Cruise 3 - The Caribbean

Irina Andreas and I

I am fantastically lucky. I meet a German couple, Irina and Andreas, who, in typical German style, have made excellent plans for every port stop, and, then, somehow, I manage to get invited to join them everyday in the Caribbean. We both carry our own masks and snorkels, are happy pilfering buns and plums from the breakfast buffet to eat later for lunch at some deserted lookout, actively prefer renting a car or gadding about on local busses over booking the offered cruise line excursions, and agree that a day can be definitely be declared a success if it involves taking one facebook-postable photo. In short we are great travelling companions.

Part 1 St Maartin/St Martin

One view from land out to sea...

... a few locals spotted on or near the beach....

... and one pic from the show after dinner.

Part 2 Antigua.

Antigua is tiny. And poor. We go first south to the historic dockyards and then north to a recommended snorkelling beach (where the water is a bit murky due to waves but the air full of butterflies). Afterwards we visit the cathedral and botanical gardens (both run down). We are getting about by local bus here, the only white people to do so, and loving how it gives us a wee snapshots of the culture; the girls in crisp clean school uniforms with extremely elaborately braided hair, the driver who stops the bus at his home and gets off to yell at his wife for running up too large a cell phone bill...  We are happy to have had a day exploring but don't have any desire to return later for a full week and agree that we'd not feel safe walking about after dark. 

Part 3 Martinique

Lush tropical paradise

Irina

Botanical garden beauties

I still like ferns - these ones grew about 20 m tall!

Fresh fish...

Northern tip of Martinique where I was tempted to take my requisite vacation nude selfe!

Part 4 Guadeloupe

After a last visit with Andreas and Irina I check into the only hostel in Guadeloupe for a final three days. I had reservations about this hostel as it's located precisely in the middle of nowhere twenty minutes from the capital and not on the coast ... but I immediately connect with two young men, each of them also travelling on their own, and we spend the days snorkelling at small islets off the main island or hiking along the coast and then searching for good fish restaurants.

It is heavenly.

One treasure Matt and Oliver and I came across during a hike along the coast.

Did I mention that it is heavenly?

I cannot believe it's my last stop and I'll be heading home next. 

I didn't even come close to accomplishing any of my stated goals this fall - to crew in the Med, to visit Croatia, to tour Morocco - but I did other wonderful things instead. Hiking in Romania was one highlight, being sidetracked by the history of Turkey another, seeing Greek Isles a third... working with the refugees on Lesvos was interesting and my cruise back just plain fun... And, as always, the people I met along the way added texture and richness to my travels.

I can't wait until I get to go off again!

Cruise 2 - At sea

Crossing the Atlantic

(... another blog post still in progress with photos to follow ... cruising part 3 is now complete and I'll soon get part 1 up too ...)

There are two of us who get up before dawn. I walk the decks, 5 minutes a lap, so 12 laps for the sky to turn from black to charcoal and then lighten through indigo to eggshell passing, depending on the weather, through crimson and fuchsia or rose and peach. There is another woman up, doing yoga on the bow, and we acknowledge each other every time I circle by. It is my favourite hour of the day, not only because of the sky and the promise its rainbow of colours represent but also because of the freshness of the air and the relative peace and I cannot fathom that everyone else is still abed if not asleep. (By everyone else I mean all 1000 of the other guests of course, there are dozens of crew up swabbing the decks, cleaning the railings, setting out deck chairs for the day, jobs that, even with many hands, are not light work. I often wonder if they appreciate the pre-sunrise show at all or if working the early morning shift precludes enjoying anything.)

After the sun is actually up I tend to go and stand on the bow for a bit looking for dolphins as this is the time of day, I am told, they are most likely to be about.

