Firstly, apologies for the delay in continued updates. We were a bit behind as the trip neared its end, and once we got back to Graz it was all go. Sam was straight back to work, Steve had to head on to Germany and Amand onto a long-haul flight back to NZ. Amand then got really sick once he arrived home, and being the chief blog writer it’s taken quite some time to recover and complete this update. So sorry, here it is:
After one night in Istanbul the world’s your oyster… so we decided to head on to Greece. First we visited the Grand Bazaar. If you’ve ever been it’s a magical place full of total Turkish chaos. Anything – a Turkish rug, a genie bottle, a backgammon board, a fake football shirt or any other knick knack you can think of, and every shop owner trying their darnedest to force their wares down your throat with a good dose of wit, cheer and happiness. Well, not so much anymore it seems.
The chaos and craziness seem to have disappeared, the stores now have an artificial sparkle, sell jewellery and other shiny objects, there’s blinking neon everywhere and a distinct lack of grandness. We headed for the darker corners in hope of finding the Grand Bazaar Steve and Amand remembered from previous visits in the early 2000s.
Amand decided it was time for the beard to go (even though it was a pretty awesome beard – so reckoned he…), so this was one of the key goals for the morning. Somewhere deep in the Grand Bazaar we stumbled across two old barbers waiting to give us all a cut-throat shave. So we sat, drank apple tea and Turkish coffee and each got a shave (with some random TRONO action for good measure) and reminisced about the better days of chaos!
The traffic leaving Turkey was crazy – surprise surprise – and there were some pretty nasty side winds to add to the challenge; but Amand had a plan. He was sure the winds would miraculously die off at the border, simply because we were about to enter a new country. Haha. That’s how it works right?…………..We eventually made it to Greece and the wind didn’t die off. WHAT?!?!
As we arrived at the border the line was surprisingly long, but being on bikes we rolled up to the front and investigated. In true Greek style, the border guards had finished their shift, but the new ones hadn’t turned up yet, so the border was CLOSED. 45 minutes later it reopened and we sneaked into the front of the queue and were welcomed back to Europe proper with minimal fuss, in about 20 seconds. It was already well dark, but we pushed on and found a hotel in Komotini. Sam and Amand headed out to find some food, but instead found a street party with live music, dancing, drinking and general frivolity. The local store owner (who turned out to be a motorbike adventure fan) told us it was town’s annual festival. What a time to turn up, the vibe was electric, but our energy wasn’t so we watched the partying for a few minutes and then headed back to the hotel for some sleep. Back in Europe proper now, it’s certainly starting to feel like we’re on the home straight.
Another phenomenon started to happen to us in western Turkey and on into Greece; the identification of weird and unusual place names. Whether Turkish and Greek town names translate into English in bizarre ways, or we’d been on the road too long and our warped minds started to find certain things overly funny.
The plan for Day 35 was to push on down the motorway/autobahn to Thessaloniki (Greece’s second largest city) to have a Saturday night out. More nasty side winds made it hard work; at one stage Amand got hit by multiple wind gusts and was pushed over into the other lane (luckily there was no other cars around at the time, whew!). Beautiful views along the coast of the Aegean Sea made it all worthwhile though. So we arrive early in Thessaloniki, nap, update the blog, play some cards, nap some more. Then head into town, the seaside promenade is beautiful and it seems like the whole town is out. We have some dinner and find a small bar, drink a cocktail and realise we’re all exhausted and head back to the hotel. Ironically there’s a nightclub next door that pumps ’til 8am giving us all an interrupted sleep.
It seems we’ve all had a bit of an energy low over the last few days. Not surprisingly really as we’ve now been on the road for five weeks, hit 9,000km, had a multitude of amazing experiences, met plenty of awesome people and had some minor group issues.
Day 36 helped us find some energy again, as we headed into the northern Greek mountains, which are stunningly beautiful. Amand catches up after a brief trip down the motorway towards Athens after missing a turn (ummmm that’s south not north, oops!). We had some lunch and as has been our habit, over-ordered on food quite drastically; the combination of hunger, fatigue and excitement repeatedly overwhelms us as we order meals. Oh, and a side salad is apparently big enough to be a full meal here!!
We hit the mountains with fantastic curvy roads, passing through sleepy, villages with slate-paved lane-ways and houses made entirely of stone and find many ancient arched stones bridges. This is all offset against the growing yellow-orange tinge of autumn and the setting sun. Steve rated this as his favourite day of the trip to date, which is really saying something given all the other amazing days we’ve had.
Once again, we have some GPS issues, Steve and Amand are led 3km down a gravel track to a dead end, while Sam is taken up some rough gravel roads, but eventually we all found our way to Kipoi. Sam arrived a little earlier, had some tea and was kindly offered some birthday cake from the lady who ran the cafe. We found a great campsite nearby and made a roaring fire, this is where our over-ordering from earlier paid off, reheated leftovers over an open fire, fantastic! Add whisky and cards, divine!
The next morning we pack up camp and head the 3km back into Kipoi for tea/coffee. So civilised! We head another 1km down the road and come across one of northern Greece’s many old stone bridges, Gefiri Plakida: a stunning three arched bridge and apparently quite a tourist attraction in these parts. We decide this is the ideal location to have a TRONO break/photoshoot, much to the ire of some Poms. They calm down when we offer them a go on our inflatable chairs
We head a further 16km and start looking for lunch. A rather civilised and relaxed morning really. The little villages are beautiful, and surprisingly easy to get lost in with narrow rocky streets leading to nowhere. We search through a couple of villages as the tumbleweed blows by, but can’t find any lunch. In Kato Pedina we follow some signs to a square, which takes us to another tumbleweed site. Fail!! But Steve’s eagle eye notices a tiny little sign as we’re about to head off, and low and behold, we find a beautiful little square with a little restaurant (and more tumbleweed!). They have very little food but the lady offers to get some eggs from a local farmer and make us some omelettes, ummmm……yes please!!
After lunch we head off along some fantastic winding roads, they are mesmerising, in fact so mesmerising that Amand realises he will soon run out of gas and we’re over 50km from the nearest petrol station. To be fair it was over 100kms between stations and that’s been very uncommon throughout this whole trip. Long story short we avert disaster, with some downhill coasting thrown in just to be sure
We make it to Kastoria and Sam isn’t feeling well so decides to stay in a hotel there, it is a beautiful lakeside town. Amand and Steve press on to Macedonia and accidentally find themselves at the Greece-Albania border. There is a new motorway from Kastoria heading for Korçë in Albania that wasn’t on any of the maps, oh well it actually gets us closer to Macedonia quicker than expected. So a quick jaunt through Albania for all of about one hour, enough time to watch an amazing sunset over the valley as we climb towards Macedonia and as we leave the country the border guard asks if we didn’t like Albania. He laughed when we said we came here accidentally!!
So into Macedonia we go and in the dark we find a camp spot on the “beach” of Lake Prespa. Great day!