We woke up early to wolf down some breakfast, before heading to the ferry. I got into the taxi, while still eating a barley rusk. I had been expecting the ferry to be a small boat, with everyone kind of huddled on the top, but when we got there we found out that the boat was gigantic. The port was a chaotic scene with tour buses unloading, people queuing in multiple lines, and masses shuffling onto the boat.
We walked right onto the boat into a large holding area where people were putting their bags before climbing up the stairs to the cabin. We decided to hold onto our bags and carry them up. In the main cabin I was surprised to find many rows of seats, like the cabin of a plane with more leg room. In the front and back of the boats were stands with refreshments, which people were already lined up at, and would continue to be lined up for the duration of the journey. We tried to quickly grab the good seats, but were surprised to find out we had assigned seats. We went to our seats and Lizy asked me why I hadn’t tried to get seats nearer to the window. I told her I hadn’t even known there would be seats.
I will describe a few interesting occurrences that happened during the voyage.
The Ukrainian man who had flown to Athens with us happened to also be on our ferry. And even more coincidentally, he had originally planned to be on the Panellenic Ferry which had gotten cancelled so he had to take this ferry instead, the same turn of events that had happened to us as well. We talked for a bit about our travels. He had somehow gotten a much better car rental rate in crete, so it goes.
When we returned to our seats after talking to the Ukrainian guy, we found a German couple had sat in our seats. We asked them to get up, but they refused. A seaman came over to sort the dispute out.
The German woman told the seaman, “You don’t understand, we need to sit together.”
“I understand, but everyone here wants to sit together.”
“You don’t understand, we can’t sit with other people.”
There was a strangeness to the whole interaction. They finally agreed to move, but then they just sort of loitered in our section, instead of sitting down somewhere, which made me feel uneasy. She eventually got tired of standing (she was quite fat), so she sat down, and he stood beside her leaning on the arm rest. Did he really have to stand in the aisle, I thought. Eventually, people in our section shifted over so that he could sit in the seat behind her. I was a little worried this wouldn’t be enough for them and he would continue to stand beside her, but he finally sat down.
One could walk up to the deck of the boat. On the deck the wind was so intense, I was worried it was going to blow my Giants hat off my head. I looked around me and saw uninterrupted sea in all directions. It was amazing how quickly land slipped away. With all the wind, I was glad that we were sitting in the cabin for most of the ride, instaead of standing outside like I had originally imagined.
At the port we were picked up by a driver named Orestes. He was a middle height, strongly built man with a large moustache. He lived in Athens during the winter and came to Santorini to drive in the summer. He was very friendly. When Lizy told him we were only in Santorini for three days he assured us it was enough time. “In three days you’ll see everything.” He agreed with Lizy, when she told him our hotelier Nikos, seemed friendly over the phone, “Yes, he’s a terrific guy.” He also told us he liked the restaurant at the hotel and ate there almost once a week. It was nice having a good restuarant so close to his house. He lived in the beach town of Kammari during the summer because it was one of the few villages in Santorini where one could get everything one needed without leaving the village. Also it was flat. Also it was on the beach.
We got to the hotel and Nikos, a short, jolly looking man, was indeed very friendly. At the restaurant attached to his hotel, he gave us a welcome glass of wine and a salad with tomatoes grown in Santorini, but “You have to come in August,” he said, “In august the tomatoes are so sweet you can’t believe it.”
We hung out most of the day on the beach, which I’ll try to sketch briefly now. The Kammari beachfront ran straight and consisted of a series of hotel with restaurants each with a small rectangle of beachfront. On the beach all the chairs were quite close together, since each patch of beach was small, maybe 15 m across and 30 m deep. From the restaurants waiters would go to attend to customers on their small parcel of beach.
All the hotels in Kammari were white washed. Between the hotels and the restaurants was a road that pedestrians would meander on, while the restaurateurs would try to convince the passerbys that their rendition of Souvlaki was the best.
