SANTORINI

THE AFTERNOON OF OCT 16

Santorini is a beautiful island that was a place of disasters. It used to be a full size island before 1450 b.c. (approximately), when the volcano did a Mt. Saint Helen's and blew the center of the island away, leaving just a ring of islets, the chaldera. It sent out a tidal wave that destroyed the civilization on Crete, some ninety miles away. More recently, our tour guide told us the tale of her ship wreck last May, when an over-eager captain hit some rocks that tore a hole in the ship and resulted in its sinking. Our guide, unable to return to her cabin lost all her clothes and her new laptop, which, we heard several times, she is still paying for inspite of the fact that the fish of Santorini are feeding on it and getting smarter. No lives were lost, just alot of possessions.

We discovered the class system in action. those who paid for an optional tour got the fancy sailing boat as a tender to go ashore in, while those of us too cheap to pay for the tour got the standard tender in the foreground (or should that be forewater) below.

That really isn't snow on the mountains. It is the town of Fira, a town of whitewashed houses sitting on the rim of the chaldera.


There are three ways to reach the town. One is to take the gondola which is to the left side of the picture below. The second is to take the zigzag path in the center of the picture and walk up.
The third is to ride a mule up the zigzag path to the top. Being adventurous, we chose the mules, forgetting about the disasters of Santorini.

Well.... we barely made it around the first zig, when Arleen's mule slipped on some donkey poop and went down, tossing Arleen to the ground with a distinct crack. The mule bounded back up but Arleen didn't. Her Major problem was trying to convince the men who came to help her up not to grab her now oddly shaped arm. After no little effort we found some help in the form of a tender crewman and a cruise line rep. Another ride across the bay, a harrowing ride up the switchbacks by car, we made it to the huge clinic, NOT. Then a short, but also harrowing ride by wheelchair to a long wait for a Dr. to show up and take x-rays. This was not the kind of pictures we had planned on taking when we reached the top, but you do what you have to do.

What else can we say. Just more pictures of the latest disaster at Santorini. Arleen lost her name there and for the rest of the time became known as "OUR ARM". as in "we have to take our arm to the hospital to have it checked." "Our arm is doing better." In the words of Rea, our guide.

STILL OCT 16