Oia@Santorini and a bit of Naxos

Today we would be daring. We would live on the crest of fear and redefine danger. Today, we would rent a quad-bike. Quad-bikes look a lot more unstable and unsafe than they really our. Now, before you roll your eyes back and think 'what wimps' - please remember, we had our 1 year old baby with us - no space for a baby seat on a quad-bike. Of course, once we realized that the maximum speed of these clunky little beasts was a mere 25km/h, we threw all safety worries out the window, strapped Sesame into her front pack, and away we drove.

First on the agenda was Oia. Oia is the reason people come to Santorini. A beautifully restored village dramatically perched on a steep cliff, its the image that graces the covers of most Greek Island guidebooks. Enroute to Oia, we got to enjoy the Santorini countryside. Santorini is a volcanic island and thus most of the sand is black or red. These colours combine with the green trees and blue sky to paint some rather vivid scenery. Volcanic sand unfortauntely is not uniformly accommodating for plants, and so some parts of the island are complete wastelands.

Sesame really enjoyed the bike ride, squealing in delight at every bump. At one point, she decided it was fun to hang her mouth open while driving - like those dogs that stick their heads out the window with their tongues flailing about. She seemed to love it, much to the disdain of her concerned mother who couldn't help wondering what manner of bugs, dust and filth would be flying into her gaping maw.

As we came closer to Oia, we spied numerous tour buses. It was the 'tour-bus' time of day, so we decided to bypass Oia and go further to the village port of Ammoudi. This is a lesser known village near Oia that we got to enjoy almost entirely by ourselves. The cliffs here are a vivid red, and provide a gorgeous background to a quaint seaside village fronted by a few tourist cafes. The port itself is tiny, sporting a hand full of fishing boats. Fishermen sat folding their nets and cleaning their boats. A bit of 'real' Greece we guessed - a refreshing change from the highly manicured streets of the Oia and Fira.

We stopped at Ammoudi for a morning snack of Domatokeftethes - fried tomato fritters - a specialty of Santorini. No big deal really, but nice for a change. We then went for a quick walk along the water past a few local fisherman who were pulling out (I think) crab cages from the clear blue water. It was really peaceful here and for the first time on Santorini we got to enjoy a tiny bit of solitude.

We then hopped back on to our quad-bike and headed back to Oia. In choosing to bypass Oia earlier, we had avoided the crowds of package tourists - they were all now huddled into little cafes, hiding away from the noon sun. This was when we realized the folly of our ways. White buildings are amazingly beautiful. Unfortunately, white buildings also reflect a lot of sun. Which means walking amongst them is like a trip through a furnace. Still, we pushed on, wandering down through windy cobble-stoned lanes. Apart from the terrace of cave houses (official name for those little white houses), there unfortunately isn't much else to see, but that didn't stop me from taking my typical 100 photos of the exact same scene - much to Melenie's frustration.

It was now lunch time, so we headed indoors for a little air-con therapy. The views here were gorgeous - the white terraces overlooking the Santorini caldera. The prices alas were not so gorgeous, so we made sure we got our money's worth of lazing about before heading back to Fira.

Our next destination was the island of Naxos - a 2 hour ferry trip from Santorini. We grabbed our bags and headed down to the port. Greek ferries are notoriously late, and so weren't surprised when we had to spend an extra hour standing around waiting to depart. Thankfully we had been early enough to the port to secure a place inside the waiting lounge. Meanwhile the poor suckers that arrived a few minutes later had to spend their time wilting in the scorching sun.

Sesame spent her waiting time flirting with some passer-bys. She would blink her eyes at random people and then stare at them expectantly until they blinked back. If somebody did indeed blink back, then a game of blink-and-stare would commence. Of course, Sesame's patience for such a game was much longer than the average passer-by's, so pretty soon, we would see a sad Sesame looking longingly at her blinking partner, who had by then quit the game from blink-fatigue.

The ferry did finally arrive an hour late, but its tardiness was quickly forgotten once we got inside. We were taking "Blue Star", one of the cheaper companies, and thus had been expecting something rather simple. We got the opposite - plush airplane-like seats with brand new interiors. Interestingly, there were some parts on the deck of the boat that were not so nice, but strangely had plenty of people sitting in them, despite the abundance of empty seats in the nicer parts of the boat. Quite possibly we had been 'upgraded' for free thanks to having a baby. One mystery that we will have to be satisfied for not knowing the answer for ever.

The boat trip was rather uneventful, except for the antics of Sesame. In our same area, there were 2 other kids - a 3 year old and a 10 month old. Sesame is only 1 year, and thus, more sensibly should have preferred playing with the 10 month old. Embarassingly though, she refused to even look at the 10 month old, despite the numerous attempts of that little baby to woo her - even offering drool-ladden toys as enticement. Instead, Sesame chased after the 3 year old boy the whole time. My fatherly instincts immediately went into play and I kept my eye clearly fixed on that little boy. Three years old he may be - but he's still a boy and better not get anywhere near my little girl :)

We arrived at Naxos just after 6pm and were greeted by a rather dusty city. Naxos city is one of the larger capitals in the Greek islands, and definitely deserves the title of city or town rather than village. Its still got numerous white-washed buildings, but these were a lot more 'real' than those of Santorini, with aging scooters out front rather than baskets of bargain-priced souvenirs.

Our hotel was a few kilometers outside at a famous beach area known as Agia Anna. This was one of the nicer places we stayed on the trip - Iria Beach Art hotel. Art hotels were a new concept to us, but seem to be common in Greece. They are essentially 'art'ily decorated small hotels, typically with individually decorated rooms. More importantly, the place was run by the friendliest people ever - heartily warm - the type that make you want to come back again and again and again.

That night we feasted on some local fish and a squid salad. And of course a hunk of fried cheese. The food was nice but honestly, I don't see the big deal in Greek seafood (supposedly Greeks are famed for their seafood) - the stuff we had was just grilled and then very lightly flavoured. What was interesting though was the fried cheese - this one had some kind of spice running through hit - a bit of a shock when you first bite in.

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