Walking into the water from the beach, it was not sandy, but consisted of volcanic stones to the water’s edge. As you entered the water the ground became a single piece of hardened volcanic rock with smaller pebbles embedded in the rock giving a bumpy texture. The volcanic rock had frozen waves and crevices that made it challenging to walk on. I imagine the waves came from the hardened magma mid flow during the volcanoe’s last eruption.
After the perilous entry the floor leveled out and it became easier to walk. We swam parallel to the beach, maybe 20 m out. The water was shallow, coming to just above my head. As we swam we looked through the clear water to the bumpy floor. There were a lot of interesting things to look at: clumps of rocks, bushy looking vegetation, and many different types of fish. Hardly anyone else was swimming. Most people seemed to think the water was too cold to swim, so we had the whole to sea to ourselves pretty much.
After swimming for a bit, Lizy spotted a pair of sunglasses among some rocks, maybe 9 feet deep. I wanted to impress her, so I did a surface dive to get them. I almost had to come up for breath, but just barely was able to grab them. We weren’t sure what to do with them, so we put them in our hotel’s lost and found.
We had a early dinner at our hotel’s restaurant, then walked on the pedestrian road through the village. Restaurateurs kept trying to get us to eat at their restaurant, but we had already eaten so shrugged them off. I thought it must be a hard life, constantly bothering people and getting rejected.
For the first time on the trip I was much more tired than Lizy. Maybe it was traveling on the boat or something, but she was excited to see the store in Kammari and I was dragging my feet, yearning for our hotel room.
We walked into a store called “Sandal Workshop”. Lizy looked around at the sandals. They looked familiar to her.
“I think I may have already bought your brand of sandals, they look just like the ones I’m wearing.” Lizy said to the man standing behind a big pile of swaths of leather.
“You must be mistaken I make all my own sandals and only sell them here in my workshop. Where did you buy your sandals?”
“Nafplion.”
“Nafplion? Let me see these sandals.”
Lizy took off one of her sandals and handed it to the man.
“These are my brother’s sandals! See on the bottom he put his name on them. I don’t put my name on my sandals. I’m more humble than my brother.”
On the sole of both his and his brother’s sandal had the same Greek words in the same calligraphy. The Nafplion sandals had the brother’s name and “Nafplion” below the word. The santorini sandals indeed just had the Greek work and “Santorini” written on the sandals.
“My dad made sandals here on Santorini. He taught me and my two brothers to make sandals in his style. We all now make sandals in his style with our own subtle variations.” he explained.
“I think yours look more elegant than your brother’s. I wish I had come her first.”
“Yes. Yes. My straps are better.” He looked quite pleased. “When we got older one of my brothers went to Athens and set up his shop there, one of my brothers went to Nafplion, and I stayed in Santorini. I think I chose best. My brother in Nafplion has the biggest enterprise. He has two stores and works all year. Here on Santorini, I just have this one little store. I work for half the year, then in the winter I go to Athens. I go fishing every day in the winter. How lucky am I?”
“Do a lot of people come in here wearing your brother’s shoes?”
“Not very much, and never this year. Maybe once before. We have to call him. Here wear one of my sandals on your other foot.”
He face-timed his brother to show him Lizy wearing both of their sandals. They both laughed heartily.
Afterwards due to the coincidence, he offered to give Lizy a pair of sandals at a steep discount. He even offered to make her a custom pair and started flipping through sheets of leather he had hung over the side of a table.
“Oh you have purple.” Lizy said.
I guess she was destined to have another pair of sandals. I just hoped we’d be able to fit everything in our two carry ons.
We went back to pick up the sandals two days later and the sandal guy was jollier than ever. She loved the custom colors that he had used for the straps for her. She told him he was a great sandal maker and he should make a google maps page, so she could leave a positive review for him.
“Why would I need a google maps page and reviews?”
“So you’ll get more customers.”
“People see me when they’re walking by. They stop in. Why would I need a google maps page. The people walking by and seeing my sandals are enough customers for me. If I make a google maps page, then suddenly I’ll have to open up a second shop. Before you know it I’ll be more stressed out than my brother in Nafplion. I just want to be able to go fishing in the winters.” He gave a hearty laugh.