Hello all,
Sorry that I’ve been a little late in finishing our Santorini adventure stories. It was not intentional, but I wanted to spend some time uploading some pictures and all that, and the internet connection lacked… connection, for quite a while.
Anyway, we got up around 8:00 on Sunday morning to hit our tour running. The daughter of the owners of the hostel had warned us that the tour we had picked was pretty intense, and that by the end of the day, we were likely to be quite tired. We, however, figured that we were all pretty buff, and could handle the tour, no problem. Santorini Tour – 5. Nice American girls – 0.
It started out pretty reasonably. The bus brought us to a few locations in the morning, all of which had fantastic views for photographing. We were even feeling pretty good about the stair count there for a while (we were only at around 80 that had to be climbed – at least until later in the morning). The views were pretty great. And that was before we got on the boat.
So, our tour of the island actually became our tour of what used to be Santorini – prior to the volcano eruption many, many years ago. The volcano eruption caused the largest caldera (collapsed volcano) in the world. There are now four or five islands that surround the rim of the collapsed volcano. Santorini is the largest, and the most habitable of the island.
And before I tell you about the islands that we visited, I have to let you know the answer to my burning question to the tour guide. Since Santorini is still an active volcanic island, do they take full advantage of their geothermic energy resources? Nope. None of that. They also don’t do much more than solar water heaters, and they can’t build wind turbines, because they would spoil the view. So… the islands that have pretty much hit the trifecta of potential renewable energy sources are… not using them. They burn oil.
Anyhoo, the first of the islands around the caldera that we visited (by boat, which was quite awesome) was the most active of the volcanic islands. It was very neat (and included stairs in many places). Kinda like climbing Laki, in Iceland (minus the stairs), except that this was in direct sun, and it was approximately 7000 degrees outside. But there was a breeze, so it worked out – and again, many, many sunscreen applications. Thankfully, I had chosen to wear a real tee-shirt (go Duke!) for the day, so the sun was not as bad as it could have been.
The boat stop was to the hot spring/mud baths. The idea was to jump off the boat and swim to the hot springs. So we did that. It sounds pretty grand. There were, however, a few minor issues. First, the hot springs were a 400-meter swim from the boat. That doesn’t sound like all that much, but it ends up being around a half a mile of swimming. That’s doable, but the buoyancy of the super-salty water, combined with the waves made it a more challenging swim. Also, it wasn’t as if we were swimming to a place where we could put our feet down. Even in the hot spring area, it was mostly clinging to the rock sides and scooping mud from there… it was still too deep to touch bottom. And finally, all of this had to be done in half an hour. That also made things more challenging. But we did it anyway. And it was lots of fun. But totally exhausting.
And were we done at this point? Nope. But it was time for lunch (at another island… so there was more boating involved). The next island we stopped at had only a few tiny towns, one of which was at the top of a mountain (hundreds of steps) and one at sea level. We chose to get lunch at sea level (it was around three, and we were famished at that point). By the time we finished lunch, sat on the beach a little bit, and wandered around the town, it was time to get back on the boat and go to Oia.
Now, Oia is known for its wonderful sunsets. Which we’d seen pictures of, and we were all looking forward to seeing in person. But here were the stairs that we had spent all day practicing for. So they drop you off the boat at sea level. And then there are 280 stairs (not normal ones, with right angles, but ones where even the “flat surfaces” are slanted upwards). And you can either take a donkey up this narrow road, or you can walk up. Those are your options.
So, normally I’m fairly adventurous. Or at least a little adventurous. But when I’m exhausted, I am much less willing to try new things. Like donkeys. On narrow upward (and slippery) stairs. So Becky, Katie, and Caitlynn rode donkeys to the top (they had a ton of fun), and Krystin and I climbed the stairs. Was that a smart decision? Maybe not. I was so exhausted by the time I got to the top that I wanted to cry. The sun plus the temperature, plus the volcano, plus the swim… it was too much. And I was not the only one feeling it. So we sat in the shade for what felt like ages.
And even after all that, it was still two and a half hours until sunset. Ridiculous. So we decided to wander around Oia for a little bit and then head back to our hostel pre-sunset. We may have missed out on the sunset, but I think that maybe I got an equal amount out of falling asleep for two hours, eating dinner (French fries), and going back to sleep for another ten hours.
Katie and Krystin went back out to Fira to watch the World Cup match (Go Spain!). I barely even noticed them come back afterwards. Maybe Katie will do a blog on the World Cup. She said that it was pretty exciting. "Dramatic soccer moments" and all that.
