Adventures in Paradise
Today was an exceptional day! It was the day of our fabulous boat tour around the island of Antiparos and it couldn't have been more perfect! The school organized this trip for the students and teachers to go on. To start out the day we had to drive to the little port village to get on our private boat, the only people on this trip were with the school! And the captain of course! We cruised around some awesome extremely not populated islands of volcanic rock, a tiny wonderful church on one rock island, but also a private island, which was pretty sweet. The water was indescribable but I will try my best to paint an image for you. The Aegean Sea is extremely salty, crystal clear with many shades of gorgeous saturated blues. There are bright aquas, deep dark blues, gray blues, and many more. My favorite is the bright and clear aqua shade. I literally couldn't stop taking pictures, my finger was glued to the trigger and I just kept snapping away! I promise I will post pictures on Facebook, be patient! I'm very annoyed I cannot post pictures on this blog from my iPad or phone, grrrrr.
After cruising around a bit we stopped for a swim in the middle of the sea, well we were near this tiny rock island. We were able to snorkel so I could see all of the rocks and little fishies swimming around! Swimming in the Aegean Sea feels magical, the abundance of salt makes it easier to float and there are no animals to be afraid of like sharks or jellyfish! It is extremely peaceful. We cruised around some more and found another great place to swim! It was a little inlet with a cave that gave us breathtaking views! Most of the time we were swimming there I stayed in the cave and looked out at our boat. The water was a wonderful sparkly gorgeous multitude of blues that reflected off of the top of the cave giving it a greenish blue tint. Then in the background was our boat floating at the entrance of the cave backed by a gorgeous light brown and purplish rock wall shooting high into the sky! It took my breath away and I was so sad to leave that spot. Something I didn't expect was our next stop. We went to a small uninhabited island where they were doing an archeological dig! There were people all over working on these little sites digging up stones, pillars, artifacts, anything! I've never seen an archeological dig up close! It was crazy standing there knowing that people were living here thousands and thousands of years ago. One guy we talked to was telling us how they believe people were at the temple they were working on around 7,000 BC. Isn't that insane?!?
We stopped for lunch on Antiparos at this mouth watering taverna. Before we even walked up and sat down, all of our plates of food were already sitting there waiting for us, of course with the wine too. In Greece you eat family style, we always choose a few plates and pass everything around so that is how we ate today too! There were so many dishes and EVERY SINGLE ONE was delicious! I was dying, it was a good thing I was wearing a dress because I would have had to unbutton my pants to make room for all the food I ate! Everyone was starting to get sleepy. It had been a long adventure filled day and it was only 4! We got back on the boat and started our long trek back to the port. On the way our boat driver took us very close by a nude beach...it was so strange. All of the nude people were waving at us, probably because our boat was so awkwardly close to the shore and they wanted to make it less weird (which is impossible when you are sitting on a boat a hundred feet away from some naked people chilling on a beach while you sit in a boat fully clothed watching them). At this point I'm practically falling asleep but don't want to get off the boat! It was truly a magical day and I officially want to do a boat trip everyday! I even started a sketch while on the boat of that impossibly wonderful view from the cave I told you about. Unfortunately all good things come to an end as did our boat trip but don't worry I got gelato for supper since lunch was so late and that was a very delicious way to end the day, along with a Paros sunset. All is well!
Check back later for another episode from my magical Greek life.