I rode a donkey!!!

The donkey experience. One of the activities on the island of Santorini was the ability to ride a donkey from midway of the caldera to the top. I was honestly a little nervous about it. I didn't want to be on a donkey let alone an unsafe pathway on the side of a cliff - literally.



But, I was pleasantly surprised. The donkey ride was fun and exciting all at the same time. I mean who can say that they rode a donkey?! Let alone to the top of a caldera in Santorini, Greece. The anxiety came with just getting to the donkey ride. We were at the top of the caldera and had to ride a sky tram literally off the cliff down to the water where the ride starts.



um, anxiety. YES YES YES. One of the group memebers kept saying, "latrina you have to look at this." um no. All i could look at was my legs and my sands. no looking outside the windows, no picture taking, none of that crap. Finally, my sands had to say look, stop asking her.



I had a little white donkey. He was so cute. Stinky, but cute. So I mount him and off we go up the steps. He stopped after 5 steps and I thought, "oh no". but meh, he kept on going. The ride on the donkey zig zagged back up to the top of the caldera. So you would trot along right on up the steps and then it would turn back and go the other way continuing in an upward path. But once they would start to turn around and go back the other way, there would be the edge of the cliff accented by a white wall. If you looked over the wall, you would see a cliff where you could fall off into the oblivion. As one new friend put it, "if the donkey bucked it would be all over." I mean it was flipping scary. These donkeys would get to the edge, stop, and some would lean their head over. After a while we assumed they were stopping so that you could take a picture. After that they would continue stopping. But my god, my donkey kept to the inside of all of the other donkey's that were on the outside closest to the wall. I just kept yelling, "good donkey!! good boy!!". Hell, I figured that if I talked to the donkey like I talked to my dog then it would be all good. Then some fool tried to kick my donkey. IDIOT. I screamed at him, don't kick my donkey!!!!

Tourist. pfft.

Oh and then the donkey nearly ran into someone elses donkey's butt and all I could do was scream, "ahhhh he's shitting he's shitting." I saw this one american tourist cracking up - clearly he didn't understand the issue at hand. Now imagine me riding with one leg up to avoid the donkey. Yes, this me. There is no way I was getting donkey doodie on my leg.

But we made it up safely to about 3/4 the way up the caldera before you had to de-board and walk the rest of the way up. It was hilarious because my donkey just literally parked and waited for me to get off. Dude. The donkey's were fun.

*disclaimer* We as a group felt bad for the donkey's because it looked like they were a bit abused. I mean there was no water for them anywhere, no shade, and some of the handlers looked mean. I even saw some getting hit by the stick. yes yes I know that donkey's are stubborn creatures but they at least deserved some shade and water no? I hope those handlers come back as donkeys. /rant