Travel Notes: Big Day In Santorini

We took a tour around Santorini. Lots to see! This was probably the most amount of exercise for us out of the whole trip combined.

1. The tour boat. I felt like a pirate. It was wonderful. For the Boston girls who understand this: no eye patches included.

2. Another goal! We hiked to the top of the volcano island Nea Kameni, and I got to take a peak inside one of the craters. The tour guide told us that this isn't one of the oozing lava type of eruptions but the explosive kind! Scary.

If you dig a few inches into the soil, the volcanic ash is so hot that you can boil eggs! I wish someone had told me in advanced, so I would have come prepared with an egg.

3. We took the boat to just off the coast of the hot springs (Iamatika Nepa) at Palia Kameni. The water gets too shallow for the boat to dock, so we hopped in and swam about 100 meters to where the sulfur from the volcano-made island just barely started to heat up the waters. We found out from a local we met on the beach today that there is another hot springs area that actually gets a lot warmer, but they don't bring the tourists there. Oh well. I'm just happy I didn't drown.

4. We docked at Thirasia for lunch (which we both packed in advanced as hyper cheap travelers). Most of the other tourists lunched by the shore, so we ventured to the top of the cliff to check out the view. Anyone without the ridiculously frugal sensibilities we've developed over the last weeks would have paid the 5 euro for a "taxi" aka donkey ride up the steep cliff, but, of course, we opted to climb through the sea of donkey poo instead.

5. Another goal! Befriend a donkey=success. While dodging through their shit along the winding stone pathways, I got to say hi to some passing donkeys and even pet one! They were very friendly. Nobody kicked me.

6. More friends! What a sweet pup. She would have gotten along well with Eleanor Roooosevelt and Xiao Bai back at home.

7. More cliffs. More uphill walking. Exhaustion. View of Oia from the pirate ship..

8. We watched the famous Oia sunset from a ledge on the western edge of the island. I bought a box of cookies and little bottle of red to enjoy the show. Classy, I know.

9. One more goal: Cheers to the girls of 468! Wish you were here with us.