Wanderings

next up was santorini. it's an island that's basically fallen apart, been built back up, then blown apart again a dozen times over thanks to earthquakes and an active volcano and sometimes both at the same time. how anyone has the guts to live there is beyond me- i was leery about being there for a visit of less than 24 hours! the feeling of doom wasn't helped by all the ramshackle, abandoned houses along the roadside leading away from the port... apparently, those once belonged to people who were either killed in the most recent geological uprising (in the 1950's), or who fled to athens just in the nick of time, and opted not to come back. the boon of all of this is steady tourism thanks to the crazy violent beauty of the island....

as for my personal journey through santorini, i was, i believe, the only guest at the villa manos, run by perhaps the nicest couple ever to be found in hospitality services. the husband picked me up at the airport, carried my bags to the lobby and later my room, and gave me a glass of wine upon check-in. his wife, the ebullient poppy, gave me a tray of spaghetti and bread and butter to take to my room to accompany the wine. and so began what shall forever remain notorious in my memory as the 24 hour carbo-load of santorini. it actually may have been more like 36 hours, considering i had sandwiches on both the ferry to and ferry from the island. anyway. i don't really like to think about it. but the carbs proved to be useful for what was about to come, since, as usual, i decided to set out on a little explorative traipse around the island.

as usual, i also decided to shun the use of maps, directions, roads, or paths, in lieu of heading where my spirit moved me, which was, in this case, toward the ocean. there were a lot of fields between me and the ocean, and i couldn't tell how much territory, exactly, i was going to be covering. but it was all wonderfully adventurous and i giggled to myself as i hopped from one rocky slope to another, past the occasional farmhouse, imagining the reactions if the occupants were to see me;

"Uh oh...." I imagined them taking a sip of coffee as they pulled aside the curtain, then furrowing their brow. "Who let out their tourist?"

I went further and further onto what was certainly private property, narrowly evading territorial packs of farmland dogs. I soon found myself on a trash-lined dirt path between abandoned houses and some sort of manufacturing plant; my spirit had certainly not led me toward the most scenic route. And at some point, I looked behind me, and that's when I got very doubtful about trusting my intuition, indeed. The sky was black. Huge whirling gusts of wind came barreling through the alley, tossing rubble to and fro. When the rain hit, I was just glad it wasn't a tornado.

And so twenty meters later found me on a main road, soaked to the bone and only getting more so, desperately and futilely seeking shelter while car after car passed by, each driver peering out quizzical, sympathetic, and bemused.

"How did that tourist get all the way out here? And who is responsible for it?"

And so I laughed wildly as I ran in the rain back toward the fields, having abandoned the possibility of finding refuge in what might be an embarrassingly public area in lieu of heading back for what I knew would be a long, cold, wet, and arduous, but at least private trek back home. And long, cold, wet, and arduous it was. On field/slope number 19 or so I started to lose feeling... everywhere. And I still had about 27 fields to go. My mind was babbling incoherencies, and thoughts of hypothermia, pneumonia, and plain old slipping in mud and not being able to get up filled my head. All that kept forcing one foot in front of the other was that glorious mental image of stripping off my wet clothes and entering a steaming hot shower.... and let me tell you, when that finally did happen, it was a surreal experience because of the intensity of which it had already played out mentally so many times. I stood there contemplating every esoteric theory of time being relative, mutable, because the moment didn't seem "real," it seemed like an image I was constructing, had constructed in a dream. But maybe that was just the hypothermia kicking in.

Anyway, we're not to that moment yet because of course I somehow got lost on the way back, and ended up on some very high field/slope indeed where, looking down, I couldn't tell one white villa from another, and it was beginning to get dark, and I would be damned if I went in anywhere and asked for directions since I looked like a partially congealed swamp creature, anyway, that was an unexpected turn of events that made the final discovery of my villa and sneaking in the back way so no one saw me, and stripping of the clothes and immersion in hot water that much more satisfying. i couldn't quite believe i had reached my destination. i couldn't quite believe it when i put on warm, dry clothes. and i really couldn't believe it when i went, fresh and dry, as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened, to the lobby to inquire about where i should go to get dinner, and the wonderful husband informed me that i could just call in for take-out! i had been entertaining that very fantasy in the shower, but scolded myself for the idealism; in such a small place as santorini, it would certainly be too good to be true, especially on a sunday. but it wasn't, and when i realized i had no money the angelic man insisted that he loan me twenty dollars, and so i ordered a pizza AND a salad, and a bottle of wine, why not indeed? and part two... or was it three? of the 24-36 hour carboload ensued.

It was warm in my room and the pizza was divine, and the wine must have been good because soon I found myself incredibly invested in an obscure Sandra Bullock movies from the 80's, with a bunch of angsty yuppies and artists, lots of sex, and really bad dialogue. the next day I jaunted up the hill to see the cliffs of santorini, in between spurts of stormy weather, and I took these pictures, and then it was time for my wild ride to Crete which I'll detail in my next installment. Blessings, love.... the wanderess.