Algorta and Bilbao

For the last couple of weeks, the Basque Country has been all a twitter with festivals - even more than usual - because most people have the month of August for vacations. The first week after Greece the festivals had moved to Getxo in the 'barrios' of Algorta and Puerto Viejo.

Algorta held a competition for cuadrillas (groups of friends) with varying competitions on each day. My favorite of these competitions was 'la bajada' which was a parade of the different groups all having different themes. These ranged from firefighters, to slip n' sliders in the street, to Willie Wonky and the Chocolate Factory, to guys ballerinas, to a group imitating a Spanish game show that involves filling a small car with various items. This time: How many Basques can you fit in a tiny car? As it turns out, eight, and one in the trunk. Friday was the jaiak in Puerto Viejo which is the old port in Getxo. The location was amazing as it was right on the sea and the weather couldn't have been better.

Saturday marked the beginning of Aste Nagusia (Bilbao's festival) so Ibai and I hosted a lunch with our good friends at our place to kick off the festivities. After the lunch we headed down into Bilbao for the txupinazo where a rocket is launched and Marijaia (the festival's saint) appears. She makes her way from txosna to txosna to open each one and then the alcohol flows for the next 8 days. The plaza in front of Arriaga Theatre was absolutely packed with people dancing and singing the Marijaia song (click here to see). The entire city of Bilbao packed with people partying well into the wee hours of the morning. Then during the day there's everything from 'food of the world', rides, street performances, a giant circus, and more. Also, my personal favorite inclusion of the festivities; the world fireworks competition with a different country competing each night. The best part - the park two minutes from my flat is the best place to view the fireworks from.

Hasta la proximá vez or when I'm in CANADA in two days!!

Kathlene

Algorta and Bilbao

Athens, Greece

We finished our Greek adventure by seeing the ancient city of Athens. My impression of the city was that is was an ancient and giant inferno. Most days it was 40+ C without a breeze and you could feel the sun cooking your skin. It was practically unbearable most of the time. But, is was also awesome (in the true sense of the word) to be able to be amongst 5000 years of history where everything from politics to plumbing was invented.

We stayed in a great hostel (Athens Backpackers/Studios) which was located right in the middle of the city and all the sights. The hostel had a rooftop bar from which you could see the Acropolis (highest point of the city which houses the Parthenon, Temple of Athena Nike, etc.) and enjoy very cheap 'Bonsi Specials' (Bonsi was the bartender from Scotland who claimed the drink was more or less 'sex on the roof'. We agreed.) during the evening, and free breakfast in the morning. Also, the neighborhood had many adorable open-air restaurants along the cobble stone streets for enjoying some Greek cuisine. We only had 2 days to see everything and this set up made it incredibly easy to do so, even allowing for air-conditioning breaks in our room.

The first morning we got up and went to the Acropolis for it's 8am opening hoping to beat the heat (but it was still scorching at 8:30am) to see the Theatre of Dionysus, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheum. In my opinion, the Erechtheum was the most impressive of them all, but it was also pretty neat to stand in front of the Parthenon. After the Acropolis we made our way to the Ancient Agora (old market place) which really just seemed like a bunch of rocks that were supposed to have been a little city (our imaginations weren't good enough to see it) and a really well preserved temple belonging to Hephaistos. We also saw the Roman Agora which was more of the same... but roman... At this point we had both gone through 6 Litres of water and couldn't believe we didn't have to pee. We had literally sweat all of it out. This is when we caved and bought little Japanese parasols like all the other tourists just to help us bear the heat a little bit better. Upside of extremely colorful parasol: keeping the hellish heat off your head. Downside of extremely colorful parasol: having even more creepy Greek guys take notice of your presence. And we thought Spanish boys were direct... pfft... I'm telling you, there's something in that Mediterranean water.

We also managed to squeeze in visits to Hadrian's Arch, The Temple of Zeus (the largest temple ever built in Greece) and the first modern Olympic stadium (1896) which was built completely out of marble but was suprisingly small. The olympics has most definitely come a long way in 113 years. Then we ended our day with a visit to the national gardens and night on the roof/around Athens. It seemed that everyone in the hostel gathered on the roof that night - People from Canada, Switzerland, Australia, Scotland, England, Brazil, USA, Uraguay, and of course Eva from Spain. I was SO excited to meet the two girls from Calgary. I hadn't seen Canadians in such a long time! Also, I was very happy to make a friend from Switzerland who promised to send me chocolate in exchange for any maple product. I'm definitely keeping that arrangement. The best conversation that came out of that night was about Ruffle Chips. Did you know that all countries have 2-3 standard flavours? For example Spain has ham and ham and cheese flavored Ruffles, Greece has oregano and paprika flavors, where Switzerland doesn't have any of these flavors. Strange isn't it? Also, North America may be the only place on the planet where you don't have to pay for water, ketchup or mayonnaise at a restaurant. Apparently we lived a pretty charmed life in Canada. (Maybe saying it was the most interesting conversation is a little sad after you read about the conversation - but it was interesting to learn about the small differences about the countries.)

