Kamari and the Volcano - Sept. 15, 2010

 Tuesday September 14, 2010

Senne's Summary: Went to Kamari and spent the day at the beach.

Today we took the bus to Kamari and had a lovely day at the beach. You can get two beach loungers and an umbrella for 6 Euros. The town of Kamari was really cute and had lots of restaurants along the beach. We even managed to find one that had olives as an appetizer! The beach is rocky, and is supposedly a black sand beach… I would call it grey rather than black.

Wednesday September 15, 2010

Senne’s Summary: Took the Volcano and Hot Springs Tour. Lisa has renamed it the "Volcano and Sorta Warm Springs" Tour.

This morning we took the cable car down to the port. It was very scary for me! You have three choices to get to the bottom:

1. Take the cable car
2. Ride a donkey
3. Walk down the poopy 600 steps the donkeys walk down.

Although I’m terrified of heights (and machines carrying you down a mountain) we chose the cable car. I decided I prefer fear over donkey poop smell.

Inside the cable car. If I close my eyes it won't be scary right???

We met our tour at the bottom and got on our boat to head over to the Volcano. When we arrived we followed our tour guide (very quickly) up the volcano and she explained how Santorini was formed.

Steve taking my photo. No... wait... Steve taking the tour guide's photo!

It was interesting to see Santorini from the Volcano in the middle because you could see how the land almost goes all the way around you. Basically all of Santorini and the neighbouring islands surround the volcano in a circle.  You can visualize connecting the islands to make that circle complete, and it helps you understand how the original volcano looked. Hence, the name Caldera. It all makes sense to me now! There are seven craters on the island and we saw one that was smoking a little. We also got to put our hand over a vent that was quite hot! It didn’t look how I expected. Quite different than what I remember of the Hawaii volcano that we saw.

View from the middle. It's impossible to show you the 360 view with the camera...
I guess you'll just have to come see for yourself!

We walked back down the volcano and headed back to the boat for our trip to the hot springs. I was a little nervous when we arrived because you have to be able to swim 50 metres to get to the hot springs from where the boat anchors. Luckily I had Steve with me. I swam part of the way, and let Steve tow me the rest 😀 (Gary swam ahead of us, but Mom stayed on the boat.) I probably could have swam the whole way, but why would I when Steve will help me along?!?

Steve and I in the "Sorta Warm Springs"

You can clearly see where the Hot Springs start because the water changes from blue to brown quite definitely. The water was a bit warmer in the brown area, but definitely not HOT! We checked out a bunch of different places in the Hot Springs… some were warmer than others… but none were hot!

When we returned to the boat I was quite dazed by my Dramamine and thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride back to the port. I wish I didn’t get seasick because the boat ride is so fun when you don’t feel like throwing up! The Dramamine is great… until the crash.

We headed back up the cable car. Steve wanted to walk up, but hunger dictated that we take the fast way. We had a nice lunch overlooking the volcano. (Well it was nice for the parts I stayed awake for 😀)

After lunch we headed back for a nap. It took me all of 5 seconds to fall asleep!

We had a nice evening eating at the yummy pork tenderloin place again. The guy was so happy we came back he even gave us a little shooter at the end of dinner. It was ouzo with a little grenadine and fruit juice. I actually didn’t mind the ouzo with a little flavour added!

We have one more full day in Santorini tomorrow!