janestarz | Down into the volcano

The bus stopped at dolphin's square, a mere ten minute walk from where we had been picked up, but apparantly travel agencies liked to herd their tourists like the goats in the hills of Kos. The outer door opened and a man stepped inside. He was of average height and build, with a small yet noticable belly as older men develop when they enjoy life a bit too much. The man was well over fourty years old, and his fair hair, paled by the sun hardly displayed signs of silvery grey because it was so blonde. The mustache on his face hardly showed on his tan, but his slight one centimeter wide goatee was as white as his shirt and trousers.
What I noticed most of all, and would continue to notice during the day was his smile, or rather his teeth. They were quite large, especially the top row, slightly yellowed with age, and the whole row of them were rather grotesque. The man seemed to enjoy baring them at us in a gesture of goodwill and Zeus-forbid, comfort.

"Hello my name is Henk," the man started, and continued to say he would be our guide for the day. "We will board the Nissos Kos and depart for Nisyros today. We will go around the Psalidi coast and pass by the hot springs and if we're really lucky, we will even see some dolphins today. So, if you will come along? Come on."
He managed to sound as if he was talking to second graders, which might have been a bit too high even for a clump of tourists our size, and all of us Dutch.

During the boat trip we were stowed with many other tourists, British, German and possibly Italian, Henk had taken up a couch in the bar area on the bottom floor of the boat, passed out with an eyemask on. I myself crawled up on one of the couches, my head resting in NoKey's lap, after rounding the hot springs and we set out south towards Nisyros, and before I knew it we were there.
Poor NoKey suffers from a mild form of seasickness and needs to be able to see the horizon, so we stayed on the middle deck, inside.

We arrived at Mandraki, Nisyros and were herded to a nearby taverna, where most of us had some form of early lunch. NoKey and I escaped the group and discovered Mandraki by ourselves for a while and bought some bread (psomí) from the local baker. We did rejoin the group to climb the steps to the Mandraki church overlooking the town. We encountered a lovely kitten (picture above) and enjoyed the view of the small town, with very narrow streets.

At 25 minutes past noon, we were back in the harbour and our real adventure would begin. The island Nisyros is known not for its picturesque villages, but mostly for the volcano, although the brochure states it is known for "rich and extremely diverse flora and fauna, which includes at least 30 species of wild birds."
Our very own blonde Tom Selleck handed us over to a local guide, who explained in broken Dutch the legend of the volcano beneath Nisyros and the battle between the Gods and the Titans, in particular how Poseidon threw a chunk of the island Kos at Polyvotis, burying him beneath and so creating the vulcano.

The bus snaked up the mountainside, the driver using the bus to its maximum ability and NoKey squeezing my hand whenever the bus skirted by steep drops. He has no love for heights, but I minded it very little.
On the top of the mountain ridge there was a crossroads. We could either go right to some town, or follow the ominous sign 'volcano'.
The trip down was little better. Inside the great bowl were built many terraces, although many fields were barren.

Finally, the bus stopped and the tourists and we poured out, being hit by the stench of sulpher. There was a small path carved down into the crater, and while I explored that way, NoKey went (with my spare batteries in the backpack with him!) to check out two (geologically) new hills that had been thrust up.
Carefully I climbed down the path, if you could call it that, together with some German tourists. "Uch, es stinkt!" called a girl, and her boyfriend teasingly asked "Sollen wir so ein Stein mitnemen?"
"So'ne Stinkstein kommt nicht in mein Koffer 'rein!" the girl answered indignantly, but in truth, the smell wasn't that bad. In a few minutes I stood in the largest volcanic crater we have: Stefanos crater. Over three hundred meters long, it was, and beneath our feet the magma chamber of the Nisyros volcano no longer filled with magma but with the water the winter rains brought to the island. The water heats up and is ejected from the crater in steam, seeping out of the many holes in the ground. The crater floor itself is riddled with tunnels to transport this steam, and at the holes sometimes whole chimneys have formed from the sulpher that is mingled with the steam. The sulpher crystals are rather beautiful to look at, though if you stand close enough to the holes the sulphuric steam will cloud around you (and needless to say, this is not very healthy and smells pretty horrid).

Despite the warnings at the bus stop and taverna (the only one inside the mountain range, doing a brisk business at € 1,50 per can of soda), many tourists frolicked around the crater, some people, like me, trying to take pictures until the batteries of my camera ran out.

By that time I had walked around maybe half of the circumference of the crater, first being astonished at the small sulpher holes, later stumbling into the 'chimneys' and larger holes, only to find the 'fast-cooker' when the batteries of my camera had run out.
What I call the fast cooker was basically an area where not all of the water from last winter's rains had disappeared. There were one or two small pools of water, the largest one not bigger than my two fists combined, with square in the middle a point where the hottest water emerged. All the pools were boiling, and when I crouched down to inspect one a little closer, I realised what the sound was that I was hearing all around me.

When in circumstances like these, it always pays to be alert. Being roleplayers, NoKey and I are sometimes more aware of our surroundings than other people. When faced with a (dormant) volcano, it is smart to keep your eyes, ears, and other senses++ open. You do not want to be surprised. I had missed the whole sign near the bus stop saying “at your own risk” and things about cave-ins and heart problems and stuff ^*), but I was very aware of my surrroundings down there.
Now I realised what the sound actually was. It sounded like one of those pressure pots, for cooking stuff fast, or maybe a little bit like a small waterfall. In any case, it sounded urgent, unsafe, and I made sure to check my footing.
Only then did I see that the area I was standing in was riddled with small holes, all emitting that same sound as the steam escaped and the water condensing at the tunnel mouth sputtered. As I walked off the spongy, bouncy ground, I was glad to have my feet back on (slightly) firmer soil. In truth, the entire crater could give way if the tunnels underneath become too large.

We had one hour to spend in Mandraki before the boat back to Kos would leave, so we sought out one of the smaller taverns that wasn't brimming with tourists. Near the water, off the main roads we found one that only advertised the fact that it was a restaurant (estiatório), and possibly didn't have a name.
The sign next to the road advertised fresh imam for &euro 3,50 and though this didn't sound too promising, the fact that the owner scraped the remains of a fish lunch on the pavement to feed three hungry cats swayed us to have lunch there.
The man handed us the menu, and then looked down at his feet. A pale red cat was winding its way around the man's legs, butting his head into the man's knees and going "you are the man who brings me fish". Speaking in Greek softly, the man spoke to the cat and petted its head, before going off to get our himos.

As NoKey so succinctly wrote on the postcard to his mother: "I faced the volcano for the second time. This time, it didn't blink either."

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^*) Actually, I missed it twice. I didn't see it coming or going. When NoKey told me about the sign, we were already on the bus back and I hadn't ever seen the sign!