Santorini
Fira
by
Kenny, Kristen, Chad & Emily
Posted on 2017-10-05
We started the day off by making breakfast in our Santorini apartment. It included some Greek yoghurt, fruit, and some friend bologna (that we accidentally bought at the store yesterday because we don’t read Greek). We had an amazing view from our balcony while we ate.
After breakfast, we planned to head over to the old port in Fira where we had tickets for a volcano and hot springs boat tour. Our original plan was to call a taxi with an app we had seen advertised called Aegean taxi. However, it turns out there was only one driver on the app and he promptly canceled our order. We resorted to plan B and walked to the public bus station where a bus was waiting as soon as we walked up! We made it across the island for a 1,80 E each!
Once we got off the bus we had to walk down to the old port which was about 600 steps down. Chad and Emily found a cable car and took the express way down for a few euros each. Kenny and I hustled down the steps on foot (while trying to avoid the plethora of donkey excrement) in order to catch the boat on time. On the bright side though our - tour boat looked like a pirate ship!
The first stop on the tour was the hot springs. We got to jump off the side of the tour boat (pirate ship) and swim over to the hot springs. The hot springs were really more pockets of hot water in the otherwise chilly sea. The most notable thing about the hot spring was the water was vibrant brown in color due to all of the minerals.
After the hot springs we headed over to the volcano, Nea Kameni where we walked around for about an hour and a half. The most interesting thing we learned was that the island where the volcano sat, Crete, and Santorini were at one time all one large island until a prehistoric explosion separated them into three parts.
Once we were back in Thira we decided to pay 5 euros each to ride donkeys up the 600 steps back to the main part of town. I was expecting a nice and relaxing donkey ride to calmly deliver me to the top of the mountain. What we got instead was an exhilarating donkey adventure complete with sprinting, competitive donkey passing, and even a few good kicks. We learned that there’s no controlling donkeys and you’re at the mercy of their mischievousness and bad humor. Kenny would describe it as the best 6 euros we’ve spent since we got here. I would describe it as the most terrifying thing we have done in Greece. But I’m totally glad we did it.
After surviving our donkey adventure, we started off on an over 6 mile walk from Thira to Oia where we were staying. It was really hot and hilly, but we got to see some amazing views of the entire island.
The end of the hike put us back at our favorite cliff diving spot and we got to make a few more jumps before heading off for dinner.
Kenny and I found a back alley Greek place where we split a mixed grill plate (to the beat of some very loud techno tunes). Then we wrapped up the evening with our first official Greek baklava and an awesome view of the sea in moonlight. - Your guest blogger, Kristen
