We woke up pretty early and all went to the super market to buy breakfast. We were only a strict student's budget for the trip, haha, so we tried to avoid over-priced restaurants and all that as much as possible. I bought a box of these super delicious foreign caramel breakfast bars. It was pretty adventurous for me who is like the fussiest eater in the world, but they were so good, so I had those for breakfast/snacks for the next few days. We then went back to the hostel and decided we would rent quad bikes for the day because there were a lot of places we wanted to see and they were all fairly far apart. 2 people go on each quad bike, so we rented 4, and one which was a one seater. The 5 of us who were driving first (we took turns) walked up to the quad bike shop and sorted out all the helmets and driver's licenses, etc. and then had to drive them back to pick up the others at the hostel, which was only like two roads down or so. I must admit, I was pretty terrified to drive such a powerful quad bike on the roads in a foreign country where they drive on the other side of the road to us. I was terrified I would not be able to get through the intersections or not yield the right way, but it turned out driving on the other side was pretty much the same (I suppose that's to be expected) and so I got the hang of it pretty quickly. We picked up the others and then we were off.
Arielle, one of my friends travelling with us was on the quad bike with me and I drove there and she back. I had so much fun speeding around the island on the quad bikes. We all drove in unison, and at first it was a bit stressful being on the main road with lots of cars who are a lot faster than you trying to overtake and pass by, but after about 15 minutes of driving outwards, you get onto the wide open roads with practically no cars and only a few other quad bikes or scooters on them. I think particularly after the stress of the last 3 weeks before this, when I was studying for and writing pretty hectic exams, the pure fun of just driving fast wherever you want through the hot summer's air was just exactly what I needed. We drove around for about an hour and just sort of went to a few cool view points and that sort of thing- this was the first time I got a real good look at Santorini- it is absolutely stunning! All around you can just see dark blue sea, and then on the mountain tops all around, looking back at the city, the beautiful white buildings and houses look like icing on top of a cake, lining the dark mountain. The first time I saw it I was pretty baffled because I didn't realise the white lining all along the mountain top was the city's infrastructure, I thought it was some bizarre white rock or something. We also drove through a lot of beautiful country side- fields full of wild flowers, rolling green fields and you could look down from the super high view points and see lots of tiny little yachts and boats bobbing about in the sea- like 500 meters below you.
So the first place we went, after many wrong turns and realisations that we were lost, was the Black beach. I didn't exactly know what to expect for the famous beach with black sand, but whatever I had imagined, it was completely different to my imagination. There were not nearly as many people there as I had expected, but this was actually so nice, because we could get a good space on the sand (well, I shouldn't say sand, because it was loads of tiny little black rocks/pebbles) and could enjoy some time there. It was super hot out that day, so we all tanned for a little while but really, you couldn't sit in the sun for long before you needed a dip in the sea. The sea was actually a little colder than I expected, but it was actually perfect for such a hot day- it was refreshing and so nice to just bob about and float. Walking down to the sea was a slightly more tedious task- the stones were so hot that you had to sprint down to the shore, or try brave it in slip slops, but they almost always ender up being eaten by the sand and you would cut your losses and sprint down the rest of the distance. So the cold water was a nice break from the hot and extremely course rocks. As you walked into the water, the bottom was made up of rock that was covered in extremely slippery, slimy algae of sorts, so you couldn't actually stand at all without splashing down and falling. It was so nice just swimming and soaking up the sun.
After drying off, we all got back on the quad bikes and headed to Red Beach. Ari drove this time, so I got the chance to just sit back and to really watch the beautiful countryside rolling past us and soak in how stunning this place really is. Red beach was also super cool, the sand and massive rock behind it are all a red oxide sort of colour. We didn't end up doing down to the beach, as we had spent ages at black beach, but took some pictures and had a little wonder around. We then started heading back but decided that if anyone saw anywhere cool or any view points that they wanted to stop at, we would all just pull over, cause we weren't in any rush to get back. So we gradually headed back and chilled and swam at the hostel for a while.
