Hot Pink

It’s hard not to have a good time when you’re wearing a toga. In fact, from my experience it is nearly impossible. A decade of toga runs has taught me that. Religiously on New Year’s Eve, I would join the ‘toga run’ with the local Shire Boys, dozens of us – maybe hundreds on a good year – moving from bottle-o to pub to bottle-o and so forth, until we reached Cronulla beach. A tradition so engrained from a young age as a junior surfboat rower, that when I was forced to miss it one year (for some reason I had a girlfriend at that particular time) I remained unsociable and borderline depressed for the entire next year. No amount of fireworks or alcohol could break a smile onto my face that night. Traditions are important to me. And the tradition of the Pink Palace Hostel on the island of Corfu, Greece, is that every Saturday night is ‘Toga Party’ night. Who am I to argue with tradition? Hand me my toga please!

There is a group of youth hostels that promote themselves under the banner of “Europe’s Great Hostels”. Whether this is a justified claim or just marketing brilliance, people flock to these hostels, located in some of the most scenic landscapes, situated in castles, former palaces and other inspiring buildings. I have been to a couple of the hostels under this label, and have never been disappointed. The Pink Palace is one of them, and it’s about as loose a hostel as you can probably get, with a reputation that spreads far and wide on the backpacker circuit. It tends to attract a certain breed of traveller – the fun, sun-loving and hardcore partying type. At least, those are the types that actually enjoy it here. I knew what I was getting myself into when I booked four nights on Corfu for a well earned rest from cycling. It wasn’t rest that I would necessarily be getting however. Hundreds of Americans and Canadians flocked to the Greek island of Corfu to relive their college years, in fact many people suggest that The Pink Palace Hotel has nearly a ‘summer camp’ feel about it. I agree to a certain extent. And it’s good value considering you get an all-you-can-eat hot brekkie, plus a very decent meal for dinner included in the price. Every day there is a new activity for you to get involved in, and though you will pay for these, they are generally pretty good value – but watch your pockets empty as you fill the void of long, hot days on the island hiring quad bikes, heading out on kayaking excursions, volleyball tournaments and generally just taking advantage of the happy hour(s) drinks.

Everything is pink. From the free shot of ouzo they give you on arrival, to the colour of the toga sheets, and of course the unmistakable buildings of the sprawling complex which makes up possibly 25% of the entire beach town of Adios Giordios. The place is friendly enough, and with a couple of hours to kill before I can actually check into my room, I’m fortunate enough to be ‘stranded’ at the 24-hour bar with a voucher for a free drink (for my trouble waiting!?) and easily make some good friends. It’s 6pm on a Friday night, so might as well start getting lashed anyway. Many of the people I would meet that night were there for a similar duration to myself, and over the course of the next four days we certainly made sure everybody knew that.

“Wanna come on the booze cruise tomorrow Matt?” said a couple of Canadian fellas, Nigel and Mick. Fair dinkum boys, do Canadian bears shit in the woods? Is the sky blue? Is the Australian 2010 election a big joke? Absolutely boys, I’ll be there. Unfortunately, the Canadians wouldn’t be, as the night turned out to be a bit too big for them to handle, and they couldn’t back up even for breakfast let alone the booze cruise. But it was a gorgeous day, and the cruise itself had been cancelled the past four days due to strong winds, so I wasn’t taking chances, bought my ticket and swam out to the boat with about 25 others. What followed was an amazing afternoon of drinking, drinking games, cliff jumping, cave diving, dancing and singing and general misbehaving on the boat. I met another couple of awesome Canadians, Ryan and Goody, a whole bunch of top Kiwi, Aussie, Canadian and American chicks, and got along like a house on fire with pretty much everybody on board. Then I was elated to be able to assist the ‘budget deficit’ situation by partaking in a couple of games that won me free beers. I mean, who wouldn’t jump off a cliff naked for a couple of free cans of the local Alpha brew? Not like I’m gonna see any of these people again… And three cans for wearing a bikini in a game of ‘Simon Says’. No worries. Yes there was plenty of nudity and the barmen seemed determined to get as many girls doing something called a ‘body shot’ as possible. Well, it was all great boozy fun, and hey, there’s no harm in looking, right!?

The pink boat rolled in to the private beach, and we all rolled off. A group of us had managed to walk up the some two million steps from the beach to the 24-hour reception bar, before we were kindly asked to wear some clothes. The Italians in the next resort apparently didn’t like nudity very much. Only an hour later, we were at dinner, where I couldn’t get enough food into me, demolishing the leftovers of about four other people’s plates (to their amusement, they said later it was lke a shovel, and I retorted, “why don’t you cycle to Cairo and see how hungry you get!”). Then we then headed down to the grand Palladium nightclub for the toga party. The Palladium is a pretty cool place, though you need quite a large crowd to make it feel full and happening. It’s very spacious, decked out with lovely white roman columns and sparkling with fairly lights and a huge bar and dance floor, and tonight it would get a sizeable crowd going as the guests made the most out of the toga party.

