nightswimming: trip day 6

Trip Day 6:

I finally got a good night of sleep. We went to bed early and I woke up naturally just before 6 am. I knew sunrise was at 6, so I jumped up and got running stuff on and bolted for the beach. I was just in time to see the sun appear on the horizon. I watched the sunrise for a while before heading back to the room to get Violet for our run.

We were in a different country, but cross country summer mileage started on June 1 so Violet needs to get her miles. We scheduled out that she would run once in each of the different cities we visited. The European runs were rewarding in visual treats. It's also the best way to explore. Perissa Beach exists mostly along a single road so it was easy to manage.

The Athens runs were a bit chilly early in the morning but here it was a bit more humid. The sun continued to bake us. We got showered and had our breakfast of mostly bread, coffee and a couple of slices of ham and cheese and we were ready for our daily adventure. We met the group for a walk to the bus stop beside Bob's Burgers, yet another Bob Marley reference. This was in addition to the beachfront restaurant featuring a poster of Bob.

The bus ride was uneventful, thus no photos. We rode to Fira and then walked a bit more uphill to find the way down to the bottom of that devastating cliff.

The bus and the walk took a while and when we got to the cliff's edge, we were pressed for time to make our boat departure. The only way to be sure we'd make it was taking the chairlift. I was not a fan of this idea. Violet wasn't the biggest fan either. There may be a video of us holding hands, wide eyed while one of us tried really hard not to curse.

We made it safely to the water and prepared to board a wooden pirate ship to go on a little cruise.

The landscape and views were all so foreign and surreal. Everything was beautiful.

The purpose of the boat trip was to go to the island of Nea Kameni, an active volcano. Yes, active. All of Santorini is basically a big volcano and after the huge eruption devastated the area and created lots of small islands out of the big one, this new volcano erupted just 50 years ago. We docked and followed our guide up to the top of the volcanic island and saw two craters. One was still spewing steam and sulfur from a hole in the ground. I have a cool video but those don't do well on the blog. The hike up was literally climbing a mountain.

Most of the group made it up to see the craters and then on to the very top.

Violet and I took some photos at the top and then took in the beautiful view with water all around us. It was a really epic moment.

Our volcano guide was Giorgia and she was cool. She took some photos for us but I didn't get one of her. At the end of our hike, I gave her one of the sticky notes with a drawing and the "eisai omorfi" lettering. She loved it and it made her smile. I drew a few of these on the plane but I had been slack about giving them out. This encouraged me.

Our pirate ship was named The Albatross. After we hiked back down from the top, we found our ship and enjoyed some snacks and drinks on the boat while it sailed around to Palea Kameni.

There it was an option to jump off the boat into 30 feet of water and swim over to the hot springs. Violet and I saw no reason to jump off a perfectly good boat and be wet for the rest of the day, so we perched on top and took photos and videos for the others. I think that's Kennedy and Alayna swimming toward the hot springs.

There were a few ways back up the cliff. A donkey ride, walking, or taking the chair lift. We opted for the lift but we both regret that choice because it was much scarier going up than going down. We regrouped up top and grabbed lunch in a beautiful cliffside restaurant.

We stole Hope back and took some photos with the view.

This wasn't exactly the social media photo spot you see from Santorini, but it was close. White buildings, blue roofs. Very nice.

I'm happy to report that Violet and I resisted the urge to buy a bouzouki while in Greece. They had real ones an little souvenir ones everywhere. We even saw a couple of dudes playing them for tips near the Acropolis. They are tuned like a mandolin so I figured I could play one and I loved the sound. We couldn't figure out a way to get one safely home without shipping it, so we let the idea die. I'm still interested, though.

After we saw all that Fira could offer us, including jewelry shops and souvenir stands, we walked down near the bus stop and found grass to sit on. It ended up being a pistachio orchard. We rested a little and tried to decide what we wanted to do next. The whole winging it thing was working well for us. (At one of the jewelry stores, we bought a few things from a very nice young lady. After paying, I handed her one of the sticky notes and she went wild over it. She had never received anything like it and couldn't believe that I drew it. She went on and on and eventually said, "This is the best thing I have ever received!" That night I started drawing more to give away.)

We decided to head back and use the pool at the hotel so we jumped up and caught a bus just as it was preparing to leave. We were sure we were on the correct bus, but we were not sure where to get off. After passing an area that looked familiar, we went in an odd direction and thought be might be screwed. Then the bus made a crazy U-turn on the cliff and when you looked out the front of the bus, this is what you saw.

On the bus, there was a cool family seated in front of us. While we were trying figure out when we needed to exit the bus, they started taking selfies and we just couldn't let that opportunity go. We smiled and waved for a couple and the guys started laughing hysterically. They turned around and greeted us and then continued taking photos with us. It was great. I gave the guy my email address and in a couple of days, he shared the photos with me. Cross-cultural bonding!

Our lack of planning paid off again. We learned more about the area and eventually found the correct stop. We walked to the hotel, I did a little laundry and we swam in the pool until 8:30. Then we decided to try to find food.

We had AJ and Hope and we found a place that looked cool from the outside. After sitting down and watching cricket for a while, we realized this was a bar. We asked for a menu and there was some confusion before we were given a sandwich menu. We ordered and some guy from outside brought us our food. Turns out we ordered take out to the bar. When it was time to pay, the guy escorted me to a secondary location to pay for the food.