Day 12 - Santorini

Wow - what a fun day. First off our luggage showed up. The airline called the hotel at 6:30 AM to bring our luggage over. We did not learn about this until 9:30 when Danielle called the airline for an update on our luggage. They told us that it had been delivered to our hotel 45 minutes ago. We got dressed and went to the office for the reunion with our luggage. (we missed it!).

Once ready for the day we stopped by the office to book a tour/excursion (yes tomorrow we might be reminded again that we are not tour people), and to rent a four wheeler for the day because they are street legal here as well. The hotel called the bike place and they came over and picked us up. We got there and decided on a four wheeler because it looked like more fun. They gave us a map of the island, and it looked pretty sparse. Danielle mentioned this to Alison and she thought we would be ok. (We later learned that the map was not sparse it was actually very accurate, there are just few roads on Santorini. Santorini also did very well with their road signage, perhaps Malta could take note.) They showed us how to drive and told us where the gas station was and we were off. We headed to the gas station and then to Perissa Beach.

Perissa ia a black sand beach. The sand actually looks like the granules that are on shingles. We wanted to walk in it because it didn't look like it would feel the same, so we took our shoes off. Bad move....black sand=hot sand. Anyway, we spent a bit of time there and swam in the Aegean Sea which is really just the lower part of the Mediterranean Sea. The water was cool and again there weren't really waves, just wake from the boats. It was weird because it doesn't slope into the water like it does at home, it kind of drops off up to our waists and then when we dove in to go under we were up to our necks. We learned at this beach that it is optional top wear. There were several ladies that once they hit the beach their top was off, all the rest were tourist like us. People also walked along the beach trying to sell stuff from massages to trinkets. We hung out at Perissa for about an hour or so. We had planned to beach hop all over the island. Needless to say Perissa was the last beach we stepped foot on today, but its ok...we had fun.

We left Perissa and headed toward the Red Beach. The parking for the red beach was crazy, but because we were on the four wheeler, it was not too bad. We parked and began the hike. And it was a hike. We hiked up to where we could see the beach (it was far below us still) and realized that it was very packed (hence the parking problem) so we decided to take pictures of the sand and of the beach and headed out of there.

After the Red Beach we headed to Faros. Santorini looks kind of like a backward C, and Faros is at the end of the bottom of the C. At Faros there is a lighthouse that is still in use by the Navy. We hiked past the light house onto the point. There was an absolutely gorgeous view. Santorini is not lacking in the view department, that is for sure. We took some photos and headed for lunch. We didn't really know what we were going to find, but we stopped at a small restaurant on the side of the road. They were all over the place, so it seemed that this was where we would find some good food. We were excited to see Tzatziki on the menu. Tzatziki is a dip that has cucumbers, dill and garlic with a base of plain Greek yogurt. It might sound gross, but it is really yummmy! We got that and bread and then ordered lunch. Alison order Gyros (like in the states, but here they don't roll it up) Danielle ordered vegetable salad. Normally when it says vegetable salad, there is more than one vegetable, but not for her. She ended up with a plate of steamed spinach. She did say however that it was surprisingly filling. During lunch we asked the waitress about schools in the area as we had not seen any on our adventure. She said a few towns have primary schools, but the high school was in Fira. She was not certain though because she is only here during the summer, we learned this is true of most of the people here. We only found one person of all the people that we asked if they live here year around, and that was Poppy, the women who owns the hostel we are staying in.
After lunch we headed to the Monistary at the top of the hill. It appears to be the highest point on Santorini. We aren't sure if there is still a functional monistary up there because to get all the way there you needed to walk up a very steep hill and since our really goal was to see the view... where we stopped was just fine. We took some photos and headed down the hill. We headed back to the hotel to get our geocaching stuff because we had hauled it all the way over hear, might as well use it and now we were feeling like we had a decent idea of where we were and what we needed to do. The first cache we did was back up to where the monistary is. We had actually driven by it twice. It didn't take long to find. Then second was back down the hill in the Village of Kamari behind the Panagia Episikopi Church. We encountered a hill on the second cache that the four wheeler could not make up with both of us on it. So Alison got off to walk, it was not an easy walk either. One step at a time with both her calves and thighs screaming. We headed for a third cache after that, but decided to abandon it when we were a little confused as to how to find it and we were running out of time with the four wheeler.We made our way back to Fira the big capital city on the island where we had rented the bike. On the way we stopped for petrol (gas) and got right back to the rental shop with no problems. We returned our bike and then asked the bike shop guy where we might find some good food. He told us right next store, go up into the roof balcony and the food is good and not too expensive. We listened to his suggestion and he was right. We also got to people watch and no one knew that we were watching. After dinner we began our walk back to Katerados (or as Alison heard Danielle say "cut potatoes") where our hotel is. It isn't a very long walk. Anyway, we shopped a bit and found a free sport exhibition put on by the local bank to get kids excited about sports. We were walking by when Alison saw Ergs (the rowing machine that she uses) and made a B-line for them. We talked to one of the boys running the rowing section and he explained what was going on. We continued back to our hotel meandering in and out of shops and bakeries.

Tomorrow: Our island excursion. Oh one note, Santorini is kind of like a wedge of cheese, one side of the island is up on a cliff and the other side is at water level. The port for the ferry tomorrow is on the cliff side, there are only one way to get to the boat at this port and that is drive. At the other ports you have the option of walking or riding a donkey, and one the ports offers a cable car.

If you ever come to Santorini do not rent a car, rent either a four wheeler or a scooter, there is not matter way to explore this island!