Story by Barbara Penny Angelakis
Photography courtesy of Barbara Penny Angelakis and Bo Zaunders

 

Under no circumstances could you consider me athletic… my most proficient sport is twirling my hair. Nor could you consider me brave… I need a friend to navigate an unfamiliar venue just to go to the restroom. And regardless of the press to the contrary, I am more afraid of animals than they are of me. And yet, I have willingly engaged in some of the most highly unorthodox peregrinations devised by man with absolute abandonment.

My first exploit occurred on a trip to Austria years ago where I was traveling with a girl friend. I happened to see a small ad in a tourist magazine about a salt mine just minutes outside of Salzburg. My friend was even less adventurous than I and it took sacrificing my rights to choose restaurants for the duration of the trip to get her to agree to come with me. Totally ignorant of what awaited us, we made our way first by local bus and then precipitous cable car freely swaying in the breeze - gulp!  Neither of us had even seen such an apparatus before and we held tight to each other the whole way to the top of the mountain that led to the entrance of the mine. Happy to have endured the ride without throwing up, we exited onto a muddy road that led to the mine entrance where, still holding hands and giggling for courage, we were outfitted in miners’ white coveralls - no easy matter over our dresses - given hard hats, and loaded on a miners’ train that disappeared into the pitch black hole of the mountain. Each train held several participants and we were told we would become close friends because we would be “intimately” connected on the long descent to the bottom of the mountain. Being the youngest and only single girls on the train, that remark did not inspire friendly looks from the mostly Austrian fraus that were holding on to their husbands tightly.

The train halted before a beautifully constructed smooth wooden slide roughly 30 or 40 feet high. We were instructed to straddle the slide with legs hanging over either side and hang on to a rope, then the next person was to sit behind the first and on and on until the last person was linked to our human chain. It was explained that the first person controlled the rate of descent with the rope and to take it easy because the ride created friction, and the further back in the chain you were, the hotter your ride would be. I volunteered to be the first person in the line before we were told of the consequences of hanging back, and thrilled to be in front, I let it rip. Down went our caterpillar of people, some 24 legs, all waving in the breeze.

At that time there were several slides to traverse and we took turns moving back down the line until I ended up the last person and exited that slide fanning my behind because the more familiar with the ride we became, the faster we went. By that time, as predicted, we were all good friends, and laughingly boarded a rather shaky looking raft to take a ride on the salt lake. All along our guide had kept up a commentary about the history of salt and the process of mining and transporting it. From the lake he extracted a few small pieces of rock salt, salmon colored by the minerals in the water, which he distributed to us as souvenirs.  After the ride on the lake, we boarded the final ride of the tour, the miners’ train, which unloaded us at the bottom of the mountain. Discarding our coveralls and hugging our now dear friends, we boarded the return bus to Salzburg. It was so much fun and well worth letting my friend choose the restaurants for the remainder of the trip. It also whetted my appetite for adventures to come…

…a few short years later, when newly married, my husband Manos took me to Greece to meet his family. The fabled Island of Santorini was high on my list of sights to see. The only form of transport then available from the harbor to reach the city of Fira at the pinnacle of the volcanic crescent, was a smelly, nasty looking donkey with a bad attitude!

I am a city girl and the closest I had been to a donkey was at the Bronx Zoo. Never had I contemplated climbing atop one. But if I wanted to get to Fira that was my only option so I bellied up to the line. The farmer - whose craggy face made him look 110 years old, but he was probably only half that – who owned the animal and now made far more from the tourists than he ever made from toiling in the fields, helped me climb aboard. Unaccustomed to riding, I slid toward the other side of the saddle and fell off. Mumbling something unintelligible in Greek, I suspect not meant for tender ears, he led me back around yelling at me to hold on and again gave me a foot up. This time I held tight and only slid a little so that I was hanging on with the major part of my body on one side of the donkey with the other leg slung across its back. The exasperated farmer gave the donkey a smack and we started slipping and sliding up the flight of manure-covered stairs that wound up the steep path.

The donkey liked me less then I liked him and veered from the cliff side to the mountain side at each hairpin turn, insuring that my left leg flapped onto thin air and my right leg was banged into the sharp stones of the mountain. Every time he aimed toward the precipice, I screamed. When he angled toward the mountain side I tried to slide my body over in order to lift my right leg to avoid scraping the skin as he smashed into the stones. In this absurdly undignified manner I rode the 25 minutes sliding, laughing and yelling the whole way up. At the top I collapsed off my belligerent steed who bid me farewell by nipping at my hind quarters.

Santorini was magical but after a few hours exploring it was time to return to the dreaded steps. I opted to walk down the hundreds of steps rather then chance the donkey would hurl me over his head on the way down… big mistake! The steps were steep and made slippery by years of being used as an open-air toilet by hundreds of animals. It was impossible to find uncovered spots for a toe hold. The result was an extended ski run on the soles of my shoes over the brown, stinky surface, flailing and screaming my way down while trying not to catapult over the mountain. I am sure my ascending donkey took great pleasure in my humiliating descent. There are other ways to reach Fira now, but for fun take the donkey ride.

Next year Manos and I traveled to the enchanting island of Madeira off the coast of Portugal. When I heard about the sleigh-ride down the mountain from Monte to Funchal, I swooned and hailed a cab for the drive up the rather steep and winding road. There were two choices, the very top of the mountain, or mid-way up, which still posed an almost vertical drop into the city of Funchal. We choose mid-way because of the steepness of the cobblestone road.

