Blake News 2 Spain: Santorini, Greece

After our busy day of traveling and exploring Santorini, our second day was difficult to start. We did not want to get out of bed, but the island lifestyle coaxed us into getting up and heading out for breakfast. We had passed a couple nice cafés on our short walks through Thira, so we chose one that looked good and sat down to eat. This place had a wide variety of crepes and waffles, as well as many other types of breakfast dishes. I ordered a crepe with chocolate, banana and strawberries (just like in St. Louis) and topped it off with a cappuccino with whipped cream. The whipped cream was overbearing, but the rest of the food was fantastic! It definitely set our day in motion. We had planned to go to the famous black sand beaches of the town called Perissa, so we caught the local bus once again and hitched a ride to the southeastern coast of the island. We accidentally got off the bus one stop early in the neighboring town of Perivolos, but it is equally as famous and has the same great beach. The black sand is just as you’d imagine – HOT! Our feet were burning so bad, we were running and screaming for the water. Not to mention, the coarse black sand is so rough on the bottoms of your feet. We were in major pain by the time we got to a stopping point, so we laid out our towels and enjoyed the view and the ocean. To add to Dan's list of comedic stunts, he did not have a beach towel and had to take a small towel from the hotel to use. It was closer in size to a hand towel or the small shower mat in hotels. haha! We stopped into a neighboring bar for a cold mythos, then decided to head back to the bus to switch to another famous beach on the island – well, really a set of beaches. The next bus was not for another 20 minutes or so, so we stopped into another bar, where Lauren got a daiquiri and I got a piña colada (my go to beach drink). Dan was too cheap to pay for a beer at this bar, so he walked back down the street for a cheaper one then brought it back. Embarrassing American! We got on the next bus that came, which was not heading in the right direction to Akrotiri. Therefore, we had to exit at a mid-point and change to another bus, destined for the seaside village. The grouchy bus driver let us off the bus at a roadside, concrete bunker “bus stop” and we found ourselves with four other older quirky, American tourists, which made the ridiculously long stop interesting. We got passed up by two busses, I believe, so we were waiting for close to an hour. One man, Robert Feld, instantly clicked with Dan due to his nerdy passion for photography, while Lauren and I talked with his wife and her friend, who were both nurses and were asking me a lot about medicine and our educations. The friend’s husband was a huge hick, who appeared to have no idea where in the world he was as he chewed something in his mouth (like a piece of wood, huge nut or quite possibly his cud) and twirled his walking stick. Too funny! As the next bus approached, we all thrust ourselves into the street, preventing it from missing us. At the town of Akrotiri, there are 3 nearby beaches, the first is red, the second is white and the last one is black. Only the red beach is accessible on foot (by means of a pretty dangerous cliff-side pathway). There is a water taxi for 5€ that will take you from beach to beach, which we paid for and went straight to the black beach, the only one with a restaurant. So you are basically conned into paying the 5€ to survive… either way, the beach was fun and the lunch was decent. We ordered pork kebobs and mythos. The black beach has a very cool cave in the rock in the ocean, so we were able to get into the freezing water, swim out to the cave and go through it. Once we got through, we decided to swim all the way back around to the beach, which proved to be a mistake as the last boat of the day pulled up while we were halfway back to shore. I swam Olympic style to the shore to grab my things and try to stall the boat a bit, while Dan lifeguarded Lauren on the return. I was not about to get stranded on a secluded beach. Somehow Dan and I ended up with some minor cuts and scrapes, we guess from the excitement in the cave. The boat dropped us at the red beach, where we were able to relax for a bit longer and enjoy the sunset from the seaside. Afterwards, we took the cliff path back to Akrotiri, and then boarded the bus for Thira. We showered and dressed to walk around the town and find something cheap for dinner. I must mention the unbelievable shower in this hotel. It was a tiny shower, maybe 2x2, with a handheld showerhead and NO curtain. Basically, it was impossible to keep the floor dry as three people showered in it. Bending over to wet my hair caused my ass to hang out the other side and drench the floor. It was a disastrous experience! Even worse than the Persian bathroom I had with Dirk and Gayle back in 2006.

We settled on a slightly touristy gyro place in Thira’s town square for our dinner. We were seated on an upstairs balcony and ordered gyros and Lauren chose a pasta dish. I asked for a glass of white wine, which was the worst I have ever tasted. I could not tell if it was bad or simply gross wine, but either way I sent it straight back and the man insisted that I pay for it. I said whatever and asked for a Mythos. Long story short, we got the wine taken off the bill, since another lady took our money and we explained the situation. After that, we headed back to the hotel room to grab a couple of our pre-purchased Mythos and walk around the town. This was one of the most incredible experiences of the trip. The cliff-side area of Thira is called the Caldera and it is rumored that the city of Atlantis once existed here! The views are spectacular and so we continued down windy paths and staircases as long as they would lead us. After awhile, we stumbled upon a really nice, fancy restaurant that was grilling fresh seafood and had formal waiters. One waiter, observing our curiosity, invited us in for a special cocktail. He seated us in a beautiful spot and brought our “cactus juice” drinks, which were made from the same Ouzo liquor that we had in Athens and really did not taste good, but they were strong and free… so we assumed. Come to find out, we went to leave, expecting to give the friendly man a nice tip for the free drinks, as he hit us with a bill for 36€, equal to around $46! Shocked, we paid the bill, justified it by the nice views and hilarious experience and moved on down the road, back to the hotel and the beds!