Later that afternoon, Andrew, Ken, Teags and I wanted to go see Oia, this beautiful town at the top of the island, about half an hour/45 mins from Thira. So we took the quad bikes and went on the most beautiful ride in the early evening to Oia and wandered around the beautiful mountain side town. All the building are white with bright blue rooves- they kind of all look like they've been squished against the mountain side- it is such a cute little town. We had to be quite quick there cause the plan was to meet back at the hostel and then go and see the sunset, so we rushed back along the highway mountain road (a different way to where we had come)- which was quite entertaining with our little quad bikes competing with all these cars. We got back and had the most delicious dinner at a place called Lucky's. They have these things called Gyros, which are basically these dough-y pitas with salad and meat and hot chips all rolled into one delicious thing- I had one with lamb and it was amazing! We sort of just wandered around the town, as even though it was late, everything was still open and the town was filled with people, and then headed back and chatted for a bit before going to bed.
It was an amazing first day in Santorini!
Thursday, 30 July 2015
Wednesday, 29 July 2015
Getting There and Night 1 in Santorini
Okay, so my 3 week long Euro trip with some of my best friends began on 21 June 2015. I still can't believe I was lucky enough to go, the whole organising process and decision to go happened so quickly, and next thing I was on a massive plane to Athens. So I had to start this daily blogging with how we got there because trust me, it was no easy task!
So we first had a 9 hour flight to Dubai. I was travelling with two of my closest friends Teagan and Kendal. I am so lucky that the three of us got along so well and so travelling with them was easy and we all seemed to sort of understand each other. The flight to Dubai was a long one! Usually I am fine with long flights, in fact, I usually love flying and Teags and I had got so excited to just have 9 solid hours to watch movies and tv series and all that because we literally finished exams the day before we left! I think the reason this flight was slightly more uncomfortable is because it left at 1pm and arrived in the early hours of the morning in Dubai (like 1am or so), so it was weird timing in terms of sleeping, and so none of us really got any sleep the whole flight. But anyway, we landed in Dubai and then had a further 9 hour layover before we left for Athens! This was difficult because it was from 1am till something like 9am the next morning, so it was a terrible time to be up, and sleeping wasn't really an option as there were no comfortable places and we always had to keep an eye on our bags. It was also bloody hot in Dubai, even at 1am it was like 43 degrees! So that was a bit of a struggle because at first it was really really hot inside, and then later in the night it became freezing- we kind of just moped about on the chairs and listen to music or chatted. I even tried to sleep on the super dirty floor at one point, haha but didn't really succeed. Dubai airport is also super over-priced (we paid 10 Euros for a McDonalds chips and coke- that's like R140!), so we didn't buy anything else! So it was a pretty boring 9 hours with no sleep or wifi, but anyway, it was fine in the end. In the last hour, we met up with our friend Andrew, who was joining us on the trip.
The next flight was about 4/5 hours to Athens. We didn't manage to get any sleep on this one either, but it was at least day time, so we watched movies and chatted and got excited for the next 3 weeks. Landing in Athens, we again stepped out and were hit by a wall of heat, which pretty much remained for the entire trip (but no complaining being back in freezing Cape Town at the moment!). We got our luggage (we were backpacking, so had a 15kg backpack with us for all the travelling, which proved both convenient and a massive mission simultaneously haha) and then got straight on a metro to the main port, Piraeus. It was interesting going on the metro, because we got to see little snippets of Athens speed past us as we went. Athens, the tiny bit I saw of it that day (we did go back at the end of the trip) was really different to what I had expected- it is super built up in areas and does actually have a lot of almost "shabby" suburbs that we saw as we went past on the metro. We hopped out at the port and bought a ferry ticket to Santorini. The only ferry leaving that day (because it was already quite late) was a 7 hour one- so we lugged our backpacks around to the other side (literally the other side) of the massive harbour and eventually got on our ferry. I will say that we were very relieved to be on the right ferry and Santorini-bound, because it had been a fairly stressful experience finding our way there and all that, but it was then that we could actually start to get really excited for our adventure! The ferry, as one would expect, took it's sweet time, and we bought wifi for a bit, to let our parents know we were safe and all that, and then kind of just explored the many floors and restaurants (it was a massive ferry with loads of different levels and spaces and stuff). We played cards and chatted and tried to pass the time, but unfortunately we just could not manage to sleep, despite like 30 hours without any sleep.