I was worried that I'd be lonely on a cruise ship all by myself, lost, at loose ends, feeling like a sore thumb, especially with 6 days in a row at sea. But no. First of all there are a surprising number of other people also cruising by themselves, secondly there is such an eclectic range of activities offered that there is no chance to get bored, and thirdly everyone is happy to be there, relaxed, and, above all, with time to be open to befriending others. I do the ab workout at 8 am everyday, the organized morning walk at 8:30, the aerobics at 9:00 and then after breakfast I 'do the rounds' and check in with my various new friends; the two Dutch girls who have convinced me to do the daily Arts and Crafts with them and who are keen watersliders, the British sisters who almost convinced me to do the daily Ballroom dancing with them, the four Australian teachers in the middle of their summer holidays, the only other Canadian on board, with whom I have a daily game of scrabble... And the day flies by, the days fly by. My dinner table has a man who retired in 2008 and has been travelling ever since, some Baptist Texan ranchers who honestly believe the world would be a safer place if everyone carried a gun at all times, a rich couple from Puerto Rico... you might not think we'd gel being such an odd group with little more than a language in common but each evening we are the last ones left in the dining room and our waiter has to ask us apologetically, once again, to move on so that he can clear and reset the table.

I'd rather be crewing than cruising. I'd like to be working, standing watch as the sun rises, rather than merely observing others work as I walk, and I actively dislike both that my bed has new freshly washed sheets put on it by someone else every single day and that each dinner involves me dirtying at least 6 plates that someone else will have to clean, it also worries me that even as the climate change conference is going on in Paris, I, on a huge boat, am definitely adding to the problem rather than being part of the solution, but, that sort of concern aside, cruising is OK too, the meals are fantastic, the service impeccable, and the after dinner shows reliably amazing... if you don't mind being waited on hand and foot, having your every desire anticipated and acted on, then it's not bad.

Cost of a boat trip

AKA  Reminiscing about Molyvos (a somewhat disjointed post with previous stuff from elsewhere not re-written into coherence and missing photos)

So I'm doing this cruise back across the Atlantic. The opulence of it is almost offensive. I embark shortly after noon and intend to wait to supper - which I know from past experience will be a 6 course sit down meal complete with waiters in white gloves - before eating, but I browse the lunch buffet just out of curiosity and before I know it I have a plate covered with totally irresistible perfectly prepared hors d'oeuvres; smoked salmon on brown bread, bite sized asparagus quiche, crudite with amazing dip...   

The 15 day cruise was listed at $399. That's in US, of course, and I paid a 40% single supplement and $59 tax so the actual price in CAD was, well, way over $399 but still incredibly cheap for 15 days of all inclusive 5 star living where your washroom is cleaned multiple times a day, your bed remade if you sit on it and wrinkle the covers, the food endless and splendidly cooked and presented, and the evening entertainment Vegas quality.

Sitting in a comfortable chair, eating my smoked salmon bites, with spotless floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Italian riviera, seven waiters hovering waiting to jump into service should I look even the tiniest bit thirsty or whatever, and anticipating several stops not only in the Eastern Mediterranean but also the Eastern Caribbean before disembarking, all I could think of was the refugees I'd met in Molyvos.

I volunteered for 10 days at Oxy, which might look like a refugee camp but isn't, it's merely a bus stop, a place from which refugees who land on the north end of the island can wait to take a free bus south to the actual refugee camps. (Last summer they didn't have this option and were obliged to walk, 75 km, in what was sometimes 40 degree heat, and, as good samaritans who might consider offering  families with toddlers a ride in the back of their pickup, for example, ran the risk of being charged with human trafficking, they didn't, so everyone walked.)  Refugees are not allowed to spend money until they get their paperwork done, they can't take a taxi or even buy a can of coke. Oxy has free food, water, washrooms, tents, and blankets for a few hundred people, theoretically for those who arrive after the busses, which run 7 am to 7 pm, have stopped for the day. But some days the busses don't run, or, even if they do, they can't keep up with the incoming flow of people, so occasionally, if the weather has been good, there can be several thousand people spending a night or even two at Oxy waiting for a bus. It's named Oxy btw because it's on the land owned by a (closed) nightclub of that name, located in no man's land halfway between two tourist towns, presumably so it call pull the young from both and play loud music all night without upsetting the old. I trekked up to check it out one day, it has an awesome view out over the bay, 2 restaurants, 3 bars, an infinity pool, and a huge infinity dance floor. The night club structure, and its implication of opulence, contrasts so strongly with the conditions below, where many have no choice but to sleep outside with only a blanket to cover them, even in the rain, where the line up for the outhouses can be 30 minutes and the line up for breakfast - a cold cheese sandwich on white, no mustard or mayo, a banana, and a bottle of water - 3 hours long, as to be, again, offensive.