At the Monte Toboggan stop we almost lost heart, for the wicker basket attached to the wooden runners was falling apart with broken sections in the weave; and totally out of shape. It looked barely able to hold Manos who was twice my weight. Unbelievably, the two handlers looked in worse shape than the basket! Both were dressed in white, sailor-style shirt and pants, straw hats, and colored bandanas tied around their necks. I kid you not, one of the handlers was missing his left eye and the other one was missing his right arm, and both looked like they were pushing mid-80s. But the cab had departed and we were there with no other way to get back to town, and so I got into the left side of the basket and Manos gingerly lowered himself into the right side… and the basket lifted me up in the air! The handler with the missing left eye jumped on the runner on my side to help balance the weight and pushed off with his left foot while the other handler held on at Manos’ side and pushed off with his left hand. Poor man had to run alongside because if he rode on the runner he would have unbalanced us, and balance was critical since there was no steering or stopping device!

Unbeknownst to me, while the steep road was a straight drop back to town, there were multiple cross streets along the way without lights or stop signs, where cars sped past undaunted by the vulnerable basket hurling towards them with its precious cargo… us!

We were speeding along past the first road when a car crossed just behind us. We sailed free for a while but then approached a cross road at the same time that a car did, and since it was bigger, it naturally assumed the right of way. Miraculously our impaired guides sprung into action and deflected our descent so that closely, but safely, we passed behind the car. My admiration for them jumped incrementally even though I continued to scream as we sped down the steep, slippery, rutted cobblestone slope for what seemed like a lifetime but was closer to 15 minutes. As we were coming into the outskirts of Funchal, I saw an opening along the wall that the sleigh seemed to be headed for, but as we closed in, a hot-yellow Alfa Romeo convertible slid into the spot we were aiming for and we just clipped its rear bumper before our guides again deflected the basket. A close call… a fabulous experience, but for our handlers, all in a days work.

And now for something completely different… 225 miles above the Arctic Circle in Finland is an awesomely beautiful lake called Inarijärvi. In the middle of the lake is Ukonkivi, a small island that is sacred to the Saami people (Laplanders). When on a trip to Finland in early winter, a Finnish associate described it to me and the prospect of crossing the frozen lake was too much for me to pass up. I convinced Manos and a few friends to agree to the trip. So dressed in reindeer-skin boots, three layers of clothes, a parka, a helmet and goggles, we cajoled the local Shaman Ola, to take us on an outing across the lake. There are organized boat tours during the summer but no one is foolish enough to challenge the lake in winter, so Ola was our only hope. The Shaman and his wife Sirpa were dressed in traditional Saami attire to ward off the 40º below zero cold. Under the watchful eyes of their dog Wölf - a big black animal more wolf than dog - they hooked up their snowmobile to a sleigh which they covered with reindeer hides, gestured for us all to climb aboard and instructed us to hold on to the ropes attached to the sides… tightly! Ola revved up the engine, and took off like a shot down a six foot grade from their home at the lake’s edge to the glistening frozen surface below.

The island was some distance away in the enormous expanse of lake, so Ola laid on the petal and we flew across the frozen lake, holding on for dear life as we flopped from side to side and up and down like spastic fish out of water, as the sleigh bounced across the more then 20 feet of ice beneath us. Did you know that ice is deceptively smooth? Well we found out that day that looks can be deceiving as we banged into each other and the sides of the sleigh. Ola was trying to outrun the weather which was bright and sunny when we began our ride but was threatening to turn snowy, spelling potential disaster.

Our clothes did not completely protect us and I was starting to question my sanity and wondering if my marriage and friendships would survive this torturous ride. I could not share my thoughts since we were getting bashed to the degree I could not speak without biting my tongue. When Ola finally slowed down as we approached the island, the weather had again cleared and I got out before anyone in the group assaulted me for having this brilliant idea and limped around the island sinking in snow up to my thighs. I climbed to the top of the small pyramidal land mass and as far as I could see in any direction was sky and ice… a totally awe inspiring sight. Meanwhile Sirpa was building a fire on the ice to warm tea for us to drink. Mollified by the majesty of our surroundings, we sat on the reindeer hides on the snowy island as Ola recounted tales of the Saami people and their sacred island. As the sun began it’s descent towards the icy horizon, Ola signaled it was time to go and Sirpa graciously offered to get in the sleigh so that I could ride behind Ola on the return trip. Wölf hopefully bounded up behind Ola but with a non-verbal command, Ola banished him. Wölf gave me a questioning look and jumped off, resigned to running alongside Ola on the return as he had on the way out.  I jumped at the offer to ride behind Ola on the Skidoo and it was one of the most exhilarating and remarkable rides I have yet lived to tell about … of course Manos had a different experience and limped for the next day or so… but assured me it was worth it.

I could tell you of my hot air balloon ride over the majestic Tanzanian Serengeti Plain during the annual Wildebeest migration but it is detailed in my article The Endless Plain as is my latest adventure, zip-lining over the tree tops in Mazatlán, and my Bobsled ride in Jamaica.

I still dream of skydiving, and tobogganing in the Alps, and being hauled up in a net to a mountain monastery in Greece, and riding atop an elephant in Thailand or India - although my experience riding around the Great Pyramid of Giza on a camel under the full moon was less then auspicious. The clouds obscured the pyramids that night blending the desert and the sky, and my driver threatened to abandon me unless I doubled his payment … a dreaded baksheesh attack! Coming up this spring will be a hot-air balloon ride over the fairy chimneys in Cappadocia, Turkey – and so the adventure continues…

For information on my rides of a lifetime, visit:

http://www.salzburg.info/en/sights/excursions/salt_mines_hallein.htm

http://www.santorini-greece.biz/

http://www.madeira-web.com/PagesUK/monte-toboggan.html

http://www.visitfindland.com/US

 

 

 

© February 2011 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.

 

Issue:
January
2012