Santorini, Greece Travel Story: Inspired by a Donkey

“Madame, you’re up. Let’s go,” demanded the donkey owner. 

He hurried me on one of the donkeys that would be taking our group up a hill in Santorini, Greece. I hesitantly swing my leg over the beat-up saddle and plop down on the old, grey donkey. He sends me and my donkey, Kostas, up to join the other impatient donkeys. 

Kostas takes off with an unexpectedly perky trot up the first incline. Mine looked nothing like the others; he was the smallest and oldest. The complete opposite of the handsome, young Kostas, from the movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, that I was reminded of when hearing this was my donkey’s name. 

Similar to a lot of people who had seen this movie, I had developed this need to go to Santorini after seeing and falling in love with the blue roofs, white-washed houses, and the assumption all men look like Kostas on the island. My 12-year-old self would be way too excited I was riding a donkey in Santorini. 

Kostas would forge ahead of the pack up the cobble-stoned path becoming the line leader of the pack. He moved swiftly enough I could no longer see or hear my friend’s piercingly loud yells of panic. The only people near me were two different couples on their honeymoon. 

One of the new husband’s donkeys decided to stop and rest, and he hollered out to his donkey that his wife was getting ahead of him and was leaving him for a jackass. Out of the chaos of this donkey ride, I tried to focus on the perfect baby blue horizon, and crystal clear turquoise water and imagined how this island was years ago. 

All I could think about was how Santorini was when my grandma came forty years ago. I wondered how her experience was similar to mine. Was her experience on a donkey as thrilling as mine, or was she more afraid than me? 

Years before my trip to the island, she had visited Santorini and did the same donkey ride up the hill as I was doing now. The only thing I knew about her adventure on the island was from an old black-and-white picture of her straddling a donkey. Knowing how adventurous and fun-loving her personality was, I knew she was making the best of the journey. 

A flashback struck me while I was mid-donkey ride, one afternoon with my grandma when I was younger, the sky was similar to Santorini’s, and the sun was as hot as this day, she took my hand and said to me that she only hoped I would see the world one day similar to her. She had been all over the world to Egypt, Morocco, Greece, Alaska, Israel, Austria, Tanzania, Hawaii, and many more. 

After our short talk, she leaves the room to go to the kitchen to make sure her pop-overs were rising properly and yells out a quote from one of her favorite authors, Dr. Seuss, “Oh the places you’ll go.” As I sat on the donkey, it hit me how much she influenced me to be as much of a wanderlust spirit as I could be. 

That black and white picture is especially what persuaded me to sit on a donkey and take it up a hill in Santorini. 

About halfway up the hill, Kostas started to slow down, and his trots were becoming less frequent. I was reunited with my friends again, who had now taken more selfies than Kim Kardashian at this point. I was still holding on for dear life as Kostas ping-ponged us back and forth from one side of the walkway to the other. As much as I was still holding on for dear life, I was starting to become content with this excellent adventure I was on. 

My facial expressions were less as though I was watching a scary movie. Instead, it mirrored my grandma’s smile in her picture. My enthusiasm for this adventure reminded me of the first time I saw the picture of my grandma. It was three months before I left for Santorini, at the beginning of the summer. I remember seeing the picture and instantly feeling a new sense of purpose to visit the island. 

Before that picture, my thirst to visit the island was all about meeting a cute Kostas and seeing the blue roofs. Going to the island and taking a donkey ride just as my grandma had done long before I did was now my one of top goals when visiting the island. Surprisingly, riding a donkey was a way of connecting to my grandma which I had never had before. Getting on a donkey was my way to honor her courageous, dedicated, and wanderlust personality, and thank her for inspiring me to see this beautiful world. 

As we approached the top, Kostas had fallen to last in the pack. My once overzealous donkey had started to show his age and was stopping to take more breaks. I would patiently wait as he gathered the strength to carry on up the hill. By now I could see the top and knew my time with Kostas was nearing the end. 

I was just finally getting used to the smell and stubbornness of the other donkeys. In my last few moments with Kostas, we pass a bushel of half-wilted blue flowers draped over the stone wall.

When I was little my grandma owned a bed and breakfast in Kalispell, Montana. On a trip to visit her, I remember helping her in the gardens pull the dead flowers. All of a sudden she gets my attention to point to the half-wilted flowers left to pick. She looks at me and for whatever reason decides to turn these flowers into a profound metaphor for life. She says to me to make sure I find the beauty in everything. 

She goes on to say that to most, the rest of these flowers are undesirable, but to her, she looked at them as though they still had a little beauty left in them. I didn’t really understand what it meant at the time being only a young girl, but the more I traveled, the more I understood what she was babbling on about years ago. 

  My thoughts were interrupted by the donkey owner whistling in my ear, signaling Kostas to stop. He stubbornly obliges. I swing my legs off the saddle and give him a goodbye pat on the neck. I run to catch up with my friends, and we laugh about the donkey trek. I look down at where we had started the journey and give a quiet sigh. I think to myself who knew an ass would build such a strong connection with my grandma, my Nonni.