Spontaneity = My New Middle Name

Last time you all heard from me I was on a ferry en route to Crete, a brief island hop as a means to get to our final Greek destination of Santorini – a location known by Greeks to be “the party island.” But before I even get to our adventures on “the party island,” I must enlighten you all to how we got there in the first place – an adventure in itself to say the least.

Our decision to go to Crete as a means of getting to Santorini turned out to be a good one. Essentially, from Kythira we had 2 choices: the first was going back to the Athens port (Pireaus), spending the night there, and hoping they had a direct ferry to Santorini the next day (knowledge of the transportation here seems to be somewhat of a wild goose chase with everyone you ask giving you a different story about when/where buses or ferries go, etc.). Our second option was going from Kythira to the Kissamo port on Crete (the biggest of the Greek islands and known for its distinct Turkish/Greek culture mix), then somehow getting to the Iraklia port which just happens to be about 150 miles east down the coast from Kissamo. So, with a fear of taking the ferry back to Athens, finding out that there weren’t ferries the day we needed one to Santorini, and thus being stuck in Athens for the duration of our trip – we chose the Crete option instead, our logic being that if the worst happened and we couldn’t get to the Iraklia port and/or they too didn’t actually have a ferry to Santorini that day, we’d at least be on a new Greek island rather than back in Athens. (I’m trying to make this brief for the sake of all you readers, but this process really was a novel in itself, so bear with me ☺)

So, off we went to Crete – once again hopping on a ferry with zero knowledge of exactly what would happen when we got off. We arrived at the Kissamo port, late again around 11 p.m., and after talking to an informative taxi driver found out that the actual town of Kissamo was not only about a 4 mile hike away (which we immediately recognized as a bad idea (don’t worry Dad ☺) seeing as it was dark and the roads are about half as wide as they should be to accommodate European drivers), but the town only has 4 hotels – of course all of which were full on the night of a late-night ferry arrival. So…with the help of my new bible (a.k.a. the Lonely Planet guide to Mediterranean Europe), we had the taxi driver take us to the next major town, Hania, on what can only be described as a makes-you-want-to-dig-your-finger-nails-into-your-own-thighs-for-fear-of-either-hitting-a-moped-or-being-hit-by-a-bus-while-passing-a-moped kind of taxi ride. Upon our arrival in Hania, we began searching for a hotel listed in my guidebook, only to find ourselves completely disoriented by the Greek street names and somehow wandering an extremely busy touristy area in a daze. Well, evidently our lost-and-confused-and-desperate-for-sleep-must-be-Americans-gaze was quite obvious because we were quickly approached by a middle-aged woman asking us (in English, a sure sign they know you’re an obvious American) if we needed a room because she (once again, here’s our unbelievable luck) happened to own a hostel?! So sure enough, we followed her into her hostel and immediately accepted the quiet, well-ventilated, 4-bed room complete with our own bathroom and 2 giant fans that she offered us. Not only did this kind woman practically scrape us up off the street and give us beds and a shower, but she then showed us around the corner to her favorite gelato shop where we gorged ourselves on 3-flavor cones until we’d been comforted enough to fall asleep immediately. The next morning we easily found the bus station where they (our luck, once again) indeed had buses departing for Iraklia every half hour. So off we went on a 2.5 hour bus ride along the coast, which turned out to be an amazingly beautiful way to see the incredible scenery of Crete - mountains on the right, Mediterranean Sea on the left, I was so torn as to which way to turn my head ☺. When we got to Iraklia, the first two people we talked to about a ferry to Santorini seemed to respond with “Santorini, today?! Oh no, not possible.” But sure enough, our persistence paid off and we found that there was 1 ferry leaving for Santorini that afternoon! Ecstatic with the knowledge that we were actually going to make it to Santorini after all (at one point, a seemingly 50/50 chance of success), we booked our tickets.

