Hotel Margaritaville

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As we speak I am blogssaging … blogging while receiving a massage. It’s pretty much the greatest thing in the world, other than bloggercising, of course. During the past two days we’ve been in the picturesque island of Santorini. The landscape looks like it could have been a painting instead of reality.

We started off our journey to Greece in the same way every culturally sensitive traveler should, by learning several important Greek words from our handy phrase book which Brad provided. Much to our dismay, despite a several hour layover in the Athens airport and a couple plane flights, the only Greek words we managed to pick up were please/you’re welcome “parakalo,” thank you “epharisto,” and hey! “ya sas.” I was hoping Greek worked a little like binary, with all other Greek words being some combination of parakalos, epharistos, and ya sas’, but unfortunately this was not the case either. Thankfully, pretty much everyone we came into contact with spoke some degree of English, so we got around just fine.

Santorini also provided us with our first taste of Greek culture, which is pretty awesome to say the least. Our first experience was at breakfast our first day on the island, at our hotel, Hotel Margarita. Breakfast was served in the main room of the hotel, a room which also contained a flat screen tv broadcasting the latest in Greek morning programming. We ate fairly lengthy breakfasts, so we were treated to many fine programs. While we couldn’t actually understand what was going on in the shows, we felt we got a pretty good taste of their content.

The finest of these programs was beautiful in its simplicity. For those Greeks who preferred to hear the news instead of read it, Greek television obliged with a program which consisted of someone reading the newspaper and pointing to the headlines. Another fine offering seemed to be some kind of expose about people who choose to place their clothes in plastic bags before putting them in suitcases. Shocking indeed!! If this television didn’t prove scintillating enough, there was a periodic noise coming over a loudspeaker which sounded like a low budget leftist political party spreading the good word. Doubting that the Greeks had political parties, or government for that matter (since government staples such as town halls, police, or fire stations were nowhere in sight), we inquired the meaning of the loudspeaker noise to the hotel attendant, who spoke English pretty well. She informed us that it was a fishmonger (a man who sells fish with a weight minimum of 200 lbs.) yelling ‘fresh fish.’

After we ate breakfast, we set out to explore the island. It became pretty evident that we were on the island ‘out of season,’ since most everything on the island seemed to be closed. This was exacerbated by the fact that our first day on the island was Sunday, so many shops were closed which usually stayed open during the off season. With most of the normal attractions closed, we decided that the best way to explore the island was to walk from the biggest town, Fira (where we were staying), to the second biggest town Ia, which our travel book said was a 6 mile walk which should take about two hours.

Before leaving, we stopped so Brad could play an especially cruel claw game, which provided three chances with a big claw and three chances with a little claw, each going for a different section of prizes. The little claw clamped tightly to the prize until it reached the top, giving a false sense of hope, then immediately released the prize before it moved forward to the drop area, preventing anyone from ever getting the prize. As for the big claw, Brad had his eyes set on a soccer ball toy with a spring attached to the bottom. For the hilarious results … see for yourself(video to be posted eventually - brad).

After playing the depressing yet hilarious claw game, we started off towards Ia, but were slightly put off by the fact that we were seemingly going the wrong way since the coastline was on the opposite side of us that the book said it should be. Confused about this detail, we decided to ask a few people in Fira about how to get to Ia, one at a small market and another at a gas station. They reinforced the notion that we were headed in the right direction despite our instincts, although they seemed utterly perplexed at the idea that we were planning to walk all the way from Fira to Ia.

Also in Fira, we picked up a couple more members of our party, in the form of stray dogs, who we named Poopsmith and Baxter. We met them on a main street, and after we did little more than acknowledge them, they refused to leave us. Poopsmith was the more loyal of the two, remaining right beside us and displaying a penchant for walking on the short stone walls on the sides of the road. Baxter was a born daredevil, darting in front of cars and only barely moving to the side as they approached. While they seemed very much like stray dogs at the beginning, by the end they seemed a lot more like pets, and so it was very sad when we needed to say goodbye.

The walk didn’t disappoint, with beautiful houses, rolling hills, and breathtaking cliffs and ocean views. The walk was longer that the book said, though, and by the time the 2.5 hour mark rolled around, we were feeling pretty hungry and slightly disgruntled. After 3 hours we finally made our way into Ia, and, after asking around and getting escorted for part of the way by a very friendly senior citizen, we managed to find a restaurant that was open. Baxter darted off, never to be seen again, but Poopsmith followed us into the restaurant and laid down right behind our table. The restaurant owner shooed him out once, but he dutifully reentered.