During the course of the evening, they put on a display of traditional Greek dancing, which included a lot of Ouzo, fire breathers, a ‘burning dance floor’ and hundreds (and hundreds!) of plates being smashed all over people’s heads. It was an amazing spectacle, something that you wouldn’t want to miss if you ever go to Greece. I can’t tell you how much beer I consumed, but it got to the stage where I couldn’t physically fit any more beer in my stomach, and had to switch to bourbons just to keep drinking. And there were shots of course. People were buying them left, right and centre.

The next morning, Canadian Ryan was found unconscious on the steps outside the Palladium at about 7am. A concerned local called up reception and asked if they would like to collect him. Other bodies littered the deck chairs all over the resort, a great many of them, the staff realised had partaken on the booze cruise. I myself didn’t make it to bed until about 5am, but at least I would make it to my room on my own accord (pity about missing brekkie though). Turns out this hadn’t escaped the attention of The Pink Palace staff; never before had they seen a group such as ours go so hard for so long. We had found the line and we had marched across it without hesitation. From that point on, it was decreeded by the hostel management that there would no longer be a booze cruise conducted on the same morning as the day of the toga party. The next night as we gathered at the bar (for much quieter drinks) we chuckled about how that would forever be our ‘claim to fame’. If anybody ever asked us had we ever stayed at The Pink Palace, it was a good conversation point. Funny thing was, I didn’t think I was going that hard! In saying that, it was a good two days before I was feeling my usual self, I hope I’m not starting to get too old for this kind of stuff! At least I shaped up better than Ryan, who I didn’t see until two days later. He’d slept virtually an entire day and missed two breakfasts, and was now sporting a lovely bruise above his eye where he’d tripped and knocked himself out on the stairs.

Thankfully there wasn’t a lot I was interested in doing except recovering, resting the legs and working on my tan, and getting a healthy dose of salt-water twice a day at the beach. The quad safari interested me, but typically my driver’s licence had expired twelve days before I arrived. Bugger the oversight! And so the Pink Palace ended up just how I expected it to – go out hard, recover for a few days on the beach, and get rested for a five-day, 500km push to Athens.

Unfortunately as I have mentioned several times, Bessie the bike has not been well at all. The bottom bracket is so bad that nothing but a complete replacement ASAP is going to help. But like a patient on an organ transplant list, do you think we can find one? Not bloody likely. Still, I had to get to Athens, and I didn’t want to cheat the trip of possible. With realistically five days to get there, it wasn’t the distance that bothered me, it was whether the bike would stand the distance. Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed after just the first day. On leaving the beautiful island of Corfu, I caught a ferry to Igoumenitsa on the Greek mainland, then headed south. I got as far as Preveza when I realised that was as far as I dared go. The pedals were wobbling so bad I was afraid they might possibly even starting to come apart. Every time I looked down, I swear the gap near the padal crank was a fraction of a millimetre wider. I knew that the more I pushed on, the worse it would get, and I didn’t want a totally unusable bike. I would after all, still want to cycle it to a campsite and then the bikestore when I eventually did arrive in Athens.

Stranded in Preveza, I hunted around for some transport options. There was no obvious bus station, there were definitely no trains, and the bloody ferries no longer operated to this particular port. Turns out that even if I had wanted to keep cycling, I couldn’t get across the lake because the only option was a ‘car only’ tunnel under the water. I’d done that once before (Antwerpen) and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. But after a few hours of hunting around, it turned out there was a very inconveniently timed bus that would depart for Athens daily. It was a 7:30PM departure with a horrible 1:30AM arrival. Getting into any town that late is not one of my favourite ways to travel, especially not arriving in a city the size of Athens, with no clue of the city layout, no accommodation organised and most amenities closed for the night. Nonetheless that is what I would have to do. I put off the inevitable for a day, choosing to wild camp in Preveza on the beach. I found a lovely little cornfield type garden right on the coast, next to a beach that had a change curtain and a freshwater shower. Perfect facilities to clean up after a swim in the morning and then I could chill out in town for the day before heading to the bus station. The town of Preveza itself wasn’t even worth getting the camera out, however I did find a delightful little kebab shop. I’ve now learned how to say, “hello, give me a yeeros in pita wrap please”. Pretty much all I’ll ever need to learn how to say in Greek, especially once Hannah, my personal universal translator, arrives in Athens on Saturday. The yeeros at this particular shop were sensational, and at only 1.70€, I had four of them during my two day exile in Preveza. Things are generally cheap in Greece, I have to say (can’t speak for the Greek Islands so much since I haven’t been there, but the mainland is looking up!). And so I have good expectations of being able to keep budget on my 35€ per day – less if possible! If it wasn’t for the bus fare, I’d actually be doing better in Greece than I would be in Albania! Who would have thought? Go the Greek financial crisis…

OK well I’m now about 45 minutes from jumping on the bus. I’m hoping like hell that I don’t end up having another ‘Sarajevo’ moment in Athens. That is, a crappy late arrival with no idea where to head, and spending twice as long in the city waiting for my bike to be fixed. But one thing is certain; I won’t be leaving Athens until the bike is damn well fixed. But somehow, I think being stranded in Athens, just like Sarajevo, is not the worst place to be stranded, if you have to be stranded somewhere!

Yamas!

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