Athens was a very interesting city. It may be large, heavily polluted, so hot and desert like that it resembles hell at times, but it was truly awesome (the true sense of the world) to see everything we did and be part of such an international ambient for our short stay there.

Hasta la proximá vez,

Kathlene

Athens - Part 1

Athens - Part 2

Back for some more Santorini

After we left the boys in Ios, Eva and I went back to Santorini to soak up some more paradise. We went back to Anny Studios as we thoroughly enjoyed being less than 50m from Perissa's black sand beach and Steve's (the owner's) homecooked breakfast and the 'good morning, girls' that greeted us every morning. Not to mention that they hooked us up with cheaper quad rentals (from a very cute and surprisingly nice Greek guy) with free gas and snorkel equipment and also were always ready to give us directions to the best sights to see.

We rented a quad for two days and saw Perissa's black sand beach which was right in front of our hotel. Valhala beach, another black sand beach that was smaller and quieter than Perissa and had amazing rock formations that seemed like lava all around it. We also saw the lighthouse on one end of the island which had the most amazing views of the volcano and the endless dark blue water. Next, we made our way to Fira (or Thira as it was sometimes spelt) which was the capital of the island. It was another village consisting of many white houses all crowded together at the top of the cliff. It was a bit different that Oia as it seemed more commercial and busy and not quite as beautiful and serene. But the views were still spectacular and the sunset amazing. In Fira, we also hiked out to see Skaros and the 'castle'. Skaros was an neat rock formation and according to my guide book there was supposedly a castle on it. Eva and I climbed all the way out to the rock which consisted of at least 300 stairs and quite some distance not to find a castle anywhere. When we asked a couple from Germany where the f@$king castle was and we were informed that it was destroyed by an earthquake hundreds of years ago and the rocks on the ground were the castle... we were not impressed. We didn't understand the Greeks love of old rocks (aren't the rocks in Spain and Canada just as old?). We could have seen Skaros and the old rocks without hiking up and down stairs in the hot afternoon sun! After that, we badly wanted to borrow one of the many private pools with the amazing views that we had to walk past to get back into Fira village. We ended up settling for cold fruity drinks in a restaurant with a beautiful view.

The next day, we hopped back on the quad to make our way to Amoudi Bay which was simply amazing! The water was perfectly clear and blue and most of the rocks that surrounded the bay were red. We hopped into the perfect temperature water and did some snorkling where we saw all sorts of fish including a main street of silver colored fish that didn't stray from the line in which they were swimming in both directions. Also in the bay, was a little island you would swim out to that had a tiny little white and blue church on it and a ledge (about 8m?) to jump off back into the bay. I climbed up to see the church thinking jumping would be no big deal, but, once I was up there I didn't want to jump... However, climbing back down seemed even worse (I had already cut my knee climbing up the slippery rocks). So, I decided to jump. Then, some kid said 'make sure you jump far enough out that you don't hit the rocks at the bottom' to which I replied, 'rocks!?!?! WHAT ROCKS!?!?! How far is far enough!??!'. I guess my running and jumping technique was good form, because I made it into the water fairly unscathed. That experience definitely falls into the category of 'I tried it once and now I'm never going to do it again'. I had salt water coming out of my sinuses for the rest of the day.

In the miniscule village of Amoudi Bay, Eva and I went to a very Greek seafood restaurant where we ordered octopus and calamari. We were, however, very suprised when our plates came with a whole bbq octupus and whole bbq squid on them - head, tentacles, and everything. Apparently you can eat the whole thing. And we did. It was actually very delicious. I think I preferred the grilled octopus to the boiled octopus of Spain. However, not seeing the WHOLE octopus in Spain is a bit more preferred. After lunch we toured the vinyards along the quiet back of the island where we got to sample some delicious wine (our favorite being an amazing sweet desert wine) and try the infamous white eggplant that is only found in Santorini.

The last thing we saw was the trendy and crowded party beach of Kamari, which had a boulevard behind it that made me think of pictures of Miami. It was amazing how areas of the island could be so different even though it was such a small place. The differences from Oia to Kamari to Perissa made you think you were in a completely different place than you were 20 minutes earlier. Oia was what we expected the whole island to be like but then we also got to experience places reminiscent of Miami and Mexico too. Santorini was an amazing experience and I would go back there in a heartbeat.