The place mats of the restaurant had a more detailed map on them than the map our book, and we discovered that we had taken a road which snaked around the other coastline than our book suggested, and thus added a few miles to our journey.

Our food was delicious (except for Brooke’s pizza), and after we finished the restaurant owner gave the rest of the pizza to Poopsmith and called a cab for us to get back. The cab took us along the road which we should have taken to begin with, and the drive back took less than 10 minutes. During our conversation with the driver, he asked us if we had walked to Ia from Fira, and then snorted with laughter when we answered in the affirmative. Since we didn’t really see anyone else walking on our trip, this sentiment seemed to be warranted among the locals.

Once we returned to Fira, we headed back to our hotel, and, exhausted, took a nap for a couple of hours. Brooke tried to wake Brad and I up to watch the sunset, but we declined, opting for sweet sweet sleep. After our nap, we went out for a night on the town. However, being that it was the off season, the ‘town’ for us consisted of an internet café. This was no ordinary internet café, however, but a 24 hour gaming zone, where we saw people playing Counterstrike, World of Warcraft, and my personal favorite/addiction, Warcraft III. Through a combination of skype, working on Brad’s resume, and a vending machine named Snakky, we somehow managed to spend 5 hours in the internet café. Exhausted, we immediately went to bed after.

The next day, after our awesome previously described breakfast, we decided to take a bus down to the south of the island, where there was supposed to be an exquisite red beach and some nice ancient ruins. We decided to take a bus down (an option which we didn’t have the day before since it was Sunday), and walked down to the bus station in the center of Fira. Unbeknownst to us, the next bus to leave (at 2:00) coincided with a nearby school being let out, and so the bus was nearly filled with schoolchildren returning to their part of the island. Not wanting to stand out too much as Americans, Brad and I decided that the only true way to blend in was to speak solely in Spanish. We were feeling pretty smug until a girl sitting next to us began to play a Greek version of “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira, which we did not understand much of.

Luckily, the bus let off soon after, before our masterfully crafted disguise unraveled further. We walked from the bus stop towards the beach, and about halfway down we ran into an Austrailian couple at another bus stop, waiting for the bus. We said our hellos and headed towards the beach. Much to our dismay (especially Brooke’s), the red beach was more like a ‘dark pile of stones,’ a bit disappointing, especially compared to the incredible beauty of the rest of the island. Due to the rather lackluster nature of the beach, it was surprising that there were several restaurants and bars around the beach (all closed, of course), all referring to the beach in their names. Maybe, in the end, the beach was as out of season as the restaurants around it.

Not to be deterred, we found a hiking trail a few hundred meters past the beach, which led up a hill. From the top of the hill we had a great view of the caldera, and, some nearby islands. The view was stunning, and the sun reflecting off the water was beautiful as well. We sat there for a while, and then headed back up to the bus stop where we had seen the Australian couple before. Surprisingly, we arrived to find them still there, waiting for the bus.

We began talking to them, and discovered that they had done the same walk which we did, and also took the same wrong road. They also had the same reflection that there was no one else walking on the road. Based on this conversation we determined that they were basically the older version of us. The couple also commented that the sunset was exquisite the previous day, which did not please Brooke very much, especially because at this point the sun has clouded over, so the sunset prospects were not very promising.

The bus came a few minutes later, and we walked back to our hotel. After we got to our room, we discovered that none other but the same Australian couple was staying in the room next to us. We were very surprised, but we probably should have seen it coming in retrospect. After talking to them for a bit more, we put on some warmer clothes and headed up the hill to watch the sunset. Although the sunset itself was not all that amazing, we climbed to a rooftop at the water’s edge, which provided spectacular views of the cityscape, the water, and the clouds, so the experience was incredible. After watching the sunset, we ate at Goody’s (a Greek fast food restaurant which I liked but Brooke and Brad did not), spent a little more time in the internet café, and then went back to our room to sleep.

Much like blogsaging, all good things must end, and Santorini was no exception. What Santorini lacked in activities, it made up for in breathtaking views, as the pictures hopefully conveyed (pictures to be posted eventually –brad). Next stop and next post: Mykonos.