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AT
3:30 A.M. I WAS WOKEN UP by Joy snoring loudly. I had misplaced my
earplugs so I had no protection. I tried to get her to stop but she
didn’t hear me, and finally I sat bolt upright in bed and turned on
the light. Having had very little sleep for three nights in a row, I
lost my cool and began shouting, ordering her to stop snoring, right
now! When Joy at last heard me and opened her eyes, I must have
seemed like a crazed lunatic. I suggested that since she could not
control her snoring she should stay awake the rest of the night and let me
sleep for a change. This she refused to do; instead she picked up her
bedding and moved herself into the bathroom so that I would not hear her
snore. It didn’t help.
I
made coffee, read, and tried to fall back asleep but to no avail. At
8:30, dog-tired and hopping mad, I got up and took a shower, dried my
hair with the blow dryer (which finally woke Joy up), then went out by
myself for breakfast in a little taverna I’d noticed earlier. This was
our only “blow-up” after traveling together for several weeks and I
was feeling very bad about it.
The
taverna seemed to be the happening early-morning place in Fira, with
Greek music playing loudly, Greeks coming in and out with deliveries of
foodstuffs and for early morning socializing. It was hard to tell the
customers from the tradesmen, as everyone who came through the door hung
around and chatted for at least half an hour.
Sitting
at a window with a bird’s-eye view of the street, I ordered an omelet
and bread and took out my reading and writing materials. It began to
rain and soon it was pouring heavily, and I spent two delightful hours
in there waiting for it to clear up as I had no umbrella or raingear.
*
* *
At
10:30 I returned to the room just in time to catch Joy leaving, her bags
all packed and having left me a note (which I never read) to find a room
for herself. I knew she was not to blame, so I suggested we have a cup
of coffee together. We did, in the village square, but it didn’t
really work. I may have shouted things during our middle-of-the-night
row that were still ringing in the air, and Joy was acting super cool.
In any case, we agreed to leave Santorini and return to Athens as the
bad weather here was forcing us indoors most of the time. It would have
been a great place for a honeymoon, but not for us. At a small travel
agent we booked seats on an Olympic Airways flight for 8:30 p.m.
Joy
wanted to take off and go shopping, but I didn’t have a raincoat so
couldn’t go with her. “I might as well, since I have this
raincoat,” she said, whereupon she got up and left me sitting alone at
the table, at noon, with nothing to do and nobody to do it with until we
were to meet to go to the airport at 6:30.
When
it stopped raining I ventured out to find a place where I could have my
reading glasses tightened. (My eye, incidentally, was getting blacker
and blacker, and drew attention everywhere I went. As much as I could I
wore my sunglasses, even in the blinding rain.) Across from the
optometrist I walked over to the bus station and found one that was
leaving in ten minutes for the island’s big archaeological site,
Akrotiri. It cost only DRX 350 ($1.25), so I went for it.
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CIVILIZATIONS OF
SANTORINI
A Minoan civilization like that
found on Crete, dating back to 3600 B.C., existed near Akrotiri,
at the south of the island, close to Red Beach.
Since then Santorini has been
occupied at various times by Phoenicians, Byzantines, Venetians,
Turks and Greeks. |
It
was a fascinating ride through many villages, with sweeping views of the
island at every turn. After half an hour I was dropped off in the middle
of the town of Akrotiri, which had already closed its shutters and
bedded down for the afternoon. There was nobody in sight but I found a
small hotel with the front door open and left my daypack there with the
manager, who was taking a nap on a couch behind the front desk. From
there I followed a pastoral road leading to the sea, videotaping it all the way
as blinding rain alternated with bright sunshine, trying to shield my
camera from the elements.
The
archaeological site was closed so I continued on to the seaside, to a
place called Red Beach (because of the color of the rocks and sand). I
walked along the rocks until I
found an open taverna and ordered a glass of retsina. There were several
tables with Greek men still lingering over their midday meal, loudly
swapping tall tales in Greek. With my limited knowledge of Greek I got
the gist much of what they were saying, and as usual the talk was about
money, women, and cars – lefta, gynecka, and aftokinta!
As I sat there staring out at the water sipping my drink, it began to
pour heavily. With no protection from the rain I stayed there waiting
for it to end for well over an hour.
Red Beach, where I waited for the rain to
stop
When
there was a break in the weather I headed back to the village to make the 3:30 bus. It
began pouring again while I was walking and I was drenched when I got
there, but the bus never came. The owner of a small grocery store, the
one open business in town, informed me in Greek that the next bus would
come in an hour, so I walked around the town some more, videotaping the
various ways the Greeks spell “omelet” on the signs of their
restaurants and hotels. When the bus still didn’t come after an hour
and a half, and with the rain coming down in buckets again, my only
refuge was inside the small store where I
killed another hour making small talk with the owner. At least it
gave me a chance to practice my almost-forgotten Greek.
Finally
the bus to Fira came. I paid another DRX 350 and went for a long, long
ride—much longer than coming here—through many villages, videotaping
as much as I could before sundown. The bus was full of Greeks, all
talking to each other and to the driver, commuting to various points
around the island.
Back
in Fira I immediately bumped into Joy and we decided to have dinner at
my taverna from the morning omelet. I had a delicious bean soup with
fresh bread and Joy had stuffed grape leaves, and by now enough time had
elapsed that we were friends again. After that we took a taxi to the
airport where our short flight took off at 8:45.
*
* *
In
Athens, we took a taxi to the by-now-familiar Adams Hotel in Plaka where
we took two rooms, for a total of DRX 14,000, both leading out to the
rooftop terrace with an unobstructed view of the Acropolis. The manager
tried to offer us rooms on the second floor, warning us that we would be
cold, but I insisted on those top floor rooms. We seemed to be the only
guests, and since nobody else was sharing the floor or the common
bathrooms with us, we felt as if we were staying in a luxurious
penthouse apartment.
At
3:30 a.m. I woke up freezing. All the electricity in the hotel had gone
out, including (or maybe because of!) the little electric heaters the
manager had given us to warm our rooms. I phoned the front desk and
someone brought me another blanket but it wasn’t enough. My cold got
worse. I layered up with all my clothes and even my sneakers, and
crawled back into bed.
*
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CLICK
HERE TO RETURN TO CALENDAR
or
read on by clicking on any of the following
links:
1.
From Los Angeles to Amsterdam
2. The Flight to Greece
3. Ancient
Corinth
4. The
Citadel
5. To Piraeus
6. Hania on
Crete
7. A
Day in Limbo
8. Back
to Athens
9. From
Athens to Cairo
10. Cairo
11. The Pyramids
12. The Bus to Israel
13. Jerusalem
14. Bethany and Bethpage
15. An Old Palestinian Hotel
16. The Drive to Galilee
17. Capernaum and Environs
18. The Ancient Boat and Nazareth
19. The Golan Heights and Mt. Hermon
20. The Eastern Shore and Scythiopolis
21. Mount of the Beatitudes
22. Ptolemais and Caesarea
23. A Day in Piraeus
24. Santorini
25. A Rainy Day
this
page
26. An Eventful Day in Athens
27. Return to Amsterdam
28. Going Home
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