As I wrote on facebook I don't know if I will ever be able to summarize the many personal tragedies and traumas I see on a daily basis - the kid who had all his family's money and passports sown into his shirt but lost them when he changed into something dry upon arriving on the island - the man who jumped, fell, and broke both his ankles when the coast guard was trying to off load survivors at the dock quickly after a boat of 300 capsized offshore after dark because their rescue boat has an absolute maximum capacity of 65 and they have to make several trips to pick up the swimming refugees - the desperation on the face of a teen volunteer who is assigned the job of walking the beaches looking for bloated bodies washing ashore a few days later... I try to make the journey for the refugees I am in contact with just a little less stressful than it would otherwise be and become, each day, more and more thankful that I was lucky enough to be born with a Canadian passport..

7 am. I'm on Harbour shift.  I pull myself out of bed to arrive at the harbour at 7 am as designated but am the first one there, by which I mean the first volunteer. It's light out but the sun isn't up yet. A group of about 3 dozen refugees, still mostly lying bundled in sleeping bags on tent mattresses, are scattered about on the cold uneven stones of the inner wharf. A couple of the kids are up dressed incongruously with ill fitting (but dry) clothes, blankets draped over their shoulders, playing with a puppy, their mother is up and looking through the boxes of dry clothes presumably for something more appropriate for them to wear. At the end of the dock a couple workmen are mixing cement. The day starts slowly with a few fishermen heading out in their boats and the refugees slowly rousing. No other volunteers show up and after hanging up all the wet clothes lying about and reorganizing the boxes of dry ones I remember that harbour shift starts at 9 am not 7. Then a team of coast guards in full gear jog by heading to their boat. Shortly afterwards two 'paparazzi' with huge cameras and microphones arrive. "Have you heard about a big boat coming in?" they ask, almost salivating, and start snapping photos of the sleeping refugees - something I just can't bring myself to do - and I can tell that it's going to be a regular day at work.

I first arrived on Lesbos on October 28, a date that was a disaster by any standards, and fear my original post was more negative than necessary. The migrants, be they individuals or large extended families, old or young, educated or not, are all in the process of making an epic journey with the attempt to better their lives and those of their loved ones. And yes there are huge inherent stresses involved in such a decision: many of these stresses are political such as the conditions in their country of origin that made them choose to leave, the laws of the countries they pass through on their way, and the constantly shifting rules, bureaucracy, and temperament of the countries they are heading to, some stresses are financial, others come from the daily uncertainty of both their immediate and long term prospects - will they find something to eat and some shelter tonight, a place to eventually settle and call home - other stresses are those inherent with daily living, perhaps magnified a few times. But there is also a huge amount of hope involved in the decision to pick up and go as well as many small moments of joy along the way. Yesterday I was on 'bus duty' helping the - sometimes thousands - of incoming travellers lineup in groups 50, in the order they arrived, to be transported to the refugee camps where they can start the lengthy paperwork process of applying for recognized status. Bus duty includes a lot of hurry up and wait so I get to interact with whomever is at the end of the line: this might involve chatting with a pair of 16 year old Afghan cousins who have been sent ahead by their family to scout out Scandinavian countries and look for somewhere the whole family can relocate to or dancing with 5 preschool siblings so their mother, travelling alone with them, can have a moment's peace to nurse her youngest... And meeting many of these people has reinforced for me two things that we all already know: first, live in the moment, smile, enjoy the meal and the company you have before you, be grateful for what you do have right now, and second, live life with optimism, plan for the worst, maybe, but hope for the best, definitely.

