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19day

2008-10-26

Day 10 – ‘Volcano Tour’ Excursion

Filed under: Greece 2008 — 19day @ 23:25:08

Today was the volcano tour, and it proved to me, once again, how out of shape I am. We started the day in the usual manner, breakfast and waiting by the road for a bus that was very much late. We got taken down to a port and a small sailing ship, but at first it just ran under engine power.

Volcano

Shawn versus the Volcano

The volcano, Nea Kameni, doesn’t look high, but when you’re on it, it seems to go on forever. It isn’t a cone with a hole in the middle, and the tour guide even seemed to suggest such a form was unfashionable and that this form was better. For certain climbing it was easier than the cartoonish cone form. It’s still reasonably active with eruptions relatively recently, but they said not to worry too much about that. We boated to a Erinia cove, the port, and the tour guide told us, a couple of times, to make absolutely sure we had a bottle of water. I had 500ml on me from earlier, but I wish I had gotten more. We paid our ticket price and started our ascent. We had various checkpoints to reach, and when we made it to each subsequent one, the tour guide would give us some history about the place, and then repeat it in french for the others, while the english speakers moved on. It was kind of shocking to see him pass us on the way to the next checkpoint after us having quite a head start.

The heat was quite hard on me, both the heat from the sun, and the reflective heat from the volcanic stones, which were black and so got hot. Oh yes, and the ground steamed, and when the guide dug up a bit of earth it steamed more and gave it to us to touch, and it was quite hot. No wonder the warning about the water bottle. It took something like an hour, if not longer, but time didn’t seem to move. Each time I made it around a curve or over a hill, there would be the path snaking off and up into the distance… and we’d have to walk it.

I had to take a couple little breaks while making it to the top. Alicia and Laura didn’t seem to have any difficulty at all, so I guess it’s just me. Even all these old people seemed to be okay. The hills of Santorini didn’t prepare me for this. I finished my water with still about a third of the trip left to go, so when we were heading back down again, I had nothing. The way back seemed bad too, sure, it was downhill, but it seemed to take forever. I’m guessing probably due to no stops for the history.

After we made it back, we were dismayed to not be able to find our boat, but in fact it was now triple-parked, and we had to get on a boat and cross another to finally make it back to ours. We then boated to some hot springs, but honestly they were mildly lukewarm springs. After a long delay, I finally went into the water, which was quite cold, and some distance from the spring itself. When I headed for the ladder they put down the side of the boat, someone else was coming up from having put a toe in and deciding it was too cold. I went down with the intention of lowering in slowly, however I missed a step when I was halfway in and fell in all the way. I finally got to experience the refreshing sting of salt-water in my eyes. As soon as I got in, though, they sounded the horn to return, so I only went a little ways into the yellowish water before turning back. I was hampered by both of my legs cramping up all of a sudden, and I was probably lucky that I was in saltwater, or else things might have got a little interesting.

After that we boated to a red beach that is apparently only reachable by swimming, but I clearly saw people walking from around the side to it, and it didn’t look like they swam. I didn’t partake in that bit of the excursion. We had lunch which I wasn’t fussy on so I won’t recall it here, except that I was annoyed at how Laura and Alicia manage to get so far ahead yet people seem to treat me like crap and force in between in line. After lunch it was time to head back, and we had what I thought was plenty of time to get to Oia for the sunset, but the boat unfurled the sails and we sailed back to the main port at Eulonda. Now, the sailing was fun for a bit, but it seemed to take forever and seemed kinda of anti-climatic, I mean, imagine if we were on our way back to the hotel by bus, and they throw it in neutral to coast the rest of the way. On the way back we passed a bit of cliff that apparently is thought to look like an indian head. I agree, it sort of looks like a face profile, but why indian, it doesn’t sound very greek.

Indian head

They said ‘Indian’, I think they meant ‘Native American’

We had the option to get off at Eulonda and make our own way back, or the go to the other port and be bussed back to our hotel. We opted to get off right away, and took the sky-tram up the side of the cliff. There was also the donkey path we could have taken, but Laura didn’t trust the donkeys, and I didn’t want to crush one. Alicia decided she didn’t want to smell like one, so we bought the tram tickets and went up. It was shockingly uninteresting actually, the views weren’t any better than the ones we could get in other ways.

We went back to the hotel and changed, and headed to a nearby bus-stop to make it to Oia. When it came, we got on, and the guy who takes the money was standing there. See, on the buses, you don’t pay the driver right away, you just get on and eventually a guy comes around and sells you a ticket. Laura asked him how much the ticket was, and he told her “sit down”, she didn’t hear and asked again, he just said “sit down” louder. This was another occurrence of the general rudeness I’d seen around. I imagine I’d be like that if I had to deal with tourists in another language, but that’s pretty much the reason I’m NOT in the tourist industry. Anyway, we sat down and bought our ticket, 1.40 euros, which still makes it cheaper than the TTC. And the buses were like coach buses, very nice. Unless you have to stand in the aisles, which is less nice, since they aren’t built for that.

We reached Oia and made for the west, but apparently we were well beaten, since there were already like a hundred or more people lining all the walls and outcrops. We managed to find a small section to watch the sunset for ourselves. But unfortunately, it was hugely disappointing, since there was a band of thick cloud at the horizon. Alicia later bought some playing cards with landscapes on the backs, and we saw the types of sunsets we could have seen, so I guess that’s good enough.

Oia sunset

The oiaset on a bad day

We later ate at a place called Blue Sky, which I can’t really remember at all. We bussed back to Fira, and while waiting we encountered a stray dog that seemed to delight to sit at the cul-de-sac that all the vehicles and the bus needed to turn around at and risk itself getting hit. We made it back to our hotel, updated ourselves on the financial crisis, and went to sleep for the last time in that hotel. Tomorrow would be just a transition day to make it back to the Aquamarine, and finally, Athens.

To Be Continued

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