The sky is the limit

Having seen the millennial buildings of the ancient Greek capital, my travelling buddy and I decided to ferry our way down to the sandy beaches of Santorini – a seven-hour boat ride south of Athens.

It was day three and we had already seen the must-see views (Perisa’s dawn, Ia’s sunset, the caldera view); done the must-do things (scuba diving, wine tasting, parasailing) and hit the must-go places (the lighthouse, the capital city, the white, the red and the black sand beaches). With still two more days ahead (more than what we had spent in the Colosseum, the Eiffel tower and the Parthenon combined, and more irrefutable evidence of our limited itinerary-planning skills) we decided to rent a car and see those forsaken spots tour guides fail to mention. With a cloudy day ahead, we felt like something more cultural was in order.

We set off to the Santorini monastery in our unusually bright yellow vehicle. We came to the road we were looking for after asking for directions from three different locals, which none had warned us would be as winding, as steep or as narrow as the one we found. The already complicated ascent was further aggravated by the sight of oncoming cars going at a brisk speed, their drivers on cellphones, the fact that there was no guard rail, and the realization that attempting to make a U-turn would equal crashing headlong into the abyss. There was no way to go but up. 

Some nerve-wrecking twenty-odd minutes later, and thanks to my friend’s outstanding driving skills, we made it safely to the summit and were welcomed by impressive views all around. To our right lay the 18^th century monastery, perched on the apex of the mountain. Above us, there was the most magnificent deep-blue sky. Down below, an imposing view of the island. And all around us, the clouds, piercing through our bodies before making their way to other patches of sky.  

After we got over the excitement of literally being in the clouds – and the paralysing fear of being as high as the clouds – we began the descent. Looking back on the experience, my friend found comfort not only in the fact that she had once again conquered her fear of heights, but also that she couldn’t think of anything else that our adventurous spirits – or our small brains – would compel us to do that would be as reckless or as kamikaze. But I begged to differ. “There’s that volcano we haven’t’ checked out yet...”