Where to even start with this one?!
To get from Santorini to Mykonos, I found an island that served as a connection: Syros. It is the capital of the Cyclades so I figured it would be fine. And it was… eventually. Jessie and I had been on a ferry for about 7 hours before we were called for disembarkation. Because of the sea of soccer players in royal Blue Devils t-shirts with drums and mega-phones and since we both were highly engaged into different episodes of The O.C. we didn’t hear the announcement. However we followed the lead of the Blue Devils, packed up and went to retrieve our luggage. While we watched the big ramp (for lack of the correct term) go down, I was questioning our departure but made it anyway. The fact that this island had no signs in English didn’t help persuade me that I was in the right place. Good thing a man with a brochure about a hotel was there to offer us a place to say. We kindly refuted his offer but I did peek at the corner of his brochure: Syros. “Eeets o-k.”
One thing was for sure, we were in the right place. Now, to get to our hotel… Jessie and I stood in the middle of the street as the passengers flooded around us. We had no idea what we were doing or better yet how to get to the bus station. After standing in awe of the anti-English signs, Jessie asked a police officer how to get to the bus station. He told us and we went. Our directions were clear yet vague. We were supposed to get on any bus available and depending on the route of the bus, we would somehow end up 50 meters from the hotel. It was interesting because the stop we were looking for was not on any of the bus schedules. Wonderful! A man kindly spoke to us in Greek, pointed at the correct time, and helped us look up the street for the bus that wasn’t coming. He kept pointing and looking at his watch. The bus never came and he eventually grew tired of trying to telepathically summon a bus for us. By this time, we are the only people with luggage standing at the port/ bus station.
Lucky for us, another man wanted to help us out. He looked at the directions we had and informed us, in broken English, that he knew where the hotel was. Then he walked away to make a phone call. Jessie and I looked at each other and started to seriously contemplate a cab. The knowledgeable Greek man came back and said that he would take us to the place we were staying. That, “eets o-k. He is my friend”.
Sorry buddy, eets not o-k, we were just going to take a cab. We lug our bags to the curb and start looking for a vacant cab to hail. The man comes back and this time he hands his cell phone over to Jessie, still claiming some mans friendship. Apparently the man on the other line agreed to this friendship, and told us that if we didn’t want to go with the man at the port, that he would personally come to get us in 7 minutes. So now we had exactly 7 minutes to hail a cab, get in and go!
We told the cabbie where we were headed and gave him the directions that I had printed out. He looked confused and then said the inevitable: “yes, eets o-k”. After the ferry ride, my high stress level, and the way the driver was taking the turns, I was getting motion sick. I had to put my head down but the only thing that was running through my mind was the impossibility of finding my way back if the cabbie tried to “take” us. Mid-way through the drive, Jessie had said something about the bus stop that we were supposed to get off at and it was then that I think the driver knew where he was supposed to take us. He stopped his cab equidistant from the bus station and the hotel.
With luggage in tow, we get to the hotel/ hostel/ apartment’s front gates when a man shouts from inside to wait where we are. He explains that we just have to go in at the other gates, grabs my bag and leads the way. He asked about our taxi and then asked why we didn’t go with his friend at the port. Hmmmm… was this a trick question? I like to think that we made the right choice by spending the 12-euro instead of getting a free ride from a man that claims to have a friend.
Nikos (I am 99.99% sure his name was) showed us to our apartment styled room. We walked into a kitchen/ living room. Just off to the left was a bedroom with a king bed and between the two rooms, our bathroom. We asked about paying and dining. There was some confusion about sleeping arrangements because Nikos told us that we were the only three at this establishment. At the end of the conversation Jessie and I learned that Nikos had just gotten in from Athens because his brother had been in a bad accident, he had opened his hotel just for us, and he would be staying on the other side of the estate by reception. Before I go any farther, I want to describe this man. He was probably 5’9”, dark curly hair, a bit stout, probably in his mid-to-late 30s, and an excessive perspire-er - that caused him to wipe his brow close to every minuet. Nikos told us that he would go get us a bottle of water, something he probably needed more than we did, but he went anyway.
Jessie and I went into the bedroom to put our stuff down and maybe put ourselves down as well. I look at the bed and notice an ant on the pillow, I inform Jessie of the discovery, pick up the ant and throw it on the floor. When I look back, its like de-ja-vu, there is another ant on the same pillow. I repeat the previous steps for that ant, and the next and the 3 others. Then I notice the trail of ants across the cylinder-like headboard. If it was a red-and-white-checkered picnic cloth, the situation would have been ideal, however, this was our sleeping arrangement. Jessie watched as I peeled the pillows from the bed and revealed more friends. She looks at me while she states the obvious, “I am not sleeping there”. I think I blacked out for a couple seconds… how was this happening? Where were we going to sleep? Are there extra sheets for the two futons in the kitchen?
Nikos’ arm arrives with our water. He is standing outside the apartment with his arm extended in to show us that he was there in case we weren’t decent. I summon him in and show him the current situation. Nikos tells us to relax, that eets okay, and that he will change the sheets for us. We sit down on two chairs in the room. He gingerly places the pillows in the closet. Then takes the top sheet and blanket, folds it a bit and puts that in the closet revealing more ants. Then the clincher: he takes off the bottom sheet and all three of our jaws drop as we all gasp, wide eyed, staring at the mattress. It was so filled with ants that the bed looked like it was moving (not good for my motion sickness).
Nikos is frantically rubbing the sweat from his forehead as his brain works to find a solution. He announces that he has a friend and that he was going to make a phone call. Nikos appears to be a popular guy with great connections. He comes back in apologizing profusely and tells us that we can stay at his friend’s hotel on another part of the island and that he would take us there. While Jessie rides shotgun, I sit in the back seat with our two suitcases with my head down thinking that now more than ever there would be no way I would find my way back to the port. We arrive in a little town and Nikos gives us the tour: the bar, the beach, the restaurant, and the hotel. We climb out of the car and Nikos calls to his friend. They exchange some words in Greek and haul our suitcases up the stairs. The hotel is legit; we were finally in a place where we could stay for the night.
The stand in our room and speak in Greek for a while, then announce that they will take us to the port in the morning around 10:00am. Aside from a bad cheeseburger I ordered as comfort food and later the mosquitoes I quietly chased around the room while Jessie was sleeping, I was able to relax just enough to get some rest. We woke up early and I went to try and check out. Nikos’ friend wasn’t in the meeting spot that we had declared, but someone’s breakfast was so good that I stood at the top of the stairs taking in the morning and the aroma. Friend appeared just as Jessie did and told us that we were waiting for Nikos to go to the port then offered us some coffee or tea.
We accepted and went into his bachelor pad for some coffee and tea. Good thing too, that aroma I was envious of was our breakfast that he had made for us. During breakfast, the friend explained how people on most of the smaller islands, Syros included, are trustworthy. The hotels that they work at are the places they own. They want to take care of their property as well as their guests. We ate and waited for Nikos. After Jessie and I decided on the price for our stay, we all went to the port together. They told us that next time we came to Syros, it had to be for a longer period of time because we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the island’s beauty from just the area we were in.
I am glad our not so great experience turned out the way that it did.
Cheers!
-Vinny
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