So here I am on this wonderful cruise ship - it has a spa, a gym, tennis court, 6 hot tubs and a 4 story water slide, it has six restaurants, countless bars, and organized activities for all ages... and for 15 days of this I paid well under 1000 Euros. 1000 Euros is, you see, the going price that refugees pay for a 2 hour trip by dinghy from Turkey to Greece. Well the regular price. One of the 16 year old Afghans I was chatting to only had to pay  $950 because he was the designated driver. The designated driver gets a 30 minute lesson on how to use and repair an outboard motor - remember these are people have lived most of their lives in the desert - and then is responsible for successfully driving a boatload of non-swimmers across the ocean passage in the dark and landing on some unknown shore on the other side. Some refugees pay 3000 Euros to get taken on a slightly larger safer boat. (I complained, earlier in this blog, that my clean safe ferry from Turkey to Greece was 17 Euros. It seemed extortionately expensive to me at the time. Little did I know.) A new cemetery has been started on Lesvos because the existing ones were completely full, primarily with unidentified bodies that washed ashore. The graves are marked "three year old girl" or "man, mid 30s, likely Syrian".

And they pay, for this short night time trip, more than I am paying for a 15 day cruise?

How is this possible?

The world makes no sense at all.

(Photos to be added later.)

Vacation

Once again I'm on vacation from my vacation  AKA  An update about nothing. 

AN exhibition of modern sculptures on the roof I'd the Duomo in Milan Italy gives wonderful contrast in style and makes for fun photos.

Geoff came to visit for a week and we checked out some of the tourist highlights of mainland Greece. All went well but, I hate to admit, when he left and I was back on my own again, instead of feeling desperately lonely, as I'd expected, what I really felt was a sense of relief as if a weight had been lifted.

I am, like too many women of my mother's generation, a 'pleaser' and I can't be happy myself unless I've done everything in my power to ensure that everyone else around me is happy first. Consequently I find myself catering too much to others' wishes, doing what I feel is more than my fair share of the compromising, and then resenting it.

As soon as Geoff was gone I was able to - in a very selfish self-centered manner - go back to doing exactly what I wanted to do all the time without having to consider or communicate or compromise with anyone else.

It was lovely.

I checked into a hostel in old town Athens within walking distance of everything and proceeded to start my days off with sleeping in before wandering to one of the main squares to sit and listen to whatever street musicians were playing while simultaneously reading a book. (I first read The Goldfinch, which I loved, it took me three days to finish, and I've moved on to an anthology of American short stories whose intro starts out, 'Language is a drug...'). It's still warm Indian summer weather here, shirt and t-shirt weather, and reading outdoors is glorious.

I've befriended the people in my dorm and in the evenings we sit and chat together for hours over a few beer or a bottle of wine discussing world politics and current events then cook communal meals and play cards until the wee hours.

'Where are you going next?', I'm asked by both friends from home and those around me, but I am without answer. I'm not even planning. I'm just being happy, completely stress-free, whiling away the hours somewhat aimlessly but in a state of total contentment. Someone tells me of Como, a book about a man who won a month as writer-in-residence and merely enjoyed the place but didn't write a word while he was there... and I feel like him, though, obviously, he stored up details in a notebook or his mind as he wrote a bestseller later about the whole experience, which I am not doing. And as I wander the streets the next day, very briefly inspired, I try to observe and list, to myself at least, what I like so much about my surroundings; the narrow cobblestone streets lined with large orange trees meandering aimlessly and punctuated with small squares where ruins, Byzantine churches, coffee shops, green grocers, and newspaper kiosks all happily coexist... I've brought my camera with me too this morning thinking I might try to take a postcard worthy photo. But I'm too filled with complacency and lassitude, like a cat napping on a sunny windowsill, to make a real effort at any of it.

And, several days later, I still have no plans... I might go back to Lesvos, though I feel I've had that experience, or head to Croatia, though I fear it would be getting cold there by now, or join a tour to see some of Morocco, though that seems somewhat contrived, or even catch a super cheap cruise back across the ocean, though that feels a bit lazy... but it's all good. I've only got winning options in front of me.

