Naxos, Italy, August 4

I don’t even know what to say about Mount Etna – how to begin. It was absolutely outrageous, incredible and unbelievable – these just touch the surface of what it was like. Mount Etna is 10,000 feet high and is active. It last erupted in 2002.

When we got off of the tender this morning (8 am) it was as it has been everyday for the past 2 weeks – HOT. When we arrived at the base of the Mount Etna a 90 minute drive from the sea it was about 20 degrees and breezy. We thought “this is terrific…ah…getting off a bus and not melting.” Then we got on a cable car to about half way up the mountain and it was a bit cooler and then onto people movers (pic) each handling about 30 people. By the time we were as high as people could get (200 feet from the summit) the winds were extremely strong – at one point the guide said she thought they might have been about 100 mile/hr. I looked it up and these are category 2 hurricane winds. It wasn’t all that cold, but the winds were incredible! At certain points I couldn’t breath, stand on my own or walk. As we walked uphill at certain points all we needed to do was lift one foot and the wind pushed us up! I really wish I had taken as video, as the photos don’t really show how it was, but I could hardly get the stills taken.

As soon as we got off the shuttles tiny pieces of lava (like sand) were whipped against us with painful force. We could barely walk or breathe due to these incredible winds. There were some kids with us that had to hang onto adults for fear of blowing over. Our guide had her entire face wrapped (pic) and stayed like this for the entire way on the mountain. By the time we were done – about 45 minutes, our entire bodies were covered in grit - grit was in every possible place, crevice etc. Even after we returned to the ship for a shower grit remained. Sleep in our eyes was gritty. This doesn’t even begin to mention how messed up my hair was - a serious rat’s nest. Although I had it up, the wind pulled bits of it out only to tangle it into a mess that was brutal to brush out. Once we got down they shut down the cable cars and therefore the top of the mountain – ‘lucky’ we got up when we did. Once we were down Chris and I just started laughing about how absolutely outrageous that was. WILD! We’re glad we did it, it was a terrific experience, but did we enjoy it – we’d say no. It was definitely one of the craziest things I have ever experienced.

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful spent relaxing and recovering from the morning.

In the evening we sailed between Sicily and the mainland and passed Stromboli island which has an active volcano. Very cool. We could see red at the top of it. Pictures of it were hard to get.