Greece! The Lovely Island of Ios

I’m afraid of water. Even more than I’m afraid of water, I’m afraid of boats. Titanic taught me that boats are untrustworthy things. They take you out into the middle of nowhere and then hit an iceberg and sink and leave you floating on a door or something while Leonardo DiCaprio freezes to your hand. Also, there are Krakens in the ocean. I know, not exactly an ideal mindset for hopping around Greek islands—particularly since the Greeks were the inventors of the Kraken—but somehow I managed. Getting on our first boat—the ferry to Ios—was a bit of a harrowing experience. I only cried a little though, and I managed not to make too much of a scene. The ferry was nice, at least—a bit like a plane, except bigger and more comfortable. (Physically comfortable, mind you. Not psychologically comfortable.)



When we got off the boat, we had no idea how we were going to get to our hostel. We wandered into a travel agency and asked if there was some way we could get a taxi. The woman asked us where we were going and we told her. She said something about how “the boy” would bring the van around to pick us up.

“The boy” who was waiting for us at the port was, in fact, probably in his late 20’s or early 30’s, which I found very funny. His name was Nick (though his mother called him Nico) and he was very friendly and talkative. He called us “gehlls,” as in “girls” with a fantastic Greek accent. He explained the island and pointed out the main part of the main village—Chora or Ios Town—as we drove through. Then he brought us to the hostel. I’ll let this video do the talking.

Yeeeep. That was the view from our room. Can you believe that? Hello, gorgeous.

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All of Ios was beautiful and our hotel was in the absolute perfect spot. If we turned left from the entrance of our hotel, it was a short walk into the main town. If we turned right, it was a short walk to the most gorgeous beach in the history of time. Granted, the short walk was down a very steep hill that made me want to die on the way back up, but it was worth it because seriously, most beautiful beach ever.

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I know I just said that I don’t like water, but I made an exception here. The water was so amazingly clear that there was absolutely no chance of a Kraken sneaking up on me. It was perfectly, delightfully calm, too. And kind of cold, but we still waded out into it. I even put my head under for a fraction of a second. I got kind of freaked out when fish started coming at me, but I didn’t mind a starfish that we found scooting around in the sand by our feet. We were up to our chests in the water when we saw Mr. Starfish—that’s how clear the water was.

Laying on the beach was absolute bliss, but that’s not all we did. We also took quite a few trips into Ios Town, AKA Chora. From what I saw, there were about ten tourists in Ios the same time we were—maybe. There may not have even been that many. Some of the hostels and hotels weren’t even open yet, and when we went walking through the town we hardly ran into anyone. It was all so quiet and so wonderfully peaceful.

On the way into town, we walked past this little valley full of grazing goats with charming, clanking bells.

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I can’t even tell you how peaceful the combination of goat bells and chirping birds is.

There were no goats in the village itself—not that I noticed, anyway. There were, however, very narrow alleyways.

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Too narrow, you would think, for cars, but you would be wrong. While we were strolling around, we had to hide in doorways and alleyways to avoid cars and little trucks.

On our second day, we came across a woman named Sylvia who worked in a little jewelry shop in town. We went into the shop and chatted with her a bit as we looked through her wares. She started taking things out of cases and urging us to try them on. If something didn’t work, she’d go hunting for another style. If something did work, she declared it “gorgeoust.” We didn’t have enough money on hand to buy what we wanted, but we promised we’d come back. We continued to wander around the town, which looks pretty much exactly how you would expect a little Greek village to look.

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There were some old windmills in one part of the town. We saw these on all of the islands we visited. It’s how the islands used to get all of their power. Most of them are falling apart now, but they’re still lovely.

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We made our way up to the top of the town to visit one of the churches. Supposedly Ios has 365 churches—one for every day of the year. I believe it, because although it’s a pretty small island, there were churches everywhere. Big churches, little churches, teeny tiny churches.

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We think that the little churches must be family shrines. (We’re not entirely sure, though, so don’t quote me on that.)

On the way back down from the church, we happened to bump into Sylvia again. She was with a friend now. Achmud.

I wish I had gotten a picture of him. Somehow, we neglected to take pictures of anyone we met. We hardly even took pictures of ourselves. Too distracted by all of the prettiness of nature and old things, I guess. But let me try and describe Achmud.

Think sixty-something, very tan, a little paunchy in a friendly grandpa kind of way. What hair that was visible was gray, but most of it was covered by a panama hat that matched his safari jacket. He had very bright blue eyes, one of which was glass. He talked very loudly and with a very strong accent—not Greek, but we weren’t positive where he was from. He laughed even more loudly than he spoke and he professed a very profound love for Swedish crime novels. In short, he was amazing and if I can ever put him into a book, I will.

We ran into both Sylvia and Achmud again later in the day, when we went back to buy jewelry from Sylvia. They were sitting on the front step and Achmud bellowed “HELLO, GEHLLS!” as soon as he saw us. (Everyone called us gehlls on Ios.)

Achmud made Sylvia show us the ring and bracelet that he’d just bought for his wife. It was silver with dark orange enamel—very pretty, actually. He asked me over and over again if I liked it, and I assured him that I did. He also showed us the silver ring he’d bought for himself. “Married four times, and this is my first ring!”

When we left the shop, Sylvia said that she wouldn’t say goodbye, because that meant that we would have to come back to Ios soon. She was very sweet. As we walked across the nearby square, we walked past Achmud who’d retired to a little table to read. He was wearing little tiny round glasses and looked for all the world like an Egyptologist from 1925. He shouted “WOW!” as we passed him, showing appreciation of our jewelry purchases.

Oh, Achmud.

We also met someone else on Ios. His name was Chris, and he stopped us in the middle of the street in town. This was right after our first encounter with Sylvia and Achmud. I thought he was going to try and sell us something, but no. He just wanted a chat. He wanted to know what we thought of Ios and whether we liked it or not. He wanted to know if we would ever consider moving there. (I would, by the way. Not permanently, maybe, but I’d keep a vacation retreat there in a heartbeat.) He was from Athens originally, but had moved to Ios nine years before, unable to resist its charms. We chatted about various and assorted things—life, work, whatever else came to mind.

So in summary, the people in Ios are amazing and I love them.

The day we left Ios, we spent the morning sitting on our balcony writing in our journals. I noticed that the back of my hand was turning red as I wrote. A little while later, the red had spread up my arm in a full-blown rash. I did some research about some medication I was taking, thinking it could be photosensitivity. Everything I read said “if you develop a rash, seek medical help IMMEDIATELY,” so I sought medical help immediately. Or… as soon as possible. There were a few communicational hiccups, but eventually Nick/Nico’s father drove us down to the port a little bit early so I could go to the medical center there. (Nick’s father spoke zero (0) English and drove like a maniac, but he was adorable in his very small, Greek, maniacal sort of way. He kind of reminded me of my grandpa, who wasn’t Greek in the slightest, though he was rather small and slightly maniacal.)

The woman at the medical center didn’t speak much English, but I showed her my rash and she brought me in to see the doctor. We call him Dr. Apollo, because he was, basically, the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire life. And I had to tell him about my gross rash.

Since we were about to get on a boat to Naxos, he advised us to go see a dermatologist there. Alas, it would have been wonderful to spend more time with Dr. Apollo, but we had a boat to catch.