Today we arrived in Greece.

We had all sorts of plans.

And it looks like things aren’t going to go quite according to plan.

First of all, Pokin was really sick the whole flight. She tried to rest a tonne before the flight, but after all sorts of flight delays and missed flights we arrived to Santorini airport at 12:30AM and she was exhausted.

In order to get to bed as soon as possible, Pokin booked us a car transport to our hotel so we would have someone to pick us up.

Except when we got to Santorini there wasn’t anyone there for us.

Confused, Pokin called the hotel only to be informed the driver had just left, after waiting for a while.

After some back and forth with the hotel reception, it turns out not only did we have no ride, but actually our travel agent had booked us a hotel in Katikies Mykonos, instead of Katikies Chromata.

By now it’s like 1:30AM in the morning as we are trying to figure out what to do. The airport is deserted. The travel agent is closed and no one is answering the emergency line.

As we are at the airport trying to figure out what to do as the Katikies hotels try to figure out if there’s any way to accommodate us, Nicholas was approached by a fellow.

“You need a room to stay?” He asks.

Nick eyes him suspiciously. “I think we’re ok,” Nicholas answers.

“Well if you need something, I’m just 7 minutes away. I’ll give you a special price, 50 euro.” Pokin gets a phonecall from the hotel – they are are still figuring things out as they need permission from our travel agent.

“What’s the name of your place?” Nicholas asks, and tries to look it up online.

Everyone is exhausted. We don’t have our lodging resolved.

“Screw it, let’s just go stay at this sketchy guy’s place for 50 euro, we probably won’t die.” Nicholas decides.

And in we pile into a white van drive by the fellow, who introduces himself as Artemis.

We drive through the dark, past the airport and down all sorts of windy roads. A few minutes later we arrive at a property.

Artemis takes us to this room, gives us a quick run down on the room, and we pass out.

We wake up the next morning and it turns out we actually had a pretty incredible view. We were situated beside the ocean with this view.

Pokin was pretty sick so Nicholas went and scouted the property. He ordered some breakfast boxes, talked to Ana (Artemis’ wife) and learned more about their property. Artemis grew up nearby and this was the land his family would come to view the ocean. When he grew up, his mother spilt the property between all his siblings and he converted his parcel into a hotel. Artemis frequently goes to the airport late because many hotels shut down during the pandemic, and he often finds travellers that land only to discover their hotel doesn’t exist anymore.

By this time, the original hotel situation was getting partially resolved, and Pokin and my bud decided to move early to Oia to make transiting the next day go easier. Artemis waited till we actually got a ride before we all waved goodbye to continue to our next destination.