Today was our second free day of the trip, all of the students came together and decided that we wanted to visit the quarries since we were unable to last week. We worked with the bus schedules to figure out a timetable to go from the quarries to Golden Beach and back to Parikia by 7pm. A long day was planned ahead, which prompted us to pack our bags with all the necessities for the day, this meant even our beach gear would be traveling with us through these 2500 year old quarries.
We got to the bus station ready to catch our first bus out to the quarries at 11am. I was surprised that such a large bus could navigate with such ease on such narrow mountain roads. The view during the ride was absolutely gorgeous, I felt like I was on a sightseeing tour since the window kept my attention for the entire 20 minute ride.
As we got to the quarries, we hiked our way up to the closest entrance. There were two small shops stationed near the quarries selling carved marble figurines. Entering the mouth of the quarry, I could already feel a temperature decrease! We were warned that the caves can get quite chilly and it was suggested that we wear long sleeves. With our headlamps secured on our heads we started our descent. The quarry has a long downward slope of about 45 degrees, penetrating deep into the mountain. I enjoyed seeing all of the different carved dates on the walls, the oldest one that I managed to get a picture of was dated 1881. There were many twists and turns within the quarry – sometimes I didn’t know quite where we were going, but when we got to one of the deepest points we decided to turn off our headlamps and experience the darkness in silence. Our instructor, Thomas, scraped the top of his head as we were exiting the second quarry. Thus, ending our ‘no injury’ streak for the trip. When we were done exploring the quarries we climbed up the mountains, the views we were able to see from the top were magnificent.
Time at the quarries was coming to an end, so we made our way back to the bus stop to catch the next bus to Golden Beach. The ride was short, and I was excited to see what our beach adventure would entail. The water was gorgeous and we went to a restaurant on the beach to eat before we swam. Many of us were excited because this restaurant had burgers. I was interested to see what these burgers tasted like since it is not a common food item in Greece. I was not disappointed, they were quite good!
Ozzy and I went snorkeling in the water after we were done eating; we went out fairly far looking for coral or hoping to see big fish, unfortunately we did not see much while we were in the water. Hopefully when we go on the snorkeling trip later this week we will see cool stuff! We finally got back to Parikia at 8pm, it was a great day and trip! 
-Sarah Zajac