Santorini and the Cauldron

Yasas, hello in greek....

Well we have done a lot of traveling by boat in the last few days. we arrived on Santorini early Tuesday afternoon and were greeted by the Mayor, he hosted lunch for us at a beautiful restaurant overlooking the ocean and volcano. After lunch our athlete Stephanie Smith, from Ontario and I carried the torch through very narrow sidewalks to a small plaza up on a cliff (flickr photos, by David Kramer, 6466 6467 6501, etc...) We were greeted by a crowd of 100 or so mostly tourists.

After a short ceremony we were treated to a tour of a local winery. Then back to a ferry for an overnight ride to the Island of Rhodes. It was a long ride about 15 hours. Good thing I brought my music and small speaker, some us found a corner on deck and listened to the tunes. I danced with Yacek from Poland, who has all of us laughing, he is an avid sun tanner and is always ensuring he has tanned as much of his body as possible.....

The docks at each port are crazy with intermittent crowds of people, mo-peds, cars, trucks and buses. There never seems to be any sense of order people walk in front of vehicles and vice versa.... Seems like a recipe for disaster!!!!

We jumped back on our bus and in a short time we arrived to a beautiful resort. Once we were off it was hurry up and wait for almost 2 hours.... But much to my surprise I found some Canadian coaches and athletes.... I knew they were on the island but didn't expect to see them at our hotel.... My mission was to now find Stacey and maybe Rick Lucy, Abby Deputy Chief... I knew he was somewhere too as he was coaching the soccer team...

In between searching I took advantage of the pool, as it was 40 degrees out with little breeze....

At 5:30 our bus was pulling out again for us to travel to a small tourist village called Lindos... once there we were told we couldn't run, due to the very narrow sidewalks and the expected large crowds.. Once we began our trek I could hear the crowd in the distant, and yes the walk ways were very narrow, with small shops cafes and outdoor patio restaurants. very picturesque indeed!!!

People were cheering us on as we walked, Yasas, Yasas....As we rounded the curve, I could see a large crowd that was very impressive and moving, so many athletes all in their team and country colors. The excitement was electric, for them to finally see us...

Once the caldron was lit and as we stood listening to welcoming speeches, I looked at the crowd thinking how could I possibly find Stacey or Rick..... there had to be over 1500 people, the majority athletes... I kept looking through the crowd and then I felt a tap and looked it was Rick, after a hug we caught up some of on our experiences and he re-assured me that Stacey was in the crowd with her coach.... we agreed to catch up later at the hotel

Our time was up and as we walked up the hill, the street was lined on both sides with athletes from USA, Canada, Taiwan, Israel, etc... I kept searching but still no Stacey, then I heard my name yelled and it was gentleman I had met a few years before from BC... He said he was Stacey's coach.... then I looked and there she was after a big hug and kiss we took some quick photos and she said "I listened to you I am not running in bare feet anymore, just in runners" I said good you need to protect your feet !!! She looked great and was pumped and ready for her events...

On the bus ride back our leaders said "how do you all feel now?" and we agreed that was a great feeling to finally see some athletes and see their excitement of us coming in with the torch.

Stacey is training today so I haven't been able to connect with her or Rick but I think we are all traveling back on the same ferry....

So we all leave tonight on a ferry for about 16 hours and we have no sleeping berths, told to find a chair somewhere...yikes, last time I did that was when I backpacked in 1989...Anyway we will survive, the athletes deserve the cabins so i am sure we will be fine...


we go back to the Stanley hotel which is in the bad area of Athens.

Thats it for now, flikr has lots of photos now so check them out... remember route 3 David Kramer is our photographer....


Debbie