Yesterday, I got carried away a bit... expressing doubt on the risk/benefit analysis of lingering on the cauldron's edge at Santorini. My mood may have been influenced by passengers from a cruise ship. Some 3,000 of them invaded our relaxed domain... creeping up the cliff path... charging up on the backs of the poor old donkeys... commandeering the cable car... wave after wave after wave... until Santorini's streets were in gridlock. They hung around until 4 PM... talking in loud voices, telling each other how nice the food was... how they bargained so hard on the price of a dress they got the bargain of the century. We see ourselves as 'ferry' people... and a class above 'cruise ship' people. Anyway, something made me cranky... so I'll blame them.
Today was cruise ship free. The streets are quite... the storekeepers are no longer in a feeding frenzy. The gentle pace of pre-season preparations made the Santorini experience so much more enjoyable. But the volcano was still there... quietly sleeping under 500 metres of water.
We took the offensive. Instead of waiting for the volcano to explode, we climbed on board a boat and headed to the island 1 km offshore (at the centre of the cauldron). We climbed to the rim of the volcano and poked it with a stick... jumped up and down on it... questioned its might in a pejorative manner... everything we could think of to provoke a confrontation. Nothing... there was no reaction at all except for the huff and puff of sulphur smoke. We did see where lava spewed from its angry mouth some 60 years ago. We did see the different rock colours each coming from different periods of eruptions. We did see a landscape resembling the moon... some sections entirely free of vegetation.
Some of the passengers went for a swim in a bay heated by the volcano. To get to the heated bay, you had to jump into freezing water and swim to the bay. Yes, to get back on the boat you had to leave the heated water, swim through the freezing water and climb on board. Both Joye and I found this arrangement easy to resist. We stayed on board... Joye looked after a cute 1 year old girl while her parents went swimming.
Tomorrow, we fly (no... we are not taking the ferry) back to Athens, pick up a hire car and head for the Peloponnese region of Greece.
Another chapter begins.
No comments:
Post a Comment