Donkey Trails

This morning, we got up bright and early to ride donkeys down a hill.

That wasn't quite our original plan. The actual plan was just to ride donkeys somewhere. We thought that somewhere might be somewhere that felt safe, like along the sea or on a level path.

Instead, Bethany, Lydia, Kate, Jess, and I rode donkeys down steep stairs leading from the top of a cliff down into the sea.

This was all Lydia's idea. Lydia has been going on about riding donkeys since we left Athens, and all of us but Caitlin gave in and agreed to this plan.

The five of us rode our quads into Fira this morning and found a stable Lydia saw yesterday. The stable was more of a lean-to at the top of some stairs where about fifteen donkeys and two very weathered old men dressed kind of like donkeys were milling around on the steps. We approached the two men and their herd and Lydia asked how much it would be for a ride.

"Five Euro down, fifteen up," answered one of the Old Men of the Sea.

Our group stepped aside to discuss this. Poppy had warned us not to ride a donkey down anything because they slip easily down things like stairs leading into the sea. But Lydia really wanted to ride donkeys and we didn't know where else to go for that and we didn't want to pay the ten extra Euro just to go up the stairs.

We returned to Santiago and his brother and Lydia told them we wanted one ride down the hill for each of us.

"Five Euro," Santiago repeated, holding out his hand for all of our money.

Things got uncomfortable after that (because they weren't before...). As soon as we were all paid for, Santiago literally grabbed Bethany and threw her up onto the nearest donkey. Next he came toward me and I jumped up onto the next closest donkey to avoid the old guy getting too close. Right behind me, Kate scrambled onto her donkey as Santiago patted Bethany's donkey and the whole herd started stumbling down the stairs. I turned to make sure Kate was seated; she was already white and clinging to her donkey with a panicked look in her eyes. She mouthed "I'm scared" to me and looked about to cry.

As we rounded the first bend, I heard Bethany - who has to make friends with everyone we meet - asking Santiago what her donkey's name was.

"Maria," I heard him answer after a pause of about a minute.

"What about that donkey?" Bethany asked, pointing at the white donkey I was riding.

"Maria," Santiago answered after another long pause.

"Oh, so they're both named Maria?" Bethany asked.

Santiago didn't answer again. In fact, he said nothing else to us the entire way down the hill, nor when we got to the bottom. "Maria" was the last we heard from him.

Bethany turned to look at me with a slightly alarmed look on her face.

"Do you really think these donkeys have names?" I asked her. "I bet you any money he's going to eat Maria as soon as we leave."

I heard Kate laugh and/or sob behind me and turned to look at her.

"Amy, keep telling jokes. I want to forget where I am right now."

So that was the beginning of one of the stranger experiences of my life. I talked about eating donkeys while we bounced and slipped our way to the bottom of the stairs. The whole thing only lasted about twenty minutes, but I lost all grasp of time as I focused on keeping Kate from losing her mind. Despite the fact that my donkey almost face-planted once or twice and fell on its ass three times and I had to side-saddle at one point to avoid Bethany's donkey pooping on my leg, I started to kind of enjoy the ride. We were overlooking one of the most beautiful settings I've ever seen, it was an adrenaline rush and I felt safer as we went further on and no one fell into the water or under trampling hooves.

Me and Bethany on the way down.

Kate holding it together.

We finally got to the bottom of the cliff and another paddock. Santiago said nothing, but motioned us to jump down, then he led all the donkeys into their pen and went inside a little hutch. He didn't come out again.

The three of us waited for Jess and Lydia who were coming down with the second man and another group of donkeys. They too were ushered unceremoniously from their steeds when they got to us and Santiago the Second followed Santiago the First into the shed.

We were left with nowhere to go but up. It was now very hot and we had to walk up stairs that had taken us twenty minutes to ride down. This sucked. When I finally got to the top of the hill after a very long time, I was dripping sweat and panting. The five of us sat about ten feet from the donkeys that had been left behind at the top of the hill in the only shady spot we could find and didn't speak until we had all caught our breath and were ready to move on.

We got lunch at a cute little restaurant where we could sit and eat on an outdoor terrace hanging over the street. I ordered moussaka and, in doing so, discovered one of my new favorite foods. It will be my mission when I get back to the States to find somewhere in Pittsburgh that serves good moussaka.

After lunch, we met the rest of the girls for another afternoon of four-wheeling. Erika, Yelena and Kelsey rented quads this morning, so we could all drive around together, calling ourselves the "Santorini Saints" gang and posing for gang photos on a scenic overlook. Real tough.

We ended the day in Oia, where we shopped for souvenirs (I bought some earrings made with lava rocks), walked around the neighborhoods, befriended stray dogs and cats, saw a windmill, and stayed to watch what we were promised would be the most beautiful sunset in all of Greece.

This is pretty good.

After that, we found another restaurant where we could eat on a terrace overlooking the sea. Because Bus2Alps was in the area with about 200 college students in tow, the restaurant was filled and the poor couple working the restaurant (that's right; our waiter and his wife were the only two people working in a restaurant about the size of a typical Eat 'n Park) ran around in an obvious state of panic the whole evening.

They were very nice about the whole situation though. The husband read us the entire menu (not necessary since it was in English), then got very stressed out when half our group tried to order Greek omelets ("We don't serve eggs for dinner!"), even though he had recommended them ("I think you should come back tomorrow to eat breakfast"). Everything worked out though and I ended up with a phenomenal vine leaves lasagna (the house special) and a glass of the famous local Vin Santo dessert wine (not as good as the raisin wine I had in Cinque Terre, but still excellent).

Once we had all finished, we tried to order baklava for dessert, but our waiter wouldn't have it. Instead, he brought us fresh-out-of-the-oven brownies and told us not to pay because they were on the house. The brownies were delicious and made me realize just how much I miss American desserts (Italians always ruin chocolate cake).

We just got home from dinner a little bit ago and I am exhausted. As soon as I can get in the bathroom, I'm taking a shower and going right to bed. Lydia and I are planning to get up early tomorrow to watch the sunrise and try to find that red beach before meeting the rest of our group in Fira for a boat tour.

I can't believe we only have one day left of spring break. This week is going by far too fast.