Thursday, October 7, 2021

We want off! or Oops wrong taxi

We had an early start waking up at 4:30am so we could ready and get to the metro when it opened at 5:30.  It was only a few minutes away but also had to figure out the ticket machine.  Some dude was following real close behind Sarah as we swiped the ticket and I was staring at him as wed been warned about pickpockets, but the dude had a cigarette in one hand and beer in the other and just wanted to get into the station (i.e. piggybacking off the ticket)

Took the train to Piraeus port and found our Ferry going to Santorini, after going to the wrong one.  I had called our hotel last night and scheduled a taxi to pick us up. Well the ferry was late by an hour, I got a call from Nico at the hotel and could talk to him that time where he was going to check on the taxi driver.  After that no calls would go through, we were quickly some of the last tourists at the port.  Some dude is walking iver to us and is like "Were taxi for you come on we leaving" and im like "From the hotel?" "Yeah we'll take you to the hotel".  So he takes us to the taxi which after paying 30 euro is a van with like 14 other tourists, loaded up.  At some point during this im like well i know its not the hotel can but idk if they actually got a hopd of them.  Oh well.  The taxi driver was this old dude that careened the van up a pretty steep cliff with hairpin turns while typing into his phone.  To his credit we didnt fall off and he did drop us off at our hotel and not just in the town we named.  The downsides were the slight terror, standing only space, and all the bags fell out when someone else opened the back door.  Buuut we got there to the fancy hotel. 

Nico was great and waiting outside at the front (was probably there for a while at this point it was like 2:30 a couple hours after original time).  I apologized and as he had sent an email that he had sent out a taxi and I couldnt connect,and he said "No no no, there are no apologies on vacation".  So the fancy hotel is 2 nights at Exclusive Plan Suites, kind of a standard type of name for hotels here.  Its a room and kitchen built into the rock (cave room) which is also very common here.  Has a jacuzzi facing the Santorini Caldera (its a semi active volcano, center is an island of lava rock) and a sun deck above it.

Our gameplan is that this is the take it easy point of the trip where today, tomorrow, and the next morning we wont do much other than ennoy the room and view.

Santorini itself, like as a location or first impression is that its really weird for us.  Havent been to a whole island dedicated to tourism.  Like everywhere (and I cant inagine it in peak non-covid season) are people renting atvs and driving atvs, buses, streets with food and hats and jewelry, and hotels.  Its not a place we would want to stay a long time, but its been great for what we wanted.  Nico went through a map and gave us recommendations and a bit of history of the island.

I made a hike over to Lucky's Souvlakis as it was the recommended cheap and fast place.  They were really solid.  The souvlaki was better than the gyro.  I picked up extra for dinner so we didnt have to go out again.  Most places here are pretty expensive, but Luckys was 2.60 euro/souvlaki pita.  

Our neighbors that have an ajoining hotel room are from Germany.  We chatted a bit from our hottubs especially after someone flew a drone above us.  Ngl that was pretty terrible, buzzing about 8 feet above us and watching us in swimsuits not cool.  Luckily Nico was outside and tracking it down, walking down the path and finally found who was driving it and shouted at them.  Then their hotel owner did the same, apparently and happily drones are banned on the island, for what should be obvious reasons.

Otherwise thats it we hot tubbed and soaked our feet.  Opened out the popout couch and munched leftovers with tv.  We'll probably go to bed soon.  Alls well that ends well.  Sunset was pretty, although clouds stopped a really pink sunset.  Sarah has all the good pics ill have her add them.  Also i didnt get any of the taxi ride as i wa trying to hold my body steady.


Views from the hottub:
















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