I plan to be home in a month, for Christmas, and doubt I'll spend all of my remaining time here, in this same hostel, but, you never know... My days are filled with little experiences, rather than big ones, taking the tram along the coast and walking the boardwalk and then the beach until I come across a bar with with wonderful couches nestled among the palm trees and settling in to read for a couple hours, being jolted awake when one of my roommates has a violent nightmare and going to sit out in the courtyard garden to drink tea together with her and the night watchman because she's too scared to go back to sleep, considering sorting through my accumulated photos... it may sound a bit empty but doesn't feel that way at all rather it is as cosy and comfortable as a favourite faded sweater. Right now I think I'll have a nap, then go out to get the weekend paper so I have a good crossword to peck away at, pick up salad fixings and a bottle of red, set a time to chat with each of my kids, and, maybe, tomorrow, I'll find the time to consider what to do next...

Finally, finally, I am just living.  

A few days later, when up at 3 am for a pee break and sitting in the garden courtyard checking to see if any of my kids happen to be lurking online  - 3 am here is 8 pm there so a great time to chat with them for a moment or two - I find in my inbox an email from a friend telling me of one of her relatives who had a near miss wrt the bombings in Paris, and, as I am responding this news, a bomb goes off in Athens just a few blocks away from where I am. No one was killed in the Athens bombing, the police had received a tip it was there and had evacuated the immediately adjacent buildings, but it still spooked me. I don't think I'd ever heard a bomb detonate in person before but I, and the night watchman, both agreed immediately that that was what it was. So, despite having just found such a lovely equilibrium, I decide that it's time to go home. I book a 15 day cruise back across the Atlantic (4 stops, 6 days at sea, 4 stops) (Advertised price $399 !! Actual price including single supplement and taxes still less than twice that, in other words an awesome deal), a few days at a hostel in Guadeloupe on the other side of the ocean, and a flight from Guadeloupe back to Ottawa. I'll be back in Canada before Christmas and get to see each of my kids at some point over the holiday for sure. I didn't even step foot on a sailboat this fall though my stated goal had been to crew for months in the Mediterranean but I have no regrets. When I'm 90 I'll be able to reminisce about all my adventures. Likely I'll be so poor that I'll be living in one of my kids' garages but fortunately I'm OK with that too.

I spend a couple of days in Milan on my way to the port and, except that it's only 2 degrees out (what is that?), totally enjoy seeing one more city and meeting, fleetingly as always, a few more people.

Walking round the cathedral in the main square I marvel at the range of materials used artistically; marble statues and oil paintings, of course, but also tapestries, intricate wood and metal work, ceramic mosaics, stained glass windows, solid bronze, gold lief, precious stones... the floor has designs made by different coloured rock and on the roof, from where you can see the city skyline, there is an outdoor exhibition of ultra modern sculptures that catch my eye. In the ossuary old bones and skulls have been used to create 'art' that has a carpe diem message reminding us to live today as we won't live forever. I wish I were the sort of Art teacher who brought all of these materials into their classroom; rocks and glass and metal and bones. I still feel so deep into holiday mode it seems highly unlikely - though I know it's true - that I'll be back in the classroom in a matter of weeks.

And on the train from Milan south to Savona in the early morning skimming silently first past heavily frosted flat fields and then, closer to the coast, through tunnel after tunnel, I am totally utterly content.

Athens

Mainland Greece - The Big Three: Athens, Delphi, and the Meteora 

Geoff came to visit. We went on walks round the city, towns, and countryside, visited ruins and museums, and posed in front of pillars. It was wonderful fall weather everyday. 

Athens:

Guard in front of parliament buildings.

Geoff and I in front of one of the minor temples on top of the Acropolis.

As usual I took pictures of modetn graffiti as well ancient architecture.

Delphi:

Statue.

Trees.

Geoff and I posing in front of pillars again ... I note that I still have to learn how to deal with the perspective when taking shots of tall things.

The Meteora:

In a landscape dominated by tall rock pillars...

... and deep canyons ...

... monks decided to build monestaries up the cliffs ...

