July 25 - Santorini

After a moderately big night the night before, we made a fairly leisurely start to the day before meeting up with everyone at the quadbike rental place at about 10:30 (which Monty continually pronounced as ten terty) where we handed over our licences, gave ourselves an appropriately corny quadbike gang name - Greece Lightning - and sped off into the distance to explore the sights of Santorini. Our first stop of the day was supposed to be the red sand beach but due to some creative navigating by the girls we ended up at Parissa which is famous for its black sand. Santorini itself was once a massive volcano and so many of the beaches, including Parissa, have black sand. This was quite a sight to see, but given the thermometre was pushing well into the mid-thirties (mid-terties according to Monty), the sand was blisteringly hot and the walk from the towel to the water's edge was very painful and best negotiated at high speed. After a bit of tanning we were all getting over the heat and made our way towards another beach which promised red sand. Though it was more pebbles than actual sand, it was well worth the trip and after a quick lunch and a walk around the headland we spent the remainder of the afternoon lazing on the red pebbles and making the most of the underwater capabilities of my camera.

From here we headed of to Oia to watch the famous sunset over a dinner of pita bread, tzatziki, chocolate chip cookies and plums. Whilst the sunset was pretty spectacular it didn't quite live up to the hype and as soon as the sun hit the horizon we manned our quadbikes and made the perilous trip back into town. Though we had originally had high hopes of a night out on the town, these failed to fully materialise and though we did go to out for a little while, there was not a great deal happening so we were tucked up in bed at a reasonable hour.

Still Blazin'

Jez