Born to Be Wild

Justin and I were counting the different modes of transportation we've used on this trip so far: plane, metro, train, car, bus, ferry, and now we have a new one, ATV. Neither one of us had ridden one before, and Justin actually had no intention to drive until she was forced to. We got a group of fellow hostelers, 7 of us total, to go on an ATV caravan around the island. We only had 4 people with drivers licenses, Justin being one of them, so she had no choice. We rented 4 ATVs from our hostel for 15 Euro per ATV for 24 hours and 2 people per vehicle. I had the song "Born to Be Wild" stuck in my head all morning! I sure felt like a biker chick in my helmet, dress, leggings, and flip flops. After a quick tutorial on how to make the things go and stop, we took off on our adventure. We started on one side of the island at the Red beach and drove all the way around to the other side. It was an exhillerating experience. The views were breath taking. There is only one major road and it winds around the cliffs and through the 2 major towns of the island, Fira and Oia. We took lots of photos of the Caldera, which is the spectacular inner U shape of the island and is steep cliffs, crystal blue and teal water, and the famous white houses with blue rooves hanging off the side of the ridge. It took us about 2 hours to make it to Oia on the other side, and we stopped for lunch and had Gyros. We had been freezing our tails off the whole way, so we had to pull some tables out into the sun and defrost. The weather has not been as warm here as we would have liked. When the sun is out and the wind is blocked or slow, it's beautiful and we quickly strip down to our bikinis, however it's usually short lived periods and we have to put our long sleeves back on. We found a beach in Oia after we ate that was perfect. It was a secluded black sand beach cove that was protected from the wind. We had to park the ATVS and hike down to it. We soaked up as much sun as we could before bundling back up for the ride home. Originally, the plan was to watch the sunset in Oia, but there is no way we would be able to survive the hour long ride back home after the sun was down. It was an amazing day, and we were both so glad we did it. We have met a great group of people here at the hostel and have had a blast with them. J and I had been craving the hostel social life a little bit. We had some good weather yesterday and all of us went to our beach for the day. Layed in the sun on lounge chairs and ate burgers on the beach. It was fantastic. The weather is not as good today; it's really windy, so we are going to take a bus to Fira and walk around the city. All for now!

~Michelle