Arriving in Santorini, we were so relieved and excited to finally be there after a long couple of days of travelling! We got on a bus to take us to the city centre, which was right by our hostel- 7 of the people we were travelling with had arrived that afternoon, so had already settled in. We arrived at 1am or so, and the bus then took another 30-40 mins. I will say I was pretty terrified going up to the main town. Santorini is literally right on the top of like the steepest mountain, so going up the edge of a cliff in the pitch black in a bus is not exactly my cup of tea- haha round each corner I would literally just squeeze my eyes shut and just hope that we wouldn't fall off. This was not an irrational fear though, I promise there were times it literally looked like we were swinging straight into the rock haha. But finally we were up and over and eventually arrived at the bus station. So with our massive backpacks, we walked down the main road and luckily managed to find our hostel quite easily. I actually love hostels, sure, not the cheap mattresses and showers and all that, but I always have loved the vibe at them, lots of students all travelling, having fun, I don't know, I just think its so cool that wherever you're from, you're all there to have a good time and an adventure. We arrived and settled in to our room- it was a 10 sleeper room but luckily our group of 9 took up most of it. It was pretty simple and basic- just lots of bunk beds, but it did the job and so we unpacked only to realise that none of our fiends were there. The 10th girl staying in our room told us they had all gone out to a club/bar called Murphy's, so ridiculously, for some reason at 2am after like almost 48 hours without sleep, no showering and still in our travelling clothes and no makeup or anything, we decided that we'd join them as well haha. I suppose why not? So we walked up to reception and met A bunch of people from Australia and the US that were also staying at the hostel, we chatted with them for a bit and they said they were also going out, so we walked up with them to find the others.
This was my first sort of view of Thira- the capital (I assume) of Santorini. It is so beautiful, with a main road down the middle and then loads of cobbled streets and trees all around. The sea is pretty far away from the actual town (like probably not walking distance), but you could sea it in the distance. It was also so nice being so warm at night! So we wandered up the hill to Murphy's and were finally united with the others. Murphy's was very small but cute and cozy and played really good music, so we had a drink or two and danced and caught up with the others for an hour or so before heading back. My good friend Kath told me all about what they had done that day and we sort of all chatted about what to do the next day before heading to bed for the night. On exception of the room being suuuper stuffy (cause there were 10 of us in there with no windows), we all finally got a really good night's sleep!
I'll post about the second (but kinda first) day in Santorini in the next post.
So we first had a 9 hour flight to Dubai. I was travelling with two of my closest friends Teagan and Kendal. I am so lucky that the three of us got along so well and so travelling with them was easy and we all seemed to sort of understand each other. The flight to Dubai was a long one! Usually I am fine with long flights, in fact, I usually love flying and Teags and I had got so excited to just have 9 solid hours to watch movies and tv series and all that because we literally finished exams the day before we left! I think the reason this flight was slightly more uncomfortable is because it left at 1pm and arrived in the early hours of the morning in Dubai (like 1am or so), so it was weird timing in terms of sleeping, and so none of us really got any sleep the whole flight. But anyway, we landed in Dubai and then had a further 9 hour layover before we left for Athens! This was difficult because it was from 1am till something like 9am the next morning, so it was a terrible time to be up, and sleeping wasn't really an option as there were no comfortable places and we always had to keep an eye on our bags. It was also bloody hot in Dubai, even at 1am it was like 43 degrees! So that was a bit of a struggle because at first it was really really hot inside, and then later in the night it became freezing- we kind of just moped about on the chairs and listen to music or chatted. I even tried to sleep on the super dirty floor at one point, haha but didn't really succeed. Dubai airport is also super over-priced (we paid 10 Euros for a McDonalds chips and coke- that's like R140!), so we didn't buy anything else! So it was a pretty boring 9 hours with no sleep or wifi, but anyway, it was fine in the end. In the last hour, we met up with our friend Andrew, who was joining us on the trip.
The next flight was about 4/5 hours to Athens. We didn't manage to get any sleep on this one either, but it was at least day time, so we watched movies and chatted and got excited for the next 3 weeks. Landing in Athens, we again stepped out and were hit by a wall of heat, which pretty much remained for the entire trip (but no complaining being back in freezing Cape Town at the moment!). We got our luggage (we were backpacking, so had a 15kg backpack with us for all the travelling, which proved both convenient and a massive mission simultaneously haha) and then got straight on a metro to the main port, Piraeus. It was interesting going on the metro, because we got to see little snippets of Athens speed past us as we went. Athens, the tiny bit I saw of it that day (we did go back at the end of the trip) was really different to what I had expected- it is super built up in areas and does actually have a lot of almost "shabby" suburbs that we saw as we went past on the metro. We hopped out at the port and bought a ferry ticket to Santorini. The only ferry leaving that day (because it was already quite late) was a 7 hour one- so we lugged our backpacks around to the other side (literally the other side) of the massive harbour and eventually got on our ferry. I will say that we were very relieved to be on the right ferry and Santorini-bound, because it had been a fairly stressful experience finding our way there and all that, but it was then that we could actually start to get really excited for our adventure! The ferry, as one would expect, took it's sweet time, and we bought wifi for a bit, to let our parents know we were safe and all that, and then kind of just explored the many floors and restaurants (it was a massive ferry with loads of different levels and spaces and stuff). We played cards and chatted and tried to pass the time, but unfortunately we just could not manage to sleep, despite like 30 hours without any sleep.
