The pier at Scari is a good 6 feet above the water line. It has a lot of traffic from small passenger ferries coming and going with loads of tourists. We pulled up to a staircase, hopped out, then tied Kosmopolitan up so that she was floating under the pier, out of the way of all the ferries. The weather had cleared up nicely. The sun was out and it had turned into a beautiful afternoon.
Our first goal of the day was to find lunch. We walked along the main drag and only found one open restaurant that served real food (as opposed to snack foods). We went inside and found out that in between lunch and dinner, they only serve snack food, as well. We resigned ourselves to snack food and ordered something called arancini that Tai told us was a sticky rice ball with meat in the middle that are pretty good. What came out was a sticky rice ball with a sort of stew meat and veggies in the center, but it had been deep fried hours earlier and reheated in the microwave. It was greasy as all get out and pretty darn gross. Tai assured us that this is not how they normally are.
Once we had a little food in our tummies, the next goal was to find a tour company to take us to the volcano. We were hoping to do a sunset hike. All the tourist information places in the tiny downtown were closed for the afternoon break. We decided to take a stroll along the waterfront to look for banks and tour companies. The shoreline along the waterfront is all black sand. It looks more like an asphalt parking lot waiting for the lines to be painted than a beach. We noticed there were no cars on the road, just golf carts and tuk tuks (tiny three wheeled vehicles). Even the taxis are golf carts. The road is barely wide enough for one car. Almost all the buildings are white, and most have blue trim. It actually reminds us a lot of a small Santorini, except without churches with domed blue roofs. It looks to be mostly hotels and a few private residences. There are a lot of flowering plants in people’s gardens, which adds to the loveliness of the setting
After walking for a while, the road narrowed. We assumed it was a pedestrian only path because there was no way a car could possibly fit on this little narrow lane. But we were wrong. The little golf carts buzzed up and down the tiny lane, with only inches of clearance on each side. There wasn’t enough room for both people and golf carts on the road, so when a golf cart came, we had to press ourselves up against the walls of the buildings. We found it amusing.
We came to the end of the paved path. It became a one person wide foot trail and looked to be fairly steep. We decided it was a good time to turn around and see if maybe the tourist places had re-opened from their afternoon break.
Once we got back to town, we found out that the hike up the volcano is at 1600 (4:00 pm) every day. It is a 5 hour round trip hike up to the crater. It is illegal to go on your own, you must go with a tour company. So, no hike for us today. We saw an ad for a helicopter tour. We thought that sounded like even more fun than the hike. We called the number on the flier and found out it costs $1250 USD for up to 6 people for a 30 minute ride. And they couldn’t squeeze us in until some time next week. OK, the helicopter is a no go, too. The third way to view the volcano is via a boat tour, where a cattle boat goes to a nice viewpoint outside the island and you watch the volcano eruptions from the distance. There were several vendors aggressively pushing the boat tours, and when we told them that we weren’t interested, they would arguing vehemently with us about why we needed to go on their tour.
We visited the volcano museum, which is small and simple, but quite informative. The two staff members devoted a ton of attention to us and we came out with a whole new appreciation of volcanoes. The European and African continental plates meet in this Aeolian Island area, which causes the volcanic activity. There are seven islands, all of which are volcanic, plus there are additional volcanic land masses below sea level. The islands started forming 230,000 years ago, Stromboli is only 5,000 years old. Three of the islands are still active, though Stromboli is the only volcano in Europe with constant volcanic activity. Amazingly enough, Stromboli has been consistently active for a good 2,000 years now.
Usually, every few minutes the volcano shoots lava bits and ash 100 200 meters in the air at a speed of 20 to 120 meters per second, and it falls back into the crater. A couple times a year a biggie blows the debris 500 meters in the air and the debris reaches beyond the crater to the rim, where visitors are allowed to stand. This is probably one of the many reasons they demand you go with a guide, someone who knows it is a biggie and makes you run. Otherwise, you’d stand there gaping and get hit in the head with a red hot lava rock. Once a year there is a super biggie, where lava flows down the mountain. The lava always follows the same path, and doesn’t bother the residents, who have established themselves far away from the lava path. And every once in a blue moon, there is the giant eruption, which hits the whole island and destroys the towns. The last giant eruption was in 1930, and 85% – 90% of the island’s population left the island for good after that eruption. We’ll spare you the scientific details about why and how the eruptions occur and the science of monitoring volcanic activity.
Stromboli Island is only 12.6 square kilometers. The volcano peak is 920 meters tall (about 2760 feet). The island has been inhabited since the bronze age.
We found out there is more to the town up the hill. We followed one of the tiny and very steep lanes up to the main town square, which has a church and a nice view of the ocean below. You can see it got pretty crowded at the moorings, they were just about all full.
We found a restaurant on that little lane, near the square, and had dinner. Over dinner, we discussed our itinerary. Tai has bad knees, and he said they were already aching from going up the hill, and this paved hill was nothing compared to a volcano hike. He wanted to leave tonight, watch the volcano from the viewpoint along with the tourist boats, then go to our next destination, Rome. Christi and Eric really wanted to stay the night and do the hike to the volcano tomorrow. Tanna was the most amazing experience of our lives and we were eager to relive it. We overruled Tai.
After dinner, we realized there was absolutely nothing to do in town, so we went back to Kosmos for the night. From Kosmos, we could see dozens of tiny lights moving their way down the mountain in the dark. We knew it was the hiker’s holding flashlights and thought excitedly that tomorrow it would be us up there.