Oh Santorini.. 7-27-09

So much to say about this island. Yes, it is beautiful and very romantic, but only because the island has a few exceptional beaches and intimidating cliffs surrounding it. In order to get to all of the beaches and views you must rent scooters or ATV's.. which we did.

The first day we got in we dropped off our bags at our hotel, Agas, and rented ATV's from a sketchy little store (should have known then..). We rode to the black sand beach, walked along the shore and took some pictures. For dinner we had gyros (of course) and then went out in our town of Fira. The cheapest cover is 10 euros (guys and girls) and drinks ranged from 7 euros to 17 euros. After one round at Murphy's we saw the bill and booked it out of there to the nearest quick-mart carts that are everywhere in the streets. We settled for 1.50 euros Mythos beers and decided it would be better to drink these, go in bars, drink more mythos, and go back into the bars. It worked out alright, but was a little inconvenient. We all made it out only about 10 euros down, but somehow Kip managed to lose his walet with all of his credit cards. Luckily he still has his passport, his license at the ATV rental place, and one debit card with him.

The next day we layed around our hotel's pool for a bit and then headed to Boutari, a local winery. We each sampled 8 wines and got a tour of the winery. Each wine had a official rating between 80 and 100 points and were some of the best whites and reds I've ever had. Apparently, the Greeks have a 10 year plan to bring their wines into the U.S. for international sale. The lecture was pretty interesting actually, even though I think I was the only one listening to the guy because everyone was pretty hung over. He said that the grapes here are very special because of the soil and altitude of where they are grown here on Santorini. Also, they do not have bugs to eat the grapes, so no pesticides or chemicals are used.

After sampling the wine we ATVed to watch one of the most incredibly gorgeous sunsets I've ever seen at Calderra view (you'll know the pictures when you see them). We all went to dinner and we so exhausted we barely spoke.. I guess after 8 days of going out every night till 5am, the hours were hitting us and we needed a break from partying. So we called it a night early, 1am. Kip spent a lot of time today figuring out his credit card situation and also managed to somehow lose his debit card today too. Sad day for Kip.. he seems to be doing okay, he still has his driver's license at the ATV place.

Our last full day on Santorini we rode to the Red sand beach and hiked up and then down the cliffs to the beach. This is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen and took my breath away. The pictures are worth a thousand words.. but if you can picture over 500 foot cliffs ending at red and black stone covered beaches blanketed with hundreds of blue and white beach umbrellas, complete with sailboats and boulders in the water to sunbathe on- this was the view we were seeing. We all swam in the cool water and the girls swam out to the rocks. We sunbathed on them for about an hour and I was in heaven. If I could do this everyday, I would. The water around the boulders sank to a depth of about 30-60 feet, so we all dove into the water and swam back to shore. We rode back to our hotel and relaxed by the pool for a while and jumped off our diving boards and other structures for while.

We ended the night by riding our ATV's to Oia (pronounced Ia) and watching the sun set over the water. This is the spot where all of the postcards are taken from.. the white houses, shops, and restaurants all built along the cliffs, complete with a historic white Church and a windmill of course. I had to fight through the crowds a bit, but I managed to get a couple pictures I'm very happy with.

On the way back to Fera one of the ATV's broke down (ours) so we all waited for Kip and Julie to bring back some gasoline. What should have been 15 minutes turned into an hour and us stranded souls started to worry.. but they pulled though. Two 1.5 liter water bottles were filled with gas and we were on our way! We dropped off the ATV's and headed back. The sketchy ATV place does not have Kip's ID. Now he is all out of everything except his passport. When we got back to our hotel I had a revelation and realized that the reason Kip is having all of this bad luck is because he took a piece of Homer's tomb. Now we all agree that he's officially screwed since Homer's tomb is on Ios and he has no intention of returning it.

Today is our last day here.. the ferry system is not as organized as we are in the U.S. Our 9:40am ferry decided not to come since they are repairing on it (thanks for the warning, also- thank you Kip). In a frantic we bought tickets for the next ferry at 12:00am, and then found out that we could exchange our ferry tickets for plane tickets (if anybody knows how this makes sense, let me know). But, in any case, we were able to get most of our money back from the second ferry tickets and we now have flights out at 5:40pm for Athens. Meanwhile, we've been sitting at the same restaurant at the port for 6 hours. One more hour to go till we get picked up for our flight! Everything is okay here, just playing cards and ordering food every once in a while. The waiter walked by our table and spilt Kip's coffee on him (I'm not making this up). Made another note to myself to stay at least an arm's reach from Kip.

Surprisingly, we're all pretty optimistic about this situation since We will have a little bit of time to see the Acropolis today. Not too much though since we have to get back to our hostel in Athens to wake up early and catch our flight to Istanbul tomorrow morning.

Our group is splitting up a bit after Athens.. 2 girls (Taylor and Joanna) are going home and Julie is visiting other parts of Europe with her family. I'll be with the two guys (Dave and Kip) for 4 days in Istanbul and then they go home and I'll be traveling for another 10 months. (Sigh) Traveling is exhausting.

Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2847532&id=2006596&l=b9b7637a88

xoxo,

Lauren