. Ready to get going to the beach and unmotivated by the hot sun to walk up the cliff back to the hotel to change swimsuits, I improvised and bought a black shoelace from the market to rig my bathing suit back together again. Just call me Macgyver. We bought a bus ticket from the lady at the rental car place as indicated to do on the bus schedule scribbled on a black chalkboard with the bus times and locations running for the day. This was our second encounter with the Greek time table. We stood at the bus stop for 45 minutes (when it should have only been a 15 minute wait according to the time it was supposed to show up and the time we purchased our ticket). Once the bus finally showed up, it backed into the bus parking spot and the driver got out. We went over, showed him our ticket and said we were waiting to go to Elias Beach, and he shook his head and said we missed the bus and the next one wouldn't be for another 2 hours. What? How could that be? We were there 15 minutes early for the designated time it was supposed to come! He didn't seem to care all that much as he made a brush off motion with his hand, mumbling in Greek as he walked away from the bus, I guess on his break. Confused but determined to get to a beach, we decided to try a taxi to the beach instead. We walked back into the center of town where tourists catch the taxis and again waited for an hour, in line for our turn with a taxi, also known as your death wish. The taxi was doing at least 80 mph around very windy, very narrow roads with sharp drop offs down the sides of cliffs and no guard rails. I'm all for driving fast, but I have to admit that I was scared for my life in the 20 minute, 10 euro ($12) ride to Elias Beach. Disney's Space Mountain's got nothing on Mykonos taxis, that's for sure!

Elias Beach was fairly quiet and very pretty. Tall, rocky mountains lacking in any vegitation surrounded a large cove of crystal clear, sparkling azure water, that was a bit on the chilly side. The sand was a nice tan color with a mixture of a few small pebbles. Unfortunately, there were also quite a few cigarette butts on the beach as well. The European tourists obviously haven't gotten the memo about smoking just yet because everyone over there still seems to do it. We spent the remainder of what was left in our day at the beach, seeing the sunset and then actually catching the last bus back to town. Ha! And I thought the taxi ride was bad? Now we're in a bus doing 80 mph through windy, narrow roads with sharp drop offs and no guard rails, but the new element to the death wish game is that the bus is overstuffed with people, standing room only, to the point that Dana and I had to sit on the steps of the bus because that was the only space left to squeeze us on!

Later that night we went back into town and ate at Nikos Tavern, a restaurant tucked right in the middle of the meandering streets, where everyone just walks through and amongst the tables along their way through town. After dinner, we started off on our journey through the maze of whitewashed pathways leading to shops interspersed with dance clubs, more restaurants, small churches, and private homes. Bobbing in and out of the overpriced shops and intrigued by what we'd find around the next path, perhaps even looking for a small bit of vacation trouble, we walked the town of Mykonos thoroughly, finding that most of the night life left on the island at this point in the tourist season wasn't for us. We were two single girls looking for straight single men, and while we found a gamut of single men, it was guaranteed they weren't looking for girls like us. Back at the hotel that night, we decided not to stay any longer in Mykonos as originally planned and to begin our journey to the island of Santorini instead. While Mykonos is a beautiful place, it felt a little too touristy and contrived, and we were satisfied that we had seen what we came to see in the two days we were there.

The next morning, we packed up, checked out of the beautiful and incredibly relaxing Hotel Tagoo (I still miss the pool), and went back to the center of town to the travel agency that Cathy's boyfriend's sister worked at. We met Maria, Petro's sister, inside the agency and she helped us book our ferry ticket to Santorini, on a fast boat this time so our trip would only take 3 hours. We also decided that since we had a hard time finding a hotel in Athens the first time, that we should go ahead and book our ferry ticket back to Athens from Santorini along with hotel accommodations in Athens for once we got there. This was the only part of the trip that we actually planned. Keep that in mind, because it will come up in my writings about Athens. We went to the port 30 minutes ahead of time, and stood there waiting for the ferry for 2 hours. The Greek time table. Whatever. The ferry arrived, we boarded, with assigned seats inside this time, and we were off for the beautiful Santorini!

Stay tuned for the post about Santorini. It's about to get really good, y'all.