Sunday, June 10, 2012

One hell of an island

When Greeks go on holiday, they rarely leave the country. Those living abroad return home for the majority of their vacation hours. "Greece is a vacation spot," one Greek friend told me, "why should we go anywhere else?" And when speaking about Santorini, most locals get a glimmer in their eye as they fondly recount the memory of their visit(s) to the island and gush about how beautiful it is.

But even paradise isn't perfect. Oh, no. Not even a Greek version of it.

I planned a two and a half day visit to the island, arriving early afternoon on a Monday and leaving early evening on a Wednesday. To be quite honest, I was more than ready to leave Tuesday evening, but figured I could make the most of my last day by taking a quick visit to one of the island's black beaches, something I had wanted to see since the dawn of (my) time.

Come Wednesday morning, though, the shutters on my windows rattled so loudly, they beat my alarm clock to its job by a solid 2 hours. And as hard as I looked, I couldn't find a snooze button for the wind. Instead I got up, still determined to see my plans through before my flight.

The winds did more than howl though. They whipped around at hurricane forced strength: 90-130 mph. Tops of trees bent so far they nearly touched the ground. Tiles flew off roofs. Open doors were ripped off cars. Most shops never opened for fear of broken merchandise. Cruise ships couldn't navigate the waters. Planes couldn't navigate the skies. With winds so strong, no one in their right mind ventured outdoors... which is why I walked the streets alone.


I clearly didn't make it to the beach.

1 comment:

ReL said...

WOW! That was some serious wind! My favorite part was at the end when the luggage blew off the mule..really illustrated just how strong it was. Awesome.