AUGUST 5th

although we'd originally told Tony that we'd stay for four days, we started the day by moving places. Tony was a fast talker with too many empty promises and there was a really skanky smell outside our room. at first i thought the smell was like rotting seaweed from the beach. my brain was associating the smell with a memory from my childhood of an odour i'd smelt around my grand parent's farm. i was sure it was a beach smell. i realised later that it was the smell of a septic tank! Santorini is a small island and thus (i think so anyway) some places have septic tanks instead of proper sewerage systems. we sometimes saw a truck that G labelled the DONG-CHA (shit truck), which appeared to be driving around and pumping out people's septic tanks. nasty times!

so we looked for something else. the trusty LP guided us to Stelio's Place which was only a few minutes walk away, had a decent sized pool and was quite a bit nicer.

we went out and hired a quad bike or All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) as it was labelled but in the rental contact, it is illegal to ride the ATV on unsurfaced roads, thus losing the meaning of "All Terrain"! (and yes mother we even had helmets!) we rode our ATV from tip to tip of Santorini! was great fun!

started on the southern end at the lighthouse and Red Beach and then rode up the highest mountain and eventually to Oia (pronounced Ia) which is on the northern tip of the island.
the ATV wasn't exactly the fastest creature. with Santorini being part of a volcano, it is quite mountainous in places. max speed uphill with 2 people on it was about 20kph. on the downhill, we'd get up to fifty, but that's when things started to shake a little too much for comfort!
:-)

Oia is really beautiful and if you've seen pictures of the traditional white buildings with blue highlights, probably most of those shots were taken in Oia. we got there at about 6pm but wanted to watch the sunset which is meant to be most beautiful from that area so we meandered around a bit before finding a restaurant that was pretty pricey but had a brilliant view of the sunset. After a beer, some prawns, a great salad, a bottle of Santorini wine, a fantastic sunset, chocolate mousse and coffee we happy, stuffed to the gills and quite tipsy!

whilst i was a little unsure about my blood alcohol level for riding the ATV home in the dark, we didn't have much of a choice (there's always a choice evBSc... always) as Stelio's Place was on the opposite end of the island and the bike had to returned by midnight.

however i soon discovered there's nothing more sobering than a stiff sea breeze in the face while riding high on the edge of an active volcano! made it home in one piece, took a photo of my very sunburnt upper legs and collapsed into bed!

AUGUST 6th

had a slow morning then a yiros for lunch (forgot to write it but the day before we had a yiros for lunch as well!) then went to Perissa beach which was literally a stone throw from where we were staying.
this has gotta be the strangest beach i've ever seen! leading up to the water, there wasn't sand, but black pebbles.
once you got to the water, rock.
no sand.
solid rock.
it was like water frozen in time.
it had ripples in it.
super mega ultra freaky!
and to top it off, it had a thin layer of algae on top which made it very slippery!
it was so bizarre. i guess that's what a volcanic beach is?!
swam for yonks just looking at the way it was formed.

some guy on an inflatable raft started swimming out to sea and just kept going. i would sometimes look out and assumed he was gonna turn back at some stage, but he never did! he went out of visible range (over the horizon?) and was out of sight for maybe an hour.
eventually a little speak was visible which turned out to be him. a lifeguard actually swam out and met him about 100m offshore, probably to check if he was ok or to give him a slap up the side of the head! :-)

like i've stated before, european beaches (well at least the ones we've encountered so far) are very calm in comparison to Oz waters. you'd probably be lucky to return if you did that in Australia. or when you did finally return, you find yourself 10km down the coast!
while Jee experimented with sunbathing semi-topless, i dug a hole in the pebbles about 3 metres from the water. eventually reached coarse black sand and water and then i couldn't dig any further cos i hit "the bottom"! and that was only about 40cm deep!

we had to change our departure day for the ferry and that could only be done in Fira, the capital of Santorini. so we caught the bus in, changed our tickets and had another yiros for dinner.