Day 18: Delos

there were only three people in our group who didn't want to go on the tour of the sacred island of delios. the rest of us took the hotel bus down to the port where we got on a boat to take us to the islane. Meghan, Jenna, Brooke, and I sat outside in the front of the boat on a bench. There was a man who worked on the boat who had a unicorn tattoo on his bicep… it was pretty strange. It was warm out there, but the breeze was very cool once we started moving. Brooke and I took pictures a la titanic at the bow.

Once we arrived at delios, we had to meet up with our tour guide. it was a little crazy because we were once again in cruise ship crowds. we only made up about half of our tour group - the rest was mostly other people from the states. there was a family from new york that was very hippie. the mom and dad gave their kindergartener an ipod with blaring rap music. he was cute at first, but then his parents tried to make him turn it down and he yelled that he didn't want to turn it down so they just let him be. good parenting. their other kid was probably about 9 and he said a few things that stunned me... hippies.

Delos is unique because no one is allowed to be born or die on the island. The only people who live there are archeologists who had to apply for it. It is the island where Apollo, the sun god, and his twin sister Artemis were born. There was an ancient civilization on the island, and their elderly and pregnant women had to live on the adjacent island that they now call big delios. We toured the ruins on delios, and I know we all really appreciated the originality of the ruins – they weren’t a recreation. Walking the tiny streets really makes you understand where the greeks get it from! It was really neat to look around the ruins because marble columns stood randomly throughout it, signaling the location of a richer family’s house.

the temple of apollo on the island was interesting because there wasn't anything left but slabs of rock with holes in them where the feet of statues used to be. a lot of the statues now reside in the museum on the island. there is also a street leading up to the main temple with marble lions along it. they've been worn down pretty badly, but it's still impressive to see them lined up down the road.

i really loved how mykonos, the biggest party island in the mediterranean and the gay capital of the world, was right next to such a sacred island. it was just interesting to see two extremes positioned next to each other like that.

We stayed inside on the boat back to Mykonos, and were all pretty frustrated to find out that we had to walk back to the hotel. We didn’t have a map and didn’t know how to get back. On top of that, we were all extremely hot and starting to get burned. We really just wanted some shade and air conditioning and food. We picked a direction and started walking up and up and up and up and up. Mykonos is nothing but uphill. I don’t know how it manages to do that, but it does. thankfully, we had picked the right direction. after about 15 minutes of burning calves, we found perfecto, the restaurant with the waffle. We said hi to the owner and told him we’d be back for dinner before eating lunch at a nearby restaurant. After yummy pita gyros, I got a chocolate crepe. Expensive, but delicious and well deserved.

We hurried back to the hotel to find that most of us were pretty crispy and struggling from heat-related issues. After lots of water and cool rooms with beds, we were ready for dinner. i wore jeans for some reason, and had to walk like a robot to the restaurant because my donkey cut on the back of my knee got sunburned. pants didn't feel good on that. We went back to perfecto as promised, and it was perfect. (Did you expect anything less?) by the way, i definitely had another waffle. the owner was genuinely concerned for our safety in athens and told us to be very careful, especially with all the protests going on.

i hung out with brooke and erica in there room for a little bit before heading down the hill to my room and my bed.