Our ferry to Santorini was about an hour late in its departure (Europe is definitely going to teach me patience…), thus getting us to the island around 10 p.m. After some more confusion with the transportation, we hopped on a bus (for a rather terrifying ride up the switch-backs of Santorini) that was supposed to take us to our destination town of Perissa, where our hostel was waiting for us to check-in by 11. However, our bus made an unexpected stop in Fira, which is apparently in the opposite direction of Perissa, where we found out that to get to Perissa we’d have to switch to a bus that wouldn’t depart until 11:30, that’s precisely 30 minutes after check-in closes at the hostel for those of you not paying attention to the novel at this point…So, we ended up taking a taxi and arriving in Perissa around 10:56, at this point twitching from some combination of excitement that we had actually made it and jitters from another exciting taxi ride (seriously though, better than most American roller coasters). After a long journey, we treated ourselves to some snacks and drinks on the porch of our hostel where we got to know the others staying with us – 1 girl from Ireland, her 2 friends from England, and 1 friend from Canada (all of whom roomed with us), plus a conglomeration of others including some from Australia, Belgium, some Argentineans who roomed with us our second night, and Peter – a must-be-40-year-old hippy who does odd jobs for the hostel in exchange for living there and getting intoxicated quite regularly while meeting the new hostel-ers each night. Although I can’t give a good impression of Peter justice, a conversation with him generally goes something like this:

Peter: (with a googly-eyed expression)“Where are you from?”
Diana: “the US”
Peter: “You’re American?! I love America. I love you. Do you love me? No really, do you love me?”
Diana (with dumbfounded look) “Of course I love you Peter.”
Peter: “Do you really mean that?”
Diana: “Yes…I mean it.”
Peter: “Okay good. Do you have some cigarettes?”
Diana: “No, sorry. I don’t smoke.”
Peter: “You don’t smoke?! But do you have some cigarettes?”
Diana: “No…I don’t smoke.”
Peter: “Yeah I know, but do you have some cigarettes?” - - shortly after, gets distracted and walks into the street while breaking into song…Like I said, that may not do his character justice, but I tried ☺

The next morning we got up early to catch a bus to the port for the full-day sailboat tour we’d booked at check-in. The tour was a little tourist-y, but worth every second. We saw so much of Santorini’s geographical wonders that there’s no way we could’ve seen otherwise, including:
1. A stop for a 1.5 hour hike up and around the Caldera (volcano island), an active volcano that once erupted thus forming what is now known as Santorini and leaving only 5% of its population at the time alive!
2. Swimming at a natural hot springs (Lamatica Nepa) that was located in a rock cove of a small island off the mainland of Santorini. The sailboat couldn’t get up to shore because of the shallow waters so we had to jump out and swim about 50 meters each way – kind of a funny experience to watch all the members of our boat just abandon ship off the side and “swim” (more like thrashing for some) to the hot springs to enjoy the hot (or more like bath-temperature) water with a surrounding mud bath which quickly became a mud fight for those of us uninterested in therapeutically rolling around in it☺
3. Lunch on the island Thirasia at an AMAZING seafood restaurant right on the water where I enjoyed my first Swordfish Souvlaki (kabob)
4. Our last stop was to watch the world-famous Santorini sunset in the northernmost town, Oia (where the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants takes place…). The actual town of Oia is set at the top of a verrry steep, rocky hill which we could either walk the 300 and some steeeep steps or be transported, indeed in Greek tradition, by donkeys! Since we had a couple of hours to enjoy the scenery before the actual sunset we chose to walk thus sparing the poor donkeys as well as avoiding paying the 5 euro/person for a donkey…however, no one warned us that we would be left clinging onto stone walls of the switch-backs on the verge of tumbling down that very steep, rocky hill as we were nearly trampled by herds of donkeys…which we found to be astoundingly speedy as they practically sprinted by us, who knew?! So as we giggled our exhausted selves up the hill narrowly avoiding death-by-donkey in addition to the unexpected risk of death-by-overexposure-to-donkey-droppings, we concluded that evidently donkeys enjoy some good old fashioned hard labor ☺ After some eagerly awaited picture taking from the top, we did a little shopping with two British boys (Mitch and Dan) from our tour and then found a restaurant that was literally perched on the cliffs overlooking the town and the Sea where we thoroughly enjoyed some well-earned drinks and desserts and took some time to remove the donkey droppings from our sandals…
PS – I triiied to get some pictures of the donkeys but very quickly decided that you can all picture a Greek donkey in your heads instead of my risking my life for one ☺

