On our way to Corfu and the Pink Palace
What else would you do on a booze cruise in Corfu?
by Alyssa Ramos
The very first stop on the Eurotrip I went on in college five years ago was in Greece, and to be completely honest, it wasn’t a country I was entirely interested in visiting in the first place since I had little knowledge about it to begin with. We started in Athens, which was fine and dandy, but the real fun began when we ventured out to one of the Greek Islands called Corfu, which was supposedly known for being the top party island in Europe. Of course, I understand their marketing tactics now that I know about St. Tropez, Monaco, Ibiza, and the other European islands that are known for partying, and of course now Corfu doesn’t compare, but it was still quite the interesting experience.
First of all we stayed at a “Europe’s #1 Youth Resort” called “The Pink Palace“. That was the first clue that we were about to embark on an interesting journey. The second clue was the optional add on excursion for a booze cruise and a four wheeler safari. We opted in for both. The four wheeler safari reminds me of something you’d see on Lost; we rode four wheelers up into the mountains in bikini tops and shorts, and as embarrassing as it is to admit…..black skull bandanas because we thought we were badasses. At one point of the safari, there was a stray Chihuahua running next to my ATV, and then a few minutes later we passed an old gypsy woman walking a donkey with giant baskets of stuff on either side of it. They took us to an ancient monastery, which we got a lot of great pictures at since it was on the top of the mountain, but it was fucking terrifying and haunted. Finally, after getting yelled at for going too fast and for getting ahead of the group several times, we made our way back to the Pink Palace, and got ready for the booze cruise.
So this booze cruise was the typical sketchy accumulation of foreign guests from all over the world and completely unplanned and unsafe. The only people on the boat aside from the crew were the American kids from our trip, and a group of Australian guys who had apparently intended on traveling around Europe but ended up extending their stay at the Pink Palace like it was some sort of time warp. It was obvious too that they got sucked into the sex, drugs, and partying that the island offered, I could tell immediately by their overly cocky confidence that they were very much enjoying the attention from the many girls who passed through…or maybe that’s just how Aussies are in general since they think their accent is just oh so hot. But it’s not. It’s actually quite irritating.
So the crew liquored us up as we cruised around the picturesque coast of the Greek Islands. The scenery consisted mostly of breathtaking mountains and cliffs overlooking the perfectly clear and glistening ocean with the occasional gray, jagged rock formation jutting out of the middle of nowhere. Finally they informed us that one of the extremely tall and terrifying rock formations was where we were going to dock, and if anyone wanted to jump off of it, they could. Naturally Rach and I were the first female takers, and dove overboard to head to the giant rock.
For some reason, since I was the first girl to attempt climbing up the very steep, very smooth rock wall to get to the top where we were supposed to jump off, the guys ahead of me and behind me felt it necessary to help me, although I didn’t need any help, so I was basically being pulled and pushed up, and hardly touching the wall at all. I can’t decide if that, or looking down from the top was more terrifying, but I’m pretty sure the difference was a heart attack and potentially vomiting.
A few guys jumped as I tried to grow the ego to jump myself, and after listening to one guy practically start crying, and another telling him there was no other way down, I mustered up the fake courage to just jump. It was fucking awful. Not only did I get the gut wrenching feeling in my stomach of falling eight million feet like on the Tower of Terror but the second I hit the water, every opening in my entire body felt like it had gotten an extremely powerful enema. When I finally got to the surface, gasping for air, and praying that a fucking Lochness monster wasn’t about to come up and eat me, I doggy-paddled my way to the nearest rock formation that I could hold onto to save myself from drowning.
I watched Rach at the top of the stupid rock, with the same terrified expression I had had, and then watched her jump in the same soon-to-be painful way that I had. Unfortunately, she had landed at an even worse angle I had…if that’s even possible, and she swam up to my little rock with tears in her eyes, claiming that her she thought her ass had ripped. As we both floated painfully near the smaller rock, clutching whatever pieces of it that we could to hold ourselves in place, we pretended to be interested in watching the rest of the people jump while our bodies recuperated. One of the Aussie’s jumped naked…I imagine that had to feel great, and another’s tiny little bathing suit ripped, exposing his uh…wallabies. Later I ended up giving my own shorts because I felt bad that all of his friends were trying to tear off the remainder of the cloth…and yes, somehow they fit him.
Suddenly, Rach and I both started screaming in pain and swimming as fast as we could back to the boat. Our legs felt like we had just been electrocuted by hundreds of tiny tazers. Apparently there were little jellyfish all over the rock we had been leaning on who decided that we were voted off the island and attacked us. I can’t remember what was worse, the pain and discomfort of all of the red, swollen bites all over our asses and the back of our thighs, or how embarrassing it looked.
But we toughed it out with the help of a lot more alcohol. We were, after all, in the freaking Greek Islands, you can’t really complain about that. At least we could stand up and go in the water unlike the Aussie who was wearing my tiny shorts and couldn’t stand up because his junk would fall out. The last stop we made was to a bat cave on the water which was pretty cool to swim through until the water dropped to about zero degrees, was so dark that you couldn’t see the bottom, and the guide yelled “HELLO” as loud as he could, sending all of the sleeping bats above us into a fury. That was terrifying.
By the time we got back to the Pink Palace Rach and I had had our fairly good share of fear and pain, I think we were pretty much over the island at that point…but not before experiencing a very weird night at the Pink Palace’s discoteca.
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Jumping off the rocks in Greece rocks! I did so many times at the island of Naxos. But be sure to wear slippers when you go from the high ones or you might break your foot! :)