The ship trundled through the night. SOME of us (me) had a terrible night’s sleep in our horrible fold-down bed, and SOME of us (me) complained about it like big giant babies all during breakfast. We ate breakfast NOT at the trough buffet, and it was quite nice.
Then we arrived!
Now when we were planning this trip, when I first saw the list of excursions, I saw that one of them was climbing the volcano at Thira. The three of us were on the phone, when I said, “Now, I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but I figure you guys don’t want to climb the volcano, and I really do, and…” “I want to climb the volcano!” my sister said. “We HAVE to climb the volcano!” Mama said.
Silly me.
One of the best things: tender boats! I know that this is a maritime term and it does NOT actually mean gentle, friendly boats, but TOO BAD. In my head, that’s what tender boats are.
Ours looked like a pirate ship:
We took our tender pirate ship to Thira. Lo and many years ago, the whole island was called Thira, and it was quite large. Then it blew up, and now there is the semi-circular island of Santorini with the remains of the Thira volcano in the middle and a few other smaller islands around what used to be the edge of the whole thing. Look at the town perched up on the cliff: isn’t it wonderful?
Most of the island was covered in this black volcanic rock. It was hot, bleak, and beautiful.
The last major eruption was in 1950, so this is approximately 60 years of regrowth.
The views were gorgeous.
Like really, seriously gorgeous. (That’s the town of Oia in the distance.)
Jaw-dropping, really. (Also, my sister is a good photographer. These are all her pictures.)
We had a hilarious tour guide. He said, “I’m half Greek, half Italian. It’s hard to be perfect.” He gave enough nerdy vulcanology information even for me.
The plants were neat.
This bean-looking plant is so cool. Anyone know what it is? Daisie?
I stuck my hand in a steam vent. I’m very glad my unders aren’t showing here.
It was a HAUL. Parts of the day were simply trudging uphill in loose soil under the hot sun, with an occasional whiff of sulfur. But wow the views. And WOW a volcano. Some people were miffed that they climbed all the way to the top and didn’t see any lava. I briefly considered kicking them into the ocean.
Dusty Ladies Triumphant!