Arriving in Santorini, we were so relieved and excited to finally be there after a long couple of days of travelling! We got on a bus to take us to the city centre, which was right by our hostel- 7 of the people we were travelling with had arrived that afternoon, so had already settled in. We arrived at 1am or so, and the bus then took another 30-40 mins. I will say I was pretty terrified going up to the main town. Santorini is literally right on the top of like the steepest mountain, so going up the edge of a cliff in the pitch black in a bus is not exactly my cup of tea- haha round each corner I would literally just squeeze my eyes shut and just hope that we wouldn't fall off. This was not an irrational fear though, I promise there were times it literally looked like we were swinging straight into the rock haha. But finally we were up and over and eventually arrived at the bus station. So with our massive backpacks, we walked down the main road and luckily managed to find our hostel quite easily. I actually love hostels, sure, not the cheap mattresses and showers and all that, but I always have loved the vibe at them, lots of students all travelling, having fun, I don't know, I just think its so cool that wherever you're from, you're all there to have a good time and an adventure. We arrived and settled in to our room- it was a 10 sleeper room but luckily our group of 9 took up most of it. It was pretty simple and basic- just lots of bunk beds, but it did the job and so we unpacked only to realise that none of our fiends were there. The 10th girl staying in our room told us they had all gone out to a club/bar called Murphy's, so ridiculously, for some reason at 2am after like almost 48 hours without sleep, no showering and still in our travelling clothes and no makeup or anything, we decided that we'd join them as well haha. I suppose why not? So we walked up to reception and met A bunch of people from Australia and the US that were also staying at the hostel, we chatted with them for a bit and they said they were also going out, so we walked up with them to find the others.
This was my first sort of view of Thira- the capital (I assume) of Santorini. It is so beautiful, with a main road down the middle and then loads of cobbled streets and trees all around. The sea is pretty far away from the actual town (like probably not walking distance), but you could sea it in the distance. It was also so nice being so warm at night! So we wandered up the hill to Murphy's and were finally united with the others. Murphy's was very small but cute and cozy and played really good music, so we had a drink or two and danced and caught up with the others for an hour or so before heading back. My good friend Kath told me all about what they had done that day and we sort of all chatted about what to do the next day before heading to bed for the night. On exception of the room being suuuper stuffy (cause there were 10 of us in there with no windows), we all finally got a really good night's sleep!
I'll post about the second (but kinda first) day in Santorini in the next post.
A new adventure- Eurotrip 2015
Just over two weeks ago I got back from a Eurotrip with 10 of my friends to several countries in central and eastern Europe. It was the most incredible experience and I already just want to go back. The entire time I was there I kept telling myself I should be blogging or writing a journal or something to remember all of the incredible thing I got to do and people I met but I didn't have a computer with me, and I'm not the biggest journal type of gal, so I didn't end up doing anything. But recently, as I think back to it and all that (typical post-holiday memories haha) I am already finding myself starting to forget things and what I did in certain places and stuff, so even though it's a bit late, I'm going to try to post about each day (or maybe rather each country/city) just as a little personal account for me to remember and read back on some day.
Every now and then I find myself reading about all my adventures in Italy, and whilst now being 3 years older, it's so funny reflecting back on my perception of things when I was there and the way I wrote and stuff, but yeah, basically, even though I initially just designed this as a place to daily blog while on exchange, I wanted to do the same for my euro-trip and this felt like the best place to do it. Apologies to anyone who subscribed to the blog when I was on exchange, because you'll now be spammed with all my posts of this holiday, feel free to unfollow, as this really is just an account for me, so I don't forget all the amazing memories I made.
xx
Caity
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)