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Finally out on the path to Fira, Tamryn complained, “Carter, honey, don’t tell me we have to walk all the way to the cable car. Isn’t it enough that we’re climbing up the stairs?”
“It’s only a mile,” Carter told her. “Angela has already walked there and back today.”
Tamryn didn’t acknowledge the achievement. “Come on, sweetie, let’s call a taxi.”
With all the endearments, she acted like Carter’s girlfriend. And yet he’d said she wasn’t.
“Yeah,” one of the guys agreed. “Let’s taxi it.” Sienna couldn’t recall his name. She only remembered Tamryn because yesterday she’d dumped her drink over the side of the terrace.
Carter shrugged. “Sure, go ahead. But I’m walking. What about you, Sienna?” He jutted his chin at her. “I know your mom wants to walk.”
“I’m walking.” She couldn’t let her mother—or Carter—outdo her.
He turned back to his friends. “We’ll meet you at the cable car.”
They began walking while Tamryn and the others veered off the path toward the road.
Watching, Carter smiled. “We’ll probably beat them to the cable car if they can’t flag one down. We should have rented mopeds. We’ve done that several times since we’ve been here.”
“That’s how we got around when I was here in the olden days,” her mom said, poking fun at herself.
“You make yourself sound ancient,” Carter scoffed.
Her mom laughed. “Old enough to be your mother.”
Then, acting like a mother, she got out her sunblock and slathered her neck, shoulders, arms, and the backs of her knees and calves, offering the tube to Carter and Sienna as well.
The path was pleasant, but Sienna was glad for a hat, good walking shoes, and the sunblock.
Acting as the tour guide, her mom pointed to a big rock on the cliff. “That’s Skaros Rock. There’s a few hiking trails around there, and a small church.” A little while later, she added, “And that’s the Three Bells of Fira with the big blue dome you always see in pictures of Santorini. It’s an island icon.”
The path wasn’t completely flat, and sometimes there were steps, but the small towns seemed to run into each other, just like Bay Area suburbs, but on a much smaller scale.
As Carter predicted, they beat the others to the cable car, and it was fifteen minutes before they arrived, all scrambling out of a tiny car. Sienna was sure one of the girls had to sit on a lap. But they were laughing, the mimosas and Bloody Marys having loosened everyone up.
The line for the cable car wasn’t long since most of the crowd was coming up from the cruise ships. At the end of the day, the tourists would gather up top for the downhill trip.
Though the ride was barely five minutes, the view was amazing, the turquoise Aegean, the caldera against the blue of the sky, barely a cloud flitting by, the white buildings accented with the ubiquitous blue shutters, doors, railings, and domes climbing up and down the hill.
There were small restaurants at the bottom, as well as stores, duty-free shops, and kiosks for booking volcano and caldera tours. The cruise ships were out in the sea, and the small dock was teeming with tourists being ferried over in small launches. They lined up for the cable car or donkey rides up the Karavolades Stairs.
“ETA,” her mom read on one of the nearby tour kiosks. “Isn’t that the same company that did your catamaran?”
Carter nodded. “They’re a mainstay on the island. Exotic Travel Adventures. They do boat tours to the island of Nea Kameni, where you can hike around the volcano. Or you can take a helicopter ride and see the caldera from the air. They even have cruises around the Greek islands and tours on the mainland. But anything you want to do on Santorini, they’ve got it. Zip lining, wine tasting, bus tours, moped tours. Or you can just rent mopeds and quad bikes from them and go on your own.”
“We should definitely rent mopeds,” Sienna said to her mother.
A beatific smile creased her face. “I’d love it. It’ll be just like when I visited before.”
She should have known her mother would be up for it. A hiker, she had a lot more get-up-and-go than Sienna had given her credit for. This vacation wouldn’t be a slog, with her always waiting for her mother. It would probably be the other way round.
After slotting her mom away as an older woman, she was now discovering how vital she was. Her mother was the poster child for the saying that sixty was the new forty.
“Touring the island on mopeds is great,” Carter agreed.
Sienna wondered if Carter would keep inviting them on the sojourns he took with his friends. It didn’t bother her. He made things more fun. But she needed to discuss it with her mom. After all, this was supposed to be a mother-daughter trip.
But her mom beat her to it, saying, “Everything’s more fun when you go as a group.”
