Arrived in Naxos. Blue Star Ferries has internet on board!
The ruins of an old Temple of Apollo are here on a peninsula that used to be an island. Only an arch remains. Naxos Town is in the background.
The town is charming. The color scheme on all the islands is pretty easy. What color should you paint your house here? Easy, White with blue trim, just like the flag. I don't even know if you can buy any other color of paint here.
We rented a quad to explore the island freely. We strapped all our stuff to it and set off on the beast with no front brakes and loose lug nuts. More on that later. The plan was to find a room on the other, more remote, side of the island.
There are lots of cool old ruins on the island if you brave the dirt trails. Our vehicle was perfect to check it all out! Here's the temple of Dionysus on a hill in the middle of the island. This site was used for spiritual purposes long before the construction of the temple.
The tower of Agias.
This trip was perfect for seeing the remote part of Greece. There were some remote beaches, and lots of goats and goat herders.
There were several small towns, and I felt a little self-conscious driving the huge loud quad through those quiet places. It seems wrong to disturb that peace.
The town of Apollon seemed like a good choice to find a place to stay. It's the low season, and we're probably the only tourists outside of Naxos town on the island. There should be plenty of places to stay right? Old Greek ladies doing their best to convince us to rent their rooms?
That wasn't quite the case. We couldn't find anywhere to stay. There were plenty of places, but I guess everyone's in Athens or something because it's the low season. It was a bit deserted. I think everyone left in the town heard about the tourists visiting though. I parked the quad in a bad spot and created a bit of a "traffic jam", which may have been the highlight of the week there. We found a hotel called Kouros that looked promising, but there was no one there. A house connected to it might be the right place to go to ask? The very old woman opened up the door and let us in... to her kitchen. And they didn't speak English at all, and "domatia" didn't seem to make sense to her. We left awkwardly. After asking some more locals, a guy made a call to the hotel Kouros to secure us a room. It turns out the old lady was the right person to ask... With about five people trying to figure it all out, we ended up with a great view in a room that clearly hadn't been cleaned since the last guest nine months ago. As was the case with all rooms. And no electricity or hot water, but like nine blankets. We were the only people staying there clearly.
Anyway, off to collect the quad and our stuff. The hotel is across a little stream, so you have to cross a makeshift footbridge. It's unnecessary later in the summer, as the stream dries up and access to the hotel is easier. I didn't think the quad would have any problem crossing, so I headed down to the beach to cross on the most stable terrain. That's when it decided to bog down. All the locals were watching as I tried to unstick it, hoping I wouldn't have to ask for a winch. The quad shouldn't have problems; it was meant for this, right? And why is the tire all crooked and way off axis? It turns out some of the lug nuts came out of each of the back tires. I managed to get it back up to the road after some trouble. Look at the back left tire.
A local guy there got his tools, and without saying a word to me started working on it as soon as it came to rest. He was extremely nice and wouldn't accept any help or compensation. I sure felt like the ignorant tourist. About two hours later, he communicated to me with gestures that I could take it back to Naxos Town, but take it easy.
The story behind the hotel is a little colored. Apparently, this local party guy won the lottery and made his dream come true by building a beach hotel. In the seventies, it was the hedonistic party spot, as you can see from all the old pictures pinned up on the walls. It's past its prime, the hotel. The guys wife now tries to run the hotel, as he is in bad health. We were warned about his "noises", and we were put in the room farthest from where he and his wife live.
The next day we woke up to his noises. And we couldn't leave the hotel because the front door was stuck. A little creepy. We stood there for about 15 minutes hoping the door would open so we could get the heck out of there. Hesitantly, we knocked on the door where the noises were coming from. Eventually, the lady came out and helped us with the door.
On the drive back to Naxos town, a lug nut came out again, so we had to stop and call the rental place. We sat there for three hours waiting on someone's roof.
I tried to read some of the graphic novel "Wanted" in greek. This is my amusement here.
The guy finally came. We had to lift the quad into the truck.
The next days were relatively uneventful. We found some awesome beaches with no souls around. Here's the calendar I made in the sand for the coming weeks.
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