Santorini is composed of four islands, the largest of which is the one we had been exploring for the last two days. The others are a smaller inhabited island to the north, and the volcano itself, which comprises two land masses. Today’s tour was to the volcano and surrounding hot springs. We had to get up early to ensure that everyone got to use the bathroom before we left.I was out first and had time to have breakfast in town and check my email before we left. A big, modern coach picked us up and took us to the new port, where a boat was waiting to take us to the volcano. The guide on the boat was very good, multilingual with good pronunciation in both Greek and English, and according to Nathalia she was pretty good at Spanish as well.

The volcano was very different to the main island. The rock was black, and very gritty, edges were jagged. There was no soil. The walk to the summit was made in three stages, clearly designed to prevent unfit people passing out, though there were no such problems on our trip because the lateness of the season meant that the heat was bearable.

Our guide had quite a range of jokes which she told in four languages which we took breaks. They were actually quite good. Two I remember – the first a warning about the dangers of the sun, which she illustrated by explaining that a woman on a previous tour had come up to her in the 40 degree heat, pointed at the distant white painted buildings of Fira and asked “Is that snow on top of the mountain?”

The other joke, which was probably not based on experience, was a list of complaints that various nationalities have about the tour. Apparently the Germans complain that the boat is two minutes late, the Italians complain that they can’t get any reception on their mobile phones, the Spanish complain that it is midday and there is no shade in which to take a siesta… etc etc.

On the way back to the boat we took a route via the main crater, where sulphur smoke could be seen rising from the rock. The guide dug down into the ground, revealing that the temperature is hot enough to boil water just 10cm below the surface.

We switched boats, as the original one was going on a longer trip. Our new boat took us to the hot springs, around the other side of the volcano. I was expecting the boat to dock, and that we’d walk to the springs, which would be like water-filled pools. What actually happened was that the boat dropped anchor, someone pointed at a distant cove and said “Hot springs over there”. So it was actually a case of swimming about 500 metres to get there. I shrugged and thought, fair enough, but just before I went in a girl from Toronto asked me if I’d watch her as she wasn’t a very good swimmer. She looked worried. I wasn’t too concerned, thinking that she probably had never swum in the sea before, but otherwise was a fairly good swimmer.

I was wrong. In fact almost as soon as she got in the water she was in trouble, so I followed her in as quickly as I could and let her grab my arms.

“OK, you’re alright, don’t worry. What’s your name?”
“Priya”
“OK, Priya, I’m Andrew. Just relax, you’ll be fine. Are you OK now?”
“yes, think so”

She said she preferred backstroke, so we set off slowly for the springs, with me doing the steering. In the next five minutes she swum further than she’d ever swum before, and all I did was to provide moral support, so Priya had every reason to be proud of herself.

As we approached the springs, the water suddenly got warmer, and muddier. We could both stand up easily, but the hot spring didn’t exactly scream ‘hot spring’ at me. I’d have called it a ‘lukewarm muddy inlet’ myself. Anyway, everyone else seemed to be having a blast, and appeared to believe that by rubbing the mud all over their faces they’d somehow live forever or something. Maybe they just wanted a funny photo.

We set off back to the boat, but as it came into view it was doing something quite worrying. It was moving. Behind me I had Priya, who was doing a very good job of keeping herself afloat, but there was now no destination. Now was probably not an ideal time to tell her that the boat has left without us, but what else could I do?

“Priya, our boat is moving, but don’t worry, I think it’s coming back round”

Well, it would do, I was sure. I mean, I had three friends on the boat, one of whom I knew could be the most annoying and irritating pain in the neck imaginable when he decided to be. Plus Priya had a friend on board too. The boat did one complete circle and then resumed it’s course.

Priya spotted a dingy and waved at it. Despite the driver’s initial doubts that he could catch our boat, we did manage to convince him to give it a try. By the time we were halfway there, our boat had stopped again, and I imagined that the Chris effect had taken it’s toll on the captain. The dingy docked and we scrambled up the ladder.

Chris, Sunil and Nathalia were bemused but quite unsurprised. Chris and Sunil were well used to my disastrous antics, and Nathalia was starting to appreciate the full implications of associating with me. After all, I’d already managed to make her fall off a scooter, and the previous night I’d left my bag in a restaurant. Still, at least I had a noble cause to defend myself with this time. Unfortunately, I had also managed to destroy my mobile phone in the course of the day. When I went into the sea, it was in my pocket, and it seems salt water is not good for phones.

I invited Priya and her friend Melody to have dinner with us in Fira, which they accepted. We got the bus to drop us off at the junction for the Red Beach, and sat at a roadside café waiting for the next bus. Two hours later we decided to give up and go back to the hostel. We walked it, having lost faith in the island’s public transport system.

Nathalia and Sunil decided not to join us for dinner, so Chris and I rented a scooter for the evening and went to Fira to met Priya and Melody. Once we got there I found a tourist information office and called their hotel, but in the end we didn’t manage to meet them, so we found a nice restaurant and had dinner. The restaurant was on the cliff top and overlooked the port. Very expensive – Sunil and Nathalia would not have approved. I hoped that Priya and Melody had managed to have a good evening, wherever they were.