Hasta la proximá vez,

Kathlene

Back for some more Santorini

Ios - Island of debauchery

After spending a couple days in Santorini with the boys, we all hopped on a ferry to Ios for a night of debauchery. Ios is a smaller island half way between Santorini and Naxos and consists only of beautiful beaches, beach parties, and discos. We arrived early afternoon and went straight to the main beach of Mylopatos where hundreds of young people had already gathered for a beach party straight out of an MTV Spring Break special. There were people around a pool, in the sand, and an amazing DJ pumping out the beats all day.

Once the sun went down, everyone moved to the small village filled with bars and discos. The tiny streets got jammed packed with people as everyone moves from one drinking establishment to the next while everything stays open all night long. Then, when the sun comes up people move back to the beach and it starts all over again. It truly is a 24 hour party and an island filled only with young people. I fully understand why people call Ios 'the Ibiza of Greece'.

Hasta la proximá vez,

Kathlene

Ios - Island of debauchery

Meeting up with the boys in Santorini

The island of Santorini in Greece is truly paradise. Eva and I started our Greek adventure by joining up with the Basque boys (Jontxu, Ivan, Josu, Flo, and David) in Santorini for some good times. However, we had to endure the nightmare of getting to the island before we could live the dream. We arrived in the Athens airport late and discovered that the metro to our hostel was under construction, so we had to take a bus to Syntagma Square and then take a short metro ride to our hostel. But, by the time we got to the metro, it had closed for the night, so we hoofed it with our luggage and managed to find the hostel after going the wrong way and seeing the Temple of Zeus. Once we found our hostel, we were informed that our room was in another building and we got lost...again... with all of our luggage. When we finally got to our room, it was approaching 2am and we discovered there we two boys already in it. Apparently it was a 4-person-mixed-dorm room. Luckily, they turned out to be quite nice. Well, one was American so he didn't count, but the other was Australian and we made fun of the American together which is always an enjoyable pass-time. We managed to get 2 hours of sleep before we had to get up to be at the port at 6am (our ferry was leaving at 7am). We managed to make it to the port on time, but couldn't find our gate since the port in Athens is GIGANTIC and no one knew anything. We eventually found our port with 10 minutes to spare only to find out they had cancelled our ferry and there were hundreds of other angry passengers already filling the empty seats on other boats. However, Eva and I got lucky and were able to find tickets for 8am. At least we thought we were lucky until we discovered we were on a smaller boat which meant it rocked like no other for 7 hours. The other bigger boats were much smoother and only took 5 hours. Moral of the story: never book with SeaJets.

We turned a horrific shade of green along with all other passengers. When we finally made it to paradise where the boys were waiting for us. So we showered, and headed out to rent some quads to go the Red Beach. But... our quad (the blue one which we requested because we thought the blue one was cooler than the yellow ones) broke down after we got half way to the red beach. At this point, Eva and I were thinking Greece was a bad idea... But, we eventually made it to the Red Beach and began to realize how beautiful Santorini really is and stopped running into so many problems.

The next day we went on the popular Volcano Boat Tour which I would recommend to anyone going to Santorini. We set sail at 11am and made our first stop at Nea Kameni (the Volcano) and climbed to the top. The neat part about the volcano is that it's still active! While hiking up the volcano we discovered a hole about a foot deep that was emitting an impressive amount of heat! (Really Jontxu discovered the hole by almost falling into it, and then almost falling into the large crater behind him. The tour guide kept very close eyes on him after that.)

The next stop was the hot springs on the other side of the volcano where the water was red. To get to the hot springs, we had to jump off the side of the boat (definitely a few meters drop) and swim a bit to get into the sulfur and iron water. It was strange to jump into cold water and them swim into warm water just a few meters closer to shore. After the hot springs, we stopped on the small island of Thirassia to have lunch in the village of Corfos. It was a change from the other villages because it was completely void of anything tourist-y. Just a small and quaint place with nice local people. Then, we got on the boat once more to go to our last stop of Oia, which, in my opinion, is the nicest part of Santorini. If you've even seen a picture of Santorini you were more than likely looking at a picture of Oia. It's the village that is completely full of the little white cave houses with blue doors and is home of the famous sunset. To get there we had to take a donkey up the steep-steep cliff. Riding a donkey was an interesting experience to say the least. The view from the donkey was quite amazing at times (unless your donkey stops to let all the other donkeys pass in front) but you had to feel sorry for the poor donkeys that had to carry us up there. I just wanted to give them water. However, being in Oia was truly breathtaking. One day when I no longer want to be an engineer, I plan on moving there and opening up a small shop along the street where you can see the amazing sea view out the open door.

More on the Greek Adventure to come.

Hasta la proximá vez,

Kathlene

Meeting up with the boys in Santorini - Part 1

Meeting up with the boys in Santorini - Part 2