8/26/15
Rhodes, Greece → Santorini, Greece
My day started with a migraine. With twelve-plus hours of travel ahead of us, my head had picked a poor day to act up. To make matters worse, we had to be out of our place by 11:00 a.m., but we couldn’t board the ferry until 2:00 p.m. These purgatory travel periods were the absolute worst, because we had to haul our backpacks with us wherever we went.
After forcing myself to eat a Greek salad, pop ibuprofen like Skittles, consume two cups of coffee, and drink water like I was being paid to, the headache subsided. We reached the port and had nothing but time to kill, so we joined the other early birds and sat in a shaded area against a fence. I watched as cars and trucks drove onto the ferry cargo area. This ferry was massive. It looked like a cruise ship that had eaten another cruise ship.
We were the first passengers to board the ferry, and we rushed up the flight of stairs to the seating area. We weren’t sure how hard it would be to find outlets near seats, so we wanted to get a head start in the scavenger hunt. When traveling, outlets were as important as food.
We found a plush love seat and rotating chair with a round table in the middle and set up camp. Ash sprawled across the love seat and set a new trip record as she took an hour-and-a-half nap and woke up before we had left the port.
Our ship sailed north for an hour or so before we slowed down and pulled into port. Someone speaking Greek came over the intercom. I waited patiently for the English version: “We have arrived in Kos.”
I hadn’t realized our ferry was stopping at the island of Greece where most of the immigrants were fleeing to from their war-torn countries.
I zoomed out of the map that had our current location pinned, and it really hit me how close we were to Libya and Syria. According to Google Maps, we were only 350 miles from Libya and 430 miles from Syria. To put that into perspective, it is 800 miles from San Francisco to Seattle.
When we were safely anchored in the port, a good chunk of people exited the boat and a much larger chunk boarded. Obviously no one had on shirts that read I AM A FLEEING IMMIGRANT, but it was safe to say that the majority of these passengers fit the category. I couldn’t have been happier to see them board.
Every person on this boat who was running from something horrible was a success story in my eyes. Can you imagine what the conditions must be like for people to gladly risk their lives and their children’s lives to board a raft and cross the Mediterranean, where the odds of surviving were probably not great? I can’t either, but I know it was something worse than a bad economy or poor living conditions. These people were escaping rape, murder, or a combination of the two. These people were living in hell, and the fact that they had made it this far in their escape made me proud to share this boat with them.
I stood up to go to the bathroom and realized the boat was rocking furiously. I opened one of the cabin doors to the balcony outside and saw waves that were much larger than I was comfortable with. Kids who looked to be immigrants were crying as their mothers consoled them by rocking them back and forth. All I could think of was how absolutely petrifying it must have been for the people on rafts. The waves were easily rolling fifteen feet over the surface of the already rough water.
We reached Santorini several hours later, and stepped off the ferry into chilly, howling winds. It was midnight, and the port was located at the bottom of a large cliff. There was one road that switch-backed all the way to the top of the island. We scanned the small crowd for our Airbnb host, Petros, who had offered to pick us up for twenty dollars. We spotted a shorter Greek man with a great beard holding a sign with Ashley’s name on it. He greeted us with big hugs and two-cheek kisses.
We drove to Kamari, where Petros’s hotel on the hill was. He brought us into the lobby excitedly, being sure to open the door for Ash. Because it was midnight, he didn’t have to be awake, but he poured us each a glass of OJ and outlined the map of Santorini. I was having trouble listening to his advice because of his thick Greek accent and because I was so stunned at how kind he was being. I tuned back in when he said the words complimentary breakfast. “Come here from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. for unlimited breakfast. We can talk about renting mopeds in the morning. Now follow me!”
We reached our room, and it had all the essentials: big bed, Wi-Fi, AC, bathroom, and a porch with a view of the Mediterranean below. Santorini was a place Ash had been looking forward to her entire life, and I was starting to see why. After twenty-five years of dreaming and a ten-hour boat ride, she had finally made it.