Listen, I’m no babe in the woods. I been down some trails pal.
Mountain trails. Forest trails. I’ve hiked the hike. I’ve walked the walk.
But I gotta say that walking from the Santorini town of Fira to the village of Oia – all the way out to the pointy end of that rocky island – was, well, a chore.
I mean, I’ve walked six miles before and hardly broke a sweat. But I was younger then, I suppose.
And being a Florida flatlander I’m not sure I didn’t, um, underestimate the challenge of walking up and down (and up and down, and up and down ad nauseam) the high bluffs and low dips that separate two tourist towns that look at first glance to be soooo close together.
Hadda do it though. I meant, the walk is one of the most popular things to do on Santorini. And I am nothing if not a dedicated follower of fads.
We picked up the trail in the tourist town of Fira, just to the right of the ski lifts that pluck up cruise ship passengers at sea level and deliver them to an altitude where they can spend their money well if not wisely.
And at first, it seems like a deceptively easy hike. Along a narrow, stone paved lane that takes you past shops (Jill and Jenny stopped early on to buy some jewelery) cafes, small hotels and, of course, the tiny Greek Orthodox churches that seem to be everywhere you look.
And I mean everywhere. You can easily spot them for their bright blue mini-domes amid a sea of white washed structures.
BTW, the trail is pretty well marked and hard to miss. (Rookie tip. If you stray too far to the right you will likely bump into a cliff. Too far to the left and you will fall in the sea and drown.)
For the first hour or so it seems like the proverbial walk in the park.
But then you begin to pick up subtle signs that harder times might lie ahead.
Pretty soon you get to Skaros Rock, separated from the village of Imerovigli by a wall of swimming pools and cocktail lounges. Skaros Rock looks like nothing so much as one of the mesas you might find in New Mexico or Arizona.
You can climb to the top. But it will add an hour to your death mar….I mean, your hike. So no.
Soon all signs of civilization (swimming pools, people drinking etc) disappeared and we began to venture into the wilderness.
Except that we could still see those signs of civilization off in the distance, like mirages from the poem El Dorado.
And I hadn’t even begun to hallucinate from the big sun overhead and the lack of water yet.
No, seriously, it was just a rock, not that alien from Hail Mary.
Oh, I should say something about the churches on this portion of the trail.
Right after we saw this big blue and white church, the trail began a steep, steep descent. And my feet began to slip and sink into really loose, rocky soil.
As though I had been found wanting and consigned to that, you know, other place.
And then the next thing you know we saw this other church in the distance. But to get to it required a very, very steep climb into the blue.
Kinda like I was being given a second chance.
Anyway, the whole stairway-to-heaven highway-to-hell trek took about four hours. And then we were in Oia, which is Greek for ‘Here you are.’
It was a fun hike. And we were happy to have done it.
It was only later that I learned we were too early in the season to hire donkeys to carry us on really hard part of the walk.
Donkeys? I don’t need no stinkin’ donkey.
FreeGNV 