Sailboats and Volcanos

The next day, Sunday, we woke up at the ripe hour of noon and stumbled into some bathing suits. We avoided the donkey path in favor of the cable car back down to the harbor from the day before, where we sat on the edge of the water and silently ate spanakopita praying for our hangovers to disappear and looking out over the gorgeous blue water.

When our boat came into the harbor it was quite a sight- a restored 18th century pirate ship! It was so beautiful and surprisingly spacious. We were with a few older couples and a giant group of Austrian youths who looked like slutty versions of the Sound of Music kids and were quite affectionate with each other. The crown jewels of the ship passengers though were an Israeli couple possibly on their honeymoon. Our group was immediately obsessed with them and kept taking creepy photos of their photogenic love. My friend Samantha took a magnificent photo shoot of them in the sunset later on that would make an excellent advertisement for Santorini or some sort of romantic bath lotion. 

Our first stop was the volcano in the middle of the caldera of islands. Our guide was a hilarious and perky Greek woman who kept repeating the phrase "from the Greek word _____, which means _____" in the exact same accent as the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I died. Now all I'm going to say about the night before is that I am a legal adult in Europe and I exercised my rights and enjoyed myself immensely. However, the repercussions of the enjoyment hit me like a ton of bricks just as I was halfway up the volcano. I swear I thought I was going to die there on that volcano slope. I rallied, but it was close.

The view up top was worth it! A quick review of the volcanic history of Santorini goes as follows: All of Santorini is volcanic, created by multiple eruptions 600,000 years ago. This is because Santorini sits right on the edge of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates (every year Santorini gets 5cm closer to Africa). Santorini was the site of the Minoan eruption 3,600 years ago, one of the greatest volcanic eruptions in the history of mankind, it spewed 90 billion tons of magma in a few days. Obviously everyone who was living there at the time died. If you look at the following photo, the entire top white layer of the cliffs is magma from the Minoan eruption.

After the volcano we sailed to another one nearby to swim in the hot springs. Siobhan and Andrea heard our guide say that the orange mud had rejuvenating properties and decided to rub it all over their faces. It didn't come off. When we were finished at the hot springs we sailed to another of the caldera islands, Therasia, which had the bluest water I've ever seen in my life. We all took dives off the boat and then climbed up to do it again.

I love this picture of Evie, I think she looks like a model for a kids' flotation device. When we had had our fill of the bright blue ocean we dried off and settled on deck for a delicious buffet dinner of Greek food and crisp Santorini white wine.

When we had gorged ourselves/the ship had run out of feta, we sailed up to the tip of Santorini to watch the sunset from Oia. Now I much prefer a classy yacht ride to a sweaty four-hour trek to get there but the sunset was just as magnificent. Floating off the coast of Oia we could see the crowds on the cliffs where we had been the night before, and then one of the sailors brought out his saxophone. I don't know if I can ever adequately describe the feeling you get floating on a sailboat in Greece watching the sunset as an Italian sailor plays the saxophone, but it's a good feeling. I would recommend it.

As the sun was setting we all got jealous of the perfect Israeli couple near us and so we decided to cuddle ourselves. It was so romantic. Then Sam's friend Nadav brought out his harmonica and soulfully played us some tunes. My personal favorites were the Lord of the Rings theme song and Colors of the Wind from Pocahantas. As the boat sailed back to Thira, the crew and then everyone on the ship started dancing to Greek music in a great big circle. It was fantastic!

By now my camera had died and so please excuse the poor iPhone photos, but you can get the idea. It was an incredible day and for some reason we decided that the end to this beautiful day should be walking back up the donkey path ourselves. It was a poor decision, I regret it immensely. When we got back to the hostel we showered, changed, I went on a date with one of the sailors, and then we all met back up on a ledge overlooking the ocean to drink cheap wine and laugh.