Santorini, Greece
The Equinox found her way to Santorini this morning. There’s no port here, but tenders — smaller vessels — come out to pick up the cruising crowd.
It was an overcast day, for the most part, which is a shame because this is a beautiful area.
There were a few excursions for those interested in leaving the ship. We chose the most extreme one, mostly, I think, because we’re afraid of thinking of ourselves as wimps.
"This is a serious disembarkation pro-cess."
Before you could leave, though, you must visit the 1115-seat Equinox Theater. Cesar is in control there. You present your excursion tickets, they give you a number and Cesar calls out the number when your tender is here.
He entertains with jokes and tries to get people to sing. He makes sure you have your smile. “They are doing smile inspections on the gangway.”
And then he calls out numbers. “Groups Number 16 and 17, have a nice day.”
He repeats it a few times. And then he pauses. He tells a joke, or works some dialog with someone in the theater. Then he says “If you are in group number 16 or 17 and you are still here you must ask yourself … ‘Why?'”
I instantly decided that will be what I say if anyone ever gets upset with me about their own shortcomings.
So Cesar sends us on our way. We climb aboard the tender and I can show you my first picture of our home on the high seas (which are incredibly calm):
The Celebrity Equinox
I can see our stateroom from here!
So we putter on over to the volcano. Santorini was once a large island. About 3,500 years ago the volcano erupted — believed to be one of the world’s largest — and blew the island into several islands. The ship is sitting in the caldera which was filled with the ensuing tsunami.
This is our first active volcano.
The volcano is still active. It erupted three times in the 20th Century, most recently in 1950. The landscape is rocky and generally barren. There are a few scrub grasses and a few flowers. Rabbits scurry around, though we don’t see any. Lizards are the dominant creatures here, and they are hiding under the rocks.
You hike up the rocky path to the highest point on the island, you pass two volcanic craters to get there. In a few places you can see the sulfur stains on the rocks. In other places this is just a barren landscape. Near the peak there are a few vents accessible to visitors. You can smell the sulfur, see the steam and feel the heat rising out of the earth.
Active volcano.
We also swam in the warm springs trickling into the Aegean Sea. My night ended by adding “Swim off of a Greek isle” to the list of cool experiences.
Our guide suggested that after you swim up to the source of the warm springs that you should rub some of the mud on your skin, “Gentlemen your wives won’t know who you are when you get back on the ship.”
That’s because you’re rubbing sulfur mud on yourself. And you stink, badly. The wetnap “for refreshment” she offered did not help very much.
Here I must point out that the excursion literature said “Swim in the hot springs!” The guide said, twice “And when we go to the hot springs, or I should say, the warm springs … ” And then she tells you the water temperatures. You dive into the cold water, about 55-degrees, and then swim your shivering self to the springs which are about 70-degrees, warm by comparison only.
Shivering, smelling of sulfur and trying to get dry we putter on over to the village of Santorini.
Santorini, Greece
Most of the town, which is driven by tourism, is high up the hillside. There are three ways up: walking the 500-plus steps, cable car or riding a donkey up the 500-plus steps. We’ve already swam on a Greek isle, so here’s another opportunity for an unusual experience. We took the donkeys.
Which are really just wild-eyed, crazed death mammals. There are stirrups, but no reins. You aren’t steering anything. The donkeys know where they are going and they don’t care about the pedestrians that are in their way. The people walking, though, are very displeased with you. You’re holding on for dear life though, and all you can do is look back, toss a hasty “Sorry!” (You realize the futility of explaining pretty quickly) and then turn to re-grip your tenuous hold.
The Yankee and I ascended with three ladies who have never been in a saddle. This was a traumatic experience for them. After the donkey driver started whipping my ride I decided we weren’t riding back down. For entirely different reasons The Yankee had already decided she’d find a new way down. If the return trip was as chaotic as the journey up this would prove a very wise decision.
So we shopped. Found a few things for us, found a few gifts, met a few nice people, including an Australian who found her way to live and work in Greece. How? “My husband.”
We walked around, seeing the sites and wishing we had more time here. The only real schedule on this ship is “Be back before we depart, because we will leave you.” So we have to be aware of the time. Everyone here is, because there are two cruise ships here and we have three ways to get back down to the water.The cable car line, we later learned, was more than an hour wait. (And not for the faint of heart, we heard.) The walk was a good choice.
And they look like this:
There are lots of stairs.
So your ankles and knees hate you. And you realize, about halfway down, the long, irregularly spaced path of switchbacks, that going down 500 steps can take a while.
But we made it. We were the last ones off the island. Or we might have been. Who is to say? You begin to perceive people and time differently in this environment. There is only what is in front of you. It becomes implausible that a person is standing to the side. It is impossible that anyone could exist behind you. This is what it is like when people turn their brains off. You make the meals — and, because it is a cruise ship there is a shameful amount of food available — and that’s about it. The food, in fact, is the only difference between vacationers and a desperate mob heedless of all else happening around it.
Not to sound grim, but food choices are tough, taking up all the mental power any of us packed. (There are many people here mystified by the purpose of the glowing arrows prominently on display at the elevators.)
Have you ever seen a sunset over Greece?
Sunset over Santorini, Greece
The day’s pictures are here. Would you like to see a hasty panorama from Santorini? Try here.
Here we are at sea. And there are lots of pictures from Rome: Day One, Day Two, Day Three. I’ve published almost 200 from this trip already. I’ll have a video from the day at some point, but that will probably take a while.
Tomorrow: Mykonos, Greece.