... and on top of pillars. (This is the view from our hotel balcony. You can see the cross in the monestary's back yard from here though the building itself is not visible in this shot.

Geoff and I climbed all the paths ...

... and explored the nooks and crannies in the monestaries.

It was a great week.

Molyvos 1

Molyvos - the first 24 hours  AKA   Volunteer on Sandwich duty

I had a 10 day hole in my schedule and someone I met at breakfast in the hostel I was staying at had just come from Molyvos and said they needed people there so off I went to do the volunteering thing for, as my grandfather would have said, both the right reasons and the wrong reasons, but, I must admit, mostly for the wrong reasons - i.e. mostly because I thought it would be interesting rather than because I am am noble.

And it is interesting. There's a 'new volunteers intro talk' each day at 10 am where they tell you about the process and ask about your skills so they can use you efficiently. I took an overnight ferry which arrived on the island of Lesvos at 8 am thinking I'd be able to catch a bus and make it the 50 km to Molyvos by 10, but it turned out I had come on a national holiday and no busses were running. I walked/hitchhiked instead - which took forever - and didn't get there till noon.

It's a lovely island, with olive trees and goats  and rocky mountains in abundance ofc but also wetlands with thousands of flamingos and hills of drying salt.

About 11 am as I was walking up up up an endless switchback hill in the hot sun, none of the very few cars that passed stopping to pick me up, the thought crossed my mind that being a volunteer was harder than I'd expected. 

I'm sure the same thought was on the mind of one of the young volunteers already at Molyvos - a pediatric emergency room doctor whose speciation is drowning - as a toddler lay dying in his arms.

Needless to say the mood was very somber when I arrived. Lots of kids had been on the boat that had come in that morning, the family of the dead boy were inconsolable and the families of four other children, who had at least made it alive into ambulances, were frantic.

The volunteer coordinator first told me to come back the next day at 10 am for processing but just then got word another boat was coming in and so asked me to join the sandwich team instead. My first job was to hand out cheese sandwiches to dozens of wet cold scared people. They get off the boats, are given emergency blankets and real blankets, have their names listed, get given a sandwich, can trade their wet clothes for other drier ones that previous boats' occupants had discarded that have been sun dried, but not washed or cleaned, and then are loaded onto busses and taken to the refugee camp a few miles away where they are processed properly. Within 2 hours four more boats had arrived and I was busy not only handing out sandwiches but also doing many other jobs. It was very gratifying with small kids and old men all equally extremely grateful, to be on land and to be offered a sandwich and dry clothes. They had a gazillion questions; what island was this, where could they buy a sim card, what would happen next, where was Germany, etc etc (often asked in Arabic) and many of which I couldn't answer even if asked in English.

As more and more refugees arrived chaos ensued. Part of my job was to keep the groups separate which, with one of me and several dozen in each of them, proved difficult.

One old man had a heart attack and while the two doctors were looking after him a woman right in front of me who was sitting on a stone wall in the sun fainted and dropped her newborn baby 6' onto the cobblestones below...

At 3 pm I was sent with a mini van to the grocery store in the next town, which had opened up just for us, to buy ALL the sliced bread, sliced cheese, and bottled water they had, and then, as everyone else with training was busy, I made 40 loaves of bread into sandwiches all by myself, some for the incoming people and others for the refugee camp. When I was done I glanced at my watch to see if it was after midnight or not and it was 7 pm.

I returned to the harbour to ask if I ought to bring the sandwiches down.

The situation was indescribable.

It was dark. More boatloads of people had arrived. The young doctors were doing CPR frantically trying to save several half drowned kids, ambulances were coming and going, dry clothes had run out, the press had arrived in droves and was getting in everyone's face and tensions were running high. Then another boat was found capsized at sea by the coast guard after a refugee, who had been swimming for 5 hours, was rescued by a fisherman and a helicopter with a searchlight started combing the sea looking for more survivors (or bodies)...

I hadn't slept well on the ferry the night before, had walked miles on the hot sun in the morning, and it was more that I could deal with right then so I went to check in to my hotel (which would have been closed for the season by now but has stayed open just for volunteers and is letting rooms at the hugely discounted rate if 10€/night).

