my walk back to my towel was intentionally slow , almost an amble , a pace that allowed me to see an amazing panorama : strings of homes , which looked like white sugar cubes that ran up the treeless foothills , the bone-dry stretch of mountains of brown craggy rock surrounding the village of kamari , the soaring limitless blue sky , a sea and sky snugged without an horizon line , and the pebbled beach of thousands of red and blue umbrellas painted by a pointillist at its far ends .