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!
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