I got back to the harbour early the next morning and went straight to help making sandwiches again, as I knew how to do that, until 10, when I went for the processing meeting. The coordinator was just too busy to do a meeting that day and said that she needed me to help serve breakfast to the 400!! new refugees who had arrived overnight and then take a break so I'd be good to do a full shift from 3 pm to 11 pm later that day and that she'd try to run a meeting the following day.

Then we learn that 40 people drowned just offshore.

It's noon now. I've been here 24 hours.

Molyvos is an idyllic little town crowned with a castle.

The harbour is deceptively quiet looking. It was beneath the green tent that we fed breakfast to 400 newly arrived refugees many wet, scared, and very uncertain about their immediate future.

One girl fills a water bottle while another walks along the top of a wall on which clothes have been put to dry.

Greek Isle #3

Naxos - Just another awesome part of paradise

Nadine and Jean Marc rented a car on Naxos and took me everywhere with them.

The weather was changeable but the view always great.

Naxos has lots of marble. It was being mined and used 2500 years ago when Demeter's Sanctuary was built...

... and it is still being mined today. There's so much that the scraps get used as breakwaters. 

Even the parts of Naxos that aren't marble are still pretty rocky...

... and the number of stone walls in some fields is crazy.

Houses were built of stone...

... and windmills ...

... and churches.

We did all sorts of things; stopped at beaches to skinny dip, at restaurants to sample local cuisine, and at this half-built deserted hotel to marvel at the graffiti.

We saw sheep ...

... and cows ...

... and goats.

The wild flowers were interesting...

... and the cultivated ones stunning. And, as usual, I threw my hands in the air and was thrilled to be privileged enough to visit.

Greek Isle #2

IOS  - Closed for the season

At the only restaurant left open the flowers are in full bloom but the bar stools empty.

I was on Santorini just yesterday, it's so close you can see it from here, and it was a happening place. My hostel was almost full, there were often 5 cruise ships in port, the restaurants and boutiques were open for business, the infinity pools sparkled, and the teenagers partied at clubs till 4 am and then got up at 9 in the morning and roared off on their rented ATV's to go and explore the island. (I was impressed. I assume 'explore the island' translates into 'sleep on the beach', but I was nonetheless impressed. But the point is, it was a happening place.)

Ios, on the other hand, is already closed for the season. The hostels and hotels, the shops and restaurants, the taxi boats and beach bars - all are closed. Beaches are deserted. Pools are empty (of water). Coke machines are unplugged and turned backwards. Outdoor lighting is bagged and duct taped. Beach chairs are stacked and tied firmly down for the winter. Nobody is here.

Why?

It is 28 degrees and gorgeous out.

The water is still warm and the flowers are in full bloom.

Ios, where Homer lived and died, is a delightful little island. It has rocky headlands along the shore separating deep bays with sandy beaches and clear turquoise water perfect for snorkeling and a quiet interior where cows, goats, and sheep roam and grapes and olives are grown.

Why is it empty?

I explored the narrow winding (deserted) labyrinthine laneways of the principal town before walking to the main beautiful km long (deserted) beach where I swam and then stopped for a super meal at the last restaurant still open on the island (where I was the only patron). The owner said there are 15,000 tourists per day on the island in summer. We both agreed the number now is likely 15.

I was going to stay at the Far Out Beach Club which has camping, 3 star, and 5 star sections, various pools and activities, and DJs from Athens every night. Not in October. I'm staying instead in a lovely little family run pension with a fantastic front jungle garden right by the port. It's great, which is good, because not many other options currently exist.

If you want to walk, swim, read, relax, or otherwise occupy yourself in a picturesque part of paradise in total peace and quiet with only birdsong and the occasional jangling of a loose goat's bell to disrupt you, then Ios in October would suit you well.

Deep bays with (deserted) sandy beaches.

Interior of Ios.

Detail of interior showing terracing put in by the Romans now neglected and overgrown.

The shady front garden of my lovely pension.

EVERY pool I saw was empty!