Our last day in Santorini started off as a relaxing one and concluded with our frantic decision to get on an overnight ferry back to Athens. In the morning Elsa, Tyler, and I woke up and immediately went and asked our hostel about possible snorkeling tours, only to find out that the company they work with had 1 tour leaving that morning but it was already full (Ally chose to go relax on the beach that day). But the incredibly nice hostel lady then told us of another dive shop located down the beach only a few blocks from where we were staying. Sooo after running back to our room, frantically stripping and throwing on our swimming suits, we ran down the road to the beach only to arrive at the Mediterranean Dive Shop just as the van for their snorkel tour was backing down the driveway! We quickly asked them if they could take and after 3 minutes of handing over money, signing our lives away on some liability waiver, and trying on wet suits – we were on our way riding in the back of a truck with the snorkel and scuba dive guides.

The snorkeling trip was…one of the best days of our travels in Greece, hands down. Our tour was very small (10 people, 2 guides) and personable. I can now say I’ve snorkeled Hawaii, the Florida Keys, Australia, and Greece and between the 4 Greece was the most unique. Unlike the rainbows of colorful fish of Florida, the sea turtles of Hawaii, and the never-ending forests of colorful coral of the Great Barrier Reef, my snorkeling in Greece was in caves, yes caves! The rocky coast of Santorini makes for some uniquely carved caves and canyons that house jellies and other anemones on their walls. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable about which safe water movement in the caves, as well as which jellies could be touched, which ones flowered, etc. Although my favorite part was snorkeling out of the caves and back into the open water because I got to watch as the pitched black waters below me became illuminated with the nearing sunlight, it was SO pretty! The tour took us to two caved areas and one cove full of coral where I saw a baby octopus! Snorkeling in the Mediterranean Sea was also an interesting experience because of the saltiness of the water. With waters more salty than anywhere I’ve ever been plus the use of a wet suite, I was SO buoyant. I could just bob there in the water completely motionless but not sinking, not even a little. One of our guides was just incredible, his knowledge and humor made the day even better. He’d spray us with the motor of the boat as he’d get the boat with it’s rear facing us then gun the engine thus drenching us with its back spray, he even brought me and Elsa each a shell from his scuba dive that day!

After the snorkel tour we concluded our time by doing some shopping where I got some BEAUTIFUL paintings of Santorini done by local artists, probably too many, but I couldn’t resist. That evening became another one of our frantic decisions to jump on a ferry as we found out that the only ferry leaving Santorini that would get us back to Athens early enough to get our luggage out of the storage center before it closed aaaand get to the airport before the Metro stopped running - - left about an hour after our inquiry about ferry schedules! Whooops. Sooo after some VERY quick showers and extremely frantic packing we made it to the ferry port 15 minutes prior to its departure (they recommend you arrive 1 hour early…). Our overnight ferry was another unexpected adventure in itself. Within the first hour we were kicked out of the seats we’d selected because for the first ferry ride since being in Greece, the tickets had assigned seat numbers - - where were ours you ask? We were assigned to the deck, yes outside, for our 10 hour overnight ferry. Rather than sleeping in the freezing cold salty spray of the Mediterranean, Ally and I curled up in a hallway just outside the women’s bathroom where women would stare at us and talk about us in other languages while we slept…something that made me suddenly very aware of being watched while I slept. The others (Elsa and Tyler) chose to sleep on a luggage rack, less space but also less foreigners pointing and staring…☺ One LONG night of no sleep later, we arrived in Athens around 5 a.m. where, after becoming completely disoriented by the fact that the ferry dropped us off on the opposite corner of the port than we’d left from, we spent the day drinking too much coffee and lounging in the passenger’s center at the Athens port after retrieving our stored luggage. On our way to the Athen’s airport (our home for the night before our flight to Rome), we stopped at our restaurant to enjoy one last Greek meal with a view of the Acropolis and some free yogurt and honey.

Hope you enjoyed